ORourke - Republican Party reptile: essays and outrages

Republican Party Reptile

Also by P. J. ORourke

Modern Manners

The Bachelor Home Companion

Holidays in Hell

Parliament of Whores

Give War a Chance

All the Trouble in the World

Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut

The American Spectators Enemies List

Eat the Rich

The CEO of the Sofa

Essays and Outrages by

P. J. ORourke

Copyright 1987 by P. J. ORourke

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Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

ORourke, P. J.

Republican Party reptile.

I. Title.

PN6162.076 1987 814.54 86-26504
eBook ISBN-13: 978-1-5558-4717-3

Design by Laura Hammond Hough

Atlantic Monthly Press
an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
841 Broadway
New York, NY 10003

Distributed by Publishers Group West
www.groveatlantic.com

To
Warren G. Harding
The original get-down Republican

I am not fit for this office and never
should have been here.

A Brief History of Man, Myths Made Modern, A Long, Thoughtful Look Back at the Last Fifteen Minutes, Just One of Those Days, How to Drive Fast on Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink, The King of Sandusky, Ohio, and parts of the introductory essay originally appeared in the National Lampoon. Tune In, Turn On, Go to the Office Late on Monday, Goons, Guns, and Gold, In Search of the Cocaine Pirates, and With Hostage and Hijacker in Sunny Beirut appeared in Rolling Stone. Hollywood Etiquette, Dinner-Table Conversation, and Moving to New Hampshire appeared in House and Garden. Ferrari Refutes the Decline of the West, High-Speed Performance Characteristics of Pickup Trucks, and A Cool and Logical Analysis of the Bicycle Menace appeared in Car and Driver. An Intellectual Experiment and Safety Nazis appeared in Inquiry. Ship of Fools appeared in Harpers. And Horrible Protestant Hats appeared on the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal. The author would like to thank these publications for permission to reprint this material. The author would also like to thank editors, past and present, for their assistance and suggestions. In particular, he owes a debt of gratitude to Susan Devins at National Lampoon, Carolyn White and Bob Wallace at Rolling Stone, Shelley Wanger at House and Garden, David E. Davis, Jr., and Don Coulter at Car and Driver, and Michael Kinsley and Bob Asahina at Harpers.

A boy is hitchhiking on a country road. A car stops for him,
and the driver asks, Are you a Republican or a
Democrat?

Democrat, says the boy, and the car speeds off.

Another car stops, and the driver asks, Are you a
Republican or a Democrat?

Democrat, says the boy, and the car speeds off.

This happens two or three times, and the boy decides hes giving the wrong answer. The next car that stops is a convertible driven by a beautiful blonde. Are you a Republican or a Democrat? she asks.

Republican, says the boy, and she lets him in.

But as theyre driving along, the wind from the open top begins to push the blondes skirt higher and higher up her legs. And the boy finds himself becoming aroused. Finally he cant control himself any longer. Stop! he hollers. Let me out! Ive only been a Republican for ten minutes and already I feel like screwing somebody!

popular joke from the 1930s

The twenty-one pieces collected in this book were all written from a conservative Republican point of view. Theres nothing unusual about that except that these pieces areat least are intended to befunny. Funny Republican is an oxymoron in the public mind. Sense of humor and conservatism are not supposed to go together. There are some well-known exceptionsWilliam F. Buckley, Jr., R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., and Pat Robertson (though theres always the possibility that Robertson isnt kidding). But Americans usually think of their humorists as liberals, like Art Buchwald and Garry Trudeau, if not radicals, like Lenny Bruce. People who read my essay How to Drive Fast on Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink ask, How can you be a Republican?

Well, in the first place, I was born one. My grandfather Jake ORourke wasas you can guess from his nameborn Catholic and Democrat. But about the time of WWI his first wife died and he remarried. The second wife proved to be insane, leaving my Uncle Joe, just a year old at the time, out on the porch until his diapers froze, and committing other gaffes. My grandfather went to the bishop to get an annulment. The bishop refused. And Grandpa, according to the family story, joined the Lutheran Church, the Republican Party, and the Freemasons all in one day.

The other side of my family was more rock-ribbed yet. My mothers mother, Grandma Loy, came from downstate Illinois. Her father was county sheriff, Republican committee chairman, and a friend of President McKinleys. Grandma thought the Democrats were, like drought and wheat rust, an inexplicable evil of nature that America had done nothing to warrant. She was given to statements such as, No ones ever so poor they cant pick up their yard. And she wouldnt even speak the word Democrat if there were children in the room. Shed say bastards instead.

When I was nineteen I embarked on the obligatory collegiate flirtation with Marxism and announced it loudly to everyone. Once, when I was home at Christmas, my grandmother took me aside. Pat, she said, Ive been worrying about you. Youre not turning into a Democrat, are you?

Grandma! I said. Democrats and Republicans are both fascist pigs! LBJ is slaughtering helpless Vietcong and causing riots in Americas inner cities and oppressing workers and ripping off the masses! Im not a Democrat! Im a Maoist!

Just so long as youre not a Democrat, said my grandmother.

But I couldnt stay a Maoist forever. I got too fat to wear bell-bottoms. And I realized that communism meant giving my golf clubs to a family in Zaire. Also, I couldnt bear the dreadful, glum earnestness of the left.

People who worry themselves sick over sexism in language and think the government sneaks into their houses at night and puts atomic waste in the kitchen dispose-all cannot be expected to have a sense of humor. And they dont. Radicals and liberals and such want all jokes to have a meaning, to make a point. But laughter is involuntary and points are not. A conservative may tell you that you shouldnt make fun of something. You shouldnt make fun of cripples, he may say. And he may be right. But a liberal will tell you, You