I think you're making my point Mark and reading into words what you want to read into them ...I wrote a post about unvarnished and direct critique of a public person or journalist's opinion ...I used a quote that I believed would have been considered by the editorial to meet the qualifications for censure that the editorial was cautioning against...I then , after revealing for the larger audience, the actual author, making no assumption about any individual's particular familiarity with Hitchens or ability to search an interesting grouping of words, , asked a simple question... essentially, is unvarnished critique more acceptable when penned by a recognized individual than by a mere interested citizen...

you didn't answer that question...makes me wonder why not