P.J. O'Rourke's fun-filled 'Parliament of Whores'
A 1991 review of a funny, flip, sarcastic, rude, irreverent, perceptive and slightly nasty book by a bright libertarian booze-hound who grew up in Toledo.
P.J. O'Rourke, political pundit for Rolling Stone and other magazines, has produced this summer's surprise non-action bestseller, "Parliament of Whores," No. 1 on the Publisher's Weekly list.
‘Parliament of Whores’
by Bill Steigerwald
Aug. 12, 1991
If only all Republicans were like P.J. O'Rourke, the wise-guy journalist whose government-trashing anthology "Parliament of Whores" is one of this summer's bestsellers.
As his entertaining, informative and fun-filled book proves on every page, O'Rourke is arguably mainstream journalism's cleverest and most politically incorrect humorist.
He is funny, flip, sarcastic, rude, irreverent, perceptive, a little nasty, bright and talented — especially for a guy who grew up in Toledo.
The ex-National Lampoon magazine staffer is an admitted booze-hound and unrepentant former pot-smoker who knows America has a time-honored "tradition of getting hysterical over dope."
At 43, he's still hip enough to write regularly for the yuppified but still politically liberal Rolling Stone. Yet he's proud to be a conservative Republican. He's a card-carrying GOP groupie with a healthy libertarian streak who never tires of ridiculing liberals and cracking wise.
O'Rourke is sneaky.
Though he fires most of his best ammo at what he considers wacko environmentalists, the homeless lobby and other members of what he calls "the Perennially Indignant," he always remembers to aim a few shots at Republicans.
When it comes to politicians, he's a bipartisan basher.
"Both Democrats and Republicans are guilty of mindless sports-fan behavior, rat-gagging gluttony for political office and ideology without ideas," he sputters in "On the Blandwagon," his chapter on political conventions.
He goes on:
"Democrats are also the party of government activism, the party that says government can make you richer, smarter, taller and get the chickweed out of your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work, and then they get elected and prove it."
"Parliament of Whores," which bears the disingenuous subtitle "A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government," is mostly an anthology of retooled articles that O'Rourke first wrote for Rolling Stone, Automobile and American Spectator magazines.
O'Rourke's nonstop cleverness is best taken in small doses. But whether he's on a vigilante drug-buster raid with Curtis Sliwa and his Guardian Angels in the South Bronx or hanging out in a bar in Pakistan on the Afghanistan border, he mixes good reporting with lots of laughs.
He also tosses in a dozen or so F-words and assorted other crudities sure to offend at least half of America's registered Republicans.
But O'Rourke's greatest talent is his ability to write entertainingly about any subject, no matter how inherently boring or complex.
Whether he's explaining the S&L crisis, the farm fiasco, the housing mess or merely covering a town meeting somewhere in New Hampshire, his humor shines on every page.
For someone who says he has come to the arch-libertarian conclusion that "government is morally wrong," however, he has a unfortunate case of high-tech weapons lust and he is embarrassingly soft on the Defense Department.
But unlike so many Republicans who have lost their faith and fallen deeply in love with the power and perks of big government, O'Rourke is faithful to his anti-authoritarian impulses. His distrust and distaste for government in any form permeate nearly every chapter of his delightfully mean-spirited and subversive book.