Dawkins vs. Hewitt

Whoa. Richard Dawkins appeared on the Hugh Hewitt show. Hewitt, in case you didn't know, is one of those far right radio wingnuts, a lawyer with a blog who defended George W. Bush, the Iraq war, and always sides with religious conservatives in the culture wars.

It's a fairly long interview, and you can see Hewitt trying to make lawyerly probes to lead Dawkins away from the book, and he's also good at making lawyerly innuendo for his already anti-Dawkins audience — he's constantly trying to cast doubt on the evidence for evolution, for instance — and you can tell that Richard is getting increasingly exasperated with the silly line of interrogation…until he finally snaps.

RD: Okay, do you believe Jesus turned water into wine?

HH: Yes./p>

RD: You seriously do?

HH: Yes.

RD: You actually think that Jesus got water, and made all those molecules turn into wine?

HH: Yes.

RD: My God.

HH: Yes. My God, actually, not yours. But let me…

RD: I've realized the kind of person I'm dealing with now.

I'm sure he's overwhelmed right now with his book tour, but somebody needs to warn him about exactly what he's walking into before he gets in front of a microphone. Hewitt is a ridiculous puffed-up blowhard of very little brain, and a remarkably calm, polite discussion while he ducks and dodges and blows a dog-whistle for his crazy listeners doesn't work very well.

If Dawkins is going on the Glenn Beck show, though, I want to know about it.

(via Instaputz)

More like this

Agonist (via Melissa and Amanda) reports that "comma" is a dog-whistle code word that Bush used to signal to the Fundies: The phrase is: "Never put a period where God has put a comma." Which is to say - it ain't over yet, and God may well make it better. So Iraq's bad, but if we trust in God, he'll…
Jamie Kilstein is putting on a comedy show in New York on 2 July, titled No War, No God, No Nickelback. You should go if you can. He's recommended by that polite, soft-spoken gentleman AC Grayling, so you know exactly what to expect: calm, cerebral, gentle humor, quietly skewering social mores.…
Good news, everyone! In a new encyclical that reveals the papacy is feeling the heat from all those vocal atheists, the pope makes a startling admission: Reciting arguments made by atheists, he said: "A world marked by so much injustice, innocent suffering and cynicism of power cannot be the work…
As some of you might have heard, the Raving Atheist has been getting increasingly wacky and wobbling towards some weirdly irrational beliefs. The latest turn in the saga is that his disaffected readers have jumped ship and have started a brand new site, Raving Atheists. It's a shame, really: the…