As intelligent as Hitchens is, he manifests woeful ignorance about basic Christian doctrine in mischaracterizing Falwell as believing that people he didn't like were going to hell, just as he has, elsewhere, in describing the evangelical's concept of salvation as works-based. While I can't readily prove a negative, I would be shocked to discover that Falwell preached that "people he didn't like were going to hell."

Christians are commanded to love everyone, including those they believe are "lost." They do not believe that those they don't like are doomed for hell. Rather, they believe the Bible teaches we are all doomed unless we have saving faith in Jesus Christ, who died for our sins. Christians are not the ones pronouncing judgment on their fellow man in this regard, but believe God has revealed, through Scripture, his plan for divine judgment.

Apart from Hitchens' recklessly sloppy error in lumping Christians with Islamofascists and his implied indictment of Christians across the board, to say nothing of his indictment of those of other religions, I was struck by the irony of his viciousness, meanness and hatefulness in attacking Falwell essentially for being vicious, mean and hateful.

Many liberals, like Hitchens, rail against "hate" as the worst imaginable sin, yet exude a magnitude of hatred that the conservatives they condemn as hateful couldn't begin to possess. Hitchens refused to back down from his excoriation of Falwell on the very day of his death, saying, "I don't care whether his family's feelings are hurt or not. But if they are, they can take comfort from the extraordinary piety and stupidity, and generally speaking, uniformity of the coverage of the man's death."

Even more revolting was Hitchens' response to CNN's Anderson Cooper's question of whether he believed in heaven and whether "you think Jerry Falwell is in it." Hitchens said he did not believe in it, but "I think it's a pity there isn't a hell for him to go to."

It would take an extraordinarily warped perspective for someone as mean-spirited as Christopher Hitchens to believe he is entitled to righteous indignation at those -- like Christians or conservatives -- he presumably believes to be mean-spirited.

But Hitchens will get a pass for his abominable behavior from the liberal media because he is a liberal -- notwithstanding his heresy on the war -- and liberals are not to be condemned for their hatred because the objects of their hatred deserve to be hated.