This is ironic. Reader Alexander Schnell writes,
I want to let you know that the saying you attributed to Christopher Hitchens in your latest column and on your blog is actually Hitchens citing Chomsky.From Letters to a Young Contrarian (p. 87, paperback edition):
"Noam Chomsky, a most distinguished intellectual and moral dissident, once wrote that the old motto about 'speaking truth to power' is overrated. Power, as he points out, quite probably knows the truth already, and is mainly interested in suppressing or limiting or distorting it. We would therefore do better to try to instruct the powerless."
I'm not sure where Chomsky made this remark originally.
Considering my opinion of Chomsky, had I known this I probably still would have cited Hitchens.
