it was not deliberately unpleasant; it was intended, as Kromovaracun understood, to point out that eloquence does not automatically make you good. To prove this, it was necessary to give an example where it did not; which I did.
Kromovaracun, as I said, I can't say from personal experience whether Hitchens was sincere in what he said and wrote. Here's another memoir from someone who knew him; like the other I linked to, it is ambivalent about him. (I find it intriguing that these come from friends rather than from obituarists striving to be impartial.)
http://www.guardian.c...r-hitchens-remembered
I have also seen obituaries arguing that he was consistent in everything all his life. I can only say that to be a supporter George W Bush and Karl Marx, and an opponent of Clinton and Saddam, doesn't seem an obvious marker of consistency.
I do acknowledge your fair point that if you have eloquence you might as well use it.