Hitchens' Cabinet

By night, Christopher Hitchens works the New York-Washington social axis—a displaced Brit forever hopping the shuttle in search of champagne and gossip. By day, after smoking in the shower to clear his head, he pens his mordant political columns for The Nation, The Spectator, and other liberal journals. His collected musings, out this month as Prepared for the Worst (Hill and Wang), serve as a primer of Reagan-era misdeeds, taking on the usual suspects with exceptional ire. What startles is his prescience: William Casey targeted in 1983 as the man who knows too much; Ed Meese, not yet confirmed as attorney general in 1985, zapped for conflicts of interest. In his love of confrontation, Hitchens sometimes seems to punch for the sheer pleasure of contact. But when the final bell rings, he retires a woeful humanist, earnestly hoping the colonists will better their lot.

MICHAEL SHNAYERSON