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One night, nearly 25 years ago, I was talking with Christopher Hitchens at a cocktail party—that this statement could be construed as name-dropping is actually the subject of this column, so please read on—when we were interrupted by the actor Richard Dreyfuss. Hitchens, then serving the Nation magazine as its Washington columnist, stood expressionless as Dreyfuss uncorked the most lavish praise for something he had recently written, and then for his entire body of work, and, indeed, for his very existence, considering the example he set for every person of conscience on the planet…When the effusion died down, Hitchens thanked Dreyfuss for it, and the movie star turned and walked away as lightly as a school girl after a backstage brush with Justin Bieber. Before I...