Amis Explains

It's always interesting to see what foreigners think of the American political process. With the passing of Christopher Hitchens comes a new voice to the scene. Current Brooklyn resident Martin Amis went to Tampa to report on the state of the Republicans. In his brilliant piece for the Daily Beast, Amis' observations reminded me of why I tore through his early novels with perverse glee.

"Madamic good ole girls in scarlet ensembles, peanut-faced glozers in ambassadorial suits and ties, puns, rhymes, tinkertoy wordplay (“Give me liberty—not gimme, gimme, gimme”)..."

"With Ann Romney, the interest was human interest. Here was a woman who had submitted, no doubt with qualms, to the inevitable falsity of political display; and you warmed to her warmth, even as you realized that much of her speech, with its emphasis on “working moms,” “the couple who want another child” but can’t afford it, and so on, was plainly disingenuous." "The strugglers she claimed to champion...are the very people that her husband, if elected, will do nothing for."

"At the RNC it was Ryan’s oratory, not Romney’s, that inspired the rawest gust of triumphalism. And that rapture, we were told, would remain undiluted by the discovery, the next morning, that the speech was very largely a pack of lies."

Read the whole column here

As one of the comments states, "It's Amis being Amis and I love it"

See an interview of Amis by Slate here