I read the New York Times editorial page. I watch Lou Dobbs. As you all know, I take a daily stroll through the left wing blogosphere. None of these activities upsets me much.

But for some reason, Bill Maher gets under my skin. Maybe it’s the way his utter obtuseness has led him to believe that he’s supremely clever. Maybe it’s his cheering legions who greet his every lame smart-aleck joke with whoops and hollers. Or maybe it’s the way he poses as a patriot even though he holds America and Americans in the greatest disdain. Whatever the case, Bill Maher and his weekly chuckle-fest on HBO are the only things that really make me want to throw a brick through the TV.

So I am greatly disappointed that I missed Christopher Hitchens hurling a profanity laced tirade at Maher and his live studio audience. For elaboration, I’ll turn it over to Laura Lee Donaho, the proprietress of the Wide Awake Café who sent me the following email which she later posted:

Hi Dean,

Did you hear about Chris Hitchens' performance on Bill Maher last night?

He came to the end of his patience with the frivolous studio audience's jeers and laughter at his defense of our countries foreign policy and President Bush so he delivered a middle finger salute to them.

I feel he did it for me and for my son and my brother and all the troops and families of troops who are fighting in the war against Islamic fascism.

My son and my brother are both deploying to Iraq (from different units) at the end of September. Our son is a fine young, West Point grad, a Captain in the Combat Engineers who followed his father's tradition after meeting the widow of General Douglas MacArthur when he was in the seventh grade.

Jeanne MacArthur actually recruited him when he met her at the MacArthur Memorial on a school field trip in Norfolk, VA.

She was in her late eighties at the time but still so devoted to the memory of her late husband. She engaged my son in conversation, asking him where he was from and when he answered that he was born in Arkansas but had never lived there she told him that Douglas MacArthur was also born in Arkansas. When she discovered Drew's connection to West Point she urged him to go.

He was so impressed with Mrs. MacArthur that he asked for her autograph but all he had for her to sign on was a one dollar bill.

Until that time our son was an indifferent student. After meeting Mrs. MacArthur he discovered the high standards that West Point required to be admitted. He knuckled down, determined to be admitted.

When he went to West Point, in his second year there, he asked me to frame the dollar and send it to him so he could hang it on his wall. He told me that sometimes he would look at it before a big exam for some inspiration.

Drew is married, the father of a son who will be three in October and thinks his dad is gone to look for the red pickup truck he sold before he left for Fort McCoy.

My brother is a Gulf War Veteran, and recently became a Sgt. Major and is glad and always has been glad to serve his country.

I tell you about my brother and my son because they, along with my husband, (who recently retired from the Army as a full COL after thirty years) and other military members in our family have and are serving their country.

It makes me very angry to see the disconnect in this country between those who take the defense of our country seriously and those who hate President Bush so much that they are in essence condemning our country, our troops and all of us to the hell of defeat, discouragement and possible Islamist domination.

Hitchens spoke for all of us with that middle finger along with his fierce obscenities. When we engage them with logic they respond with jeers. So what else can we do with people who live in America but don't appreciate our freedom or how we actually came to have it. Hitch gets it. Our family gets it. Most of the right gets it. But we may lose this war and our whole culture of freedom because of those who purposely and cynically refuse to get it.

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