Amis made some indefensible comments and for obvious ideological reasons, Hitchens tried to defend him.

A large vocabulary does not indicate moral superiority. Chris Morris’s article on the subject actually summed things up very well, I thought.

Hitchens makes “good points”? Where? He serves up a false definition of racism of which to acquit Amis, follows it up with just the kind of lurid montage of Muslim Evil that raises suspicions of Islamophobia in the first place (the montage containing several deceptions and even, dare I say, one stereotypically racist maneuver in the old colonial style — see under “ululating”), pulls a fainting-couch routine over Bennett’s daring to Mention The War (spare me), pretends not to understand that Bennett is accusing Islamophobes (correctly) of muddying the distinction between religion and race, and then talks about his “deep and unalterable convictions” (again, spare me). For bonus points, he claims to have criticized Amis himself in an old review where he really doesn’t (and wherein, moreover, he fellates the thoroughly loathsome Mark Steyn and writes in seriousness about having vowed that he wouldn’t leave the “right line” on Islam to the fascists). If anything, his defense of Amis reveals again what a sad old bullshitter the post-Iraq Hitchens has become.