Author and political commentator Peter Holding called Hitchens' analogy "hysterical, unfair and offensive," adding that "some of the criticism directed towards Moore's film displays the very same characteristics for which Moore's film has been criticised". Fellow "Slate" columnist and Iraq war critic David Edelstein, though generally supportive of the film, wrote "Fahrenheit 9/11" "is an act of counterpropaganda that has a boorish, bullying force", but called it a "legitimate abuse of power." Prominent French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy agreed the war was "a bad idea", but was sympathetic to the neoconservative point of view and disagreed with what he perceived to be the film's "core" argument, that "we have no reason to be interfering" in the Middle East. Joe Scarborough alleges that Moore has ducked criticism and dodged interviews from both himself and Hitchens.