I can think of few people more deserving of Christopher Hitchen's vitriolic wrath than Gore Vidal. Once a talented writer, the latter has clearly degenerated into a tawdry peddler of ridiculous crackpot conspiracy claims.

...in an article headlined "Vidal Loco", Hitchens launches a stinging attack on Vidal, claiming that the events of 9/11 "accentuated a crackpot strain" in the author. He claims that Vidal's work after the terrorist attacks consists of "a small anthology of half-argued and half-written shock pieces [which] either insinuated or asserted that the administration had known in advance of the attacks."

"He openly says that the Bush administration was 'probably' in on the 9/11 attacks, a criminal complicity that would 'certainly fit them to a T'; that Timothy McVeigh was 'a noble boy', no more murderous than generals Patton and Eisenhower; and that 'Roosevelt saw to it that we got that war' by inciting the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor," Hitchens writes.

yesterday, a British academic, who was also criticised by Hitchens, leapt to the author's defence. Dr Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, of Sussex University, described Hitchens' attack as "extraordinarily vitriolic". He claimed there was a "sense of jealousy he never did quite get to Gore's level of literary flair and his almost iconic status. It does seem like a kind of bizarre personal vendetta being carried out on the pages of Vanity Fair, replete with factual inaccuracies and not very much substance."

Dr Ahmed, director of the London-based think tank the Institute for Policy Research and Development, claimed Hitchens failed to contextualise Vidal's comments.

"Hitchens has taken them very literally and Gore is being much more playful and much more provocative," Dr Ahmed said.

Vidal was not trying to absolve the Oklahoma City bomber, McVeigh, he added, but to make people think critically.

I admire Hitchens for having the balls, the patience, and the intellectual rigor to go after these people, because otherwise their ideas spread like unchecked viruses. Somebody has to do what Hitchens is doing, and too often those who could and should don't or won't.

No wonder he drinks to excess. Who wouldn't?

I'd say thank God for Christopher Hitchens, but I won't, because he might take it the wrong way. Perhaps I should just toast him later.