Opportunism and talent

Forget about politics, I have often argued that political opportunism may have its rewards (like Saudi control over Arab media and publishing can easily reward and punish) but it is devastating for the person afflicted: it kills talents. I have seen it over and over again. I used to enjoy reading Christopher Hitchens, and now when I read him it is like reading Cal Thomas or Glenn Beck. Forget about politics, just read this: "There is then the larger question of the Iranian theocracy and its continual, arrogant intervention in our affairs: its export of violence and cruelty and lies to Lebanon and Palestine and Iraq, and its unashamed defiance of the UN, the EU and the International Atomic Energy Agency on the non-trivial matter of nuclear weapons." It reads like press releases from one of the two parties in the US. And notice the sentence "arrogant intervention in our affairs"--"our" is here a reference to the colonial affairs of the White Man. He used to write like that about Israel in years past. (thanks Michael)