Christopher Hitchens once wrote that he always tried to live up to a maxim imparted languidly to  him by his erstwhile friend Gore Vidal: “One should never miss a chance either to have sex or to appear on television.”  Certainly, Hitchens rarely passed up TV – programs like “Firing Line” were great arenas for displaying his gladiatorial skills. He was deliciously merciless, an Olympian orator whose cuts and slices left every forum stained with the blood of the fallen.