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The Ricochet Weekend Essay Assignment: Martin Amis on Barack Obama
Herewith the novelist and culture bearer Martin Amis, interviewed on Barack Obama in 2009.* (If you watch to the very end, you’ll be rewarded with one of the most astounding utterances any educated person has ever spoken with a straight face: ”He may be able to change the spirit of the planet.”)
Your assignment: Construct a defense for Amis. Excuse him so convincingly that somewhere in America—even if only in the English departments of small liberal arts colleges—a few people find themselves able to continue taking him seriously.
*With a tip of the hat to our own John Podhoretz.
Published in General
Two words in his defense: Heat stroke.
Calling Hinderaker/Ward: here is your Loon of the Week. Keep that man away from the Kool-Aid.
Wow, that was mind-blowing.
There is no defense.
Perhaps he is a “victim” to the Führer Principle.
http://www.convergingzone.com/faith/dietrich-bonhoeffer-on-the-fuhrer-principle-by-bruce-norquist/
Well, obviously! It all would have worked out exactly like that if it weren’t for Republican obstructionism.
Probably not as big a drunk as his old man.
Majestic in its absurdity and completely impervious to counter argument. Some artists work with oiled pigments, some with metamorphic rocks, some with fabics, and others with sound. This man’s medium is surreality.
Ah, but these are beautiful! Keep ’em comin’!
Just read the article to which you link, Cordelia. I don’t want to go all serious in a thread devoted to having a little fun, but, a) Bonhoeffer was certainly correct, and, b), although there’s a big, big distance, thank goodness, between Germany in 1933 and the United States today, a touch of this same desire for a man a horseback–a leader who will simply tell us all what to do–is pretty evident in Amis’s comments. Very unnerving.
Imagine how much he can accomplish in the two years remaining in his term.
Obama was the guy on horseback. Shame on the Democrats for putting him forward. The Republic requires two mature parties who can put forward capable policies and candidated. Shame on the media who has shown itself to be craven idiots. Shame on anyone who fell for the creased pants.
Thankfully the institutional safeguards of the constitution will limit the damage.
Following the example of our earth-cooling, sea-lowering leader, I often find it constructive to blame America first. Clearly he has changed the spirit of the entire planet – it’s just our fault for not being able to tell.
Who is Martin Amis and can anybody give me at least one reason why I should care what he had/has to say about anything?
Construct a defense for him?
Let’s highlight his one comment about how terrible the world is when we don’t talk to one another. After all, Iran is just looking for a little respect. If we can just show them that respect, maybe it will change their … their …
No, sorry, I just can’t go any further. The nausea is too intense.
Kingsly Amis’ son
I suppose I could google Kingsly Amis, but I won’t. So because somebody has a father who (whom?) I’ve never heard of, I should care about what he says?
It’s best not to.
You guys are being way too hard on this guy. His prediction was correct. Obama has destroyed our “special relationship” with Great Britain, our allies don’t really know if they’re allies anymore, and our enemies are rejoicing. Obama has changed “the spirit of the world.”
Sing along with me and Norman Greenbaum now: “Goin up to the spirit in the sky!!!!!!!!!”
Its the end of a Scooby-doo episode and the President is unmasked. “I would have gotten away with it if it hadn’t been for those meddling Republicans, and that un-grateful public!!!”
Simon,
Kingsley Amis, Martin Amis’s father, was chosen to continue writing James Bond novels after Ian Fleming’s death…Mr. Amis the Younger obviously inherited his father’s love of word-smithing. It’s too bad all the lovely words don’t *mean* anything, isn’t?
It is impossible to argue with Amis’s brilliant thesis. He brings a childlike innocence to bear on politics; the same analytical capacity and total enthusiasm applied by tween-aged girls in evaluating the latest boy band. No less an authority than Jesus Christ admonishes us to be more like children (Matthew 18:1-5), including, presumably, tween-aged girls. I, for one, am not about to argue with Jesus.
Simon
I have failed Peter’s test. Because after listening to Martin Amis’ blather, I couldn’t resist having a bit of fun. But understand, it was not meant to be at your expense.
: o )
Dr. Savage, comparing Martin Amis with the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. Now that’s a defense!
Peter, I don’t understand the assignment. Why would we need to convince the typical leftist academic to continue taking Amis seriously? The typical leftist academic, exposed to this video, would consider it compelling evidence of why he should be taken seriously. That’s the problem.
I don’t know about changing the spirit of the world, but his second election switched me from whiskey to Everclear for about a week…
No reason to be so parochial, Peter. Might you not find some support among even, say…Trustees…of [just to toss out a random example] Dartmouth?
Unfair to Amis! The man obviously knows almost as much about American politics as Russell Brand.
It is conservatives’ fault! By selfishly withdrawing from all positions of cultural influence, we leave articulate, narrowly talented but conspicuously limited people slaves to the zeitgeist. Amis is merely Paul Kael writ large. (“Pauline Kael famously commented, after the 1972 Presidential election, ‘I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.’”)
Think of this video as analogous to one of those save the children or abused pets ads. There are needy people out there who need help. Amis is information-deficient and ideologically crippled. He needs help, not scorn.
Don’t mock Obama supporters. Smile and offer to help them scrape the Obama-Biden bumper sticker off the Prius, have a beer and listen to a podcast.
“Not guilty by reason of insanity.”
I can offer only this defense of Martin Amis:
Read Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million, Amis’ excellent book about the life and career of Josef Stalin.
It’s a fantastic portrait of the unfathomable cruelty of a tyrant, a searing indictment of Communism, and an unsparing critique of the intellectuals in the West, including Amis’ own father, who gave Stalin cover and excused his crimes.
Whatever stupid burbling Amis may have released about Barack Obama back when everyone to the left of Mitch Daniels was gushing like a broken sewer pipe, he at least gave us that much.
Martin Amis is not a bad writer, though not as good as his daddy. Money is a pretty good book, and Yellow Dog was very funny. He was also mates with Christopher Hitchens for whatever that’s worth. But this video is just embarrassing. These days what do you think guys like Martin and Chris Buckley and David Brooks say about this sort of thing? Or are they still safely ensconced behind the armor of their invincible ignorance?
Yes. I had forgotten about that one.