Christopher Hitchens, author and Vanity Fair columnist

There’s just something about that British accent. And few folks wield it like Washington’s resident bad boy — the chain-smoking, whiskey-drinking, God-denying, Iraq-war-supporting Hitchens.

New Yorker writer Ian Frazier once described Hitchens as “looking like someone who, with as much dignity as possible, has smoothed his hair and straightened his collar after knocking the helmet off a policeman.” While Hitch has often waxed about his own baby blues, it’s safe to assume his appeal is more rhetorical than physical.

A local publicist coos: “Hitchens is a brilliant visual writer with a charming sarcasm I adore. He seems like the ideal date to a wedding (or gala) — we’d quietly snark about every last gaudy detail and guest and yet captivate the room at the same time.”