Wall Street Journal Review of PJ O'Rourke's 'Thrown Under the Omnibus'

By DAVE SHIFLETT Nov. 20, 2015 The world is short on laughs these days, unless you happen to be amused by Internet beheadings or the gales of political flatulence that keep the nation’s curtains constantly aflutter. Excellent timing, then, for the release of a thick collection of humorist P.J. O’Rourke’s work, culled from his 16 books by the author himself. While Mr. O’Rourke prepared for writerly cringing as he made the selections—“How would you like to have the twaddle and blather you talked forty years ago preserved in detail, set down in black and white, and still extant someplace?”—his work holds up well. Some collegiate readers, to be sure, may howl about the lack of trigger warnings, perhaps not realizing that their screeching is music to Mr. O’Rourke’s ears. A son of Ohio (and alumnus of Miami of Ohio), Mr. O’Rourke has had a full and illustrious career, including stints at National Lampoon, Car and Driver and Rolling Stone. He occupies a rare place among the laughing class: He has somehow avoided the orifice obsession that captivates many of its members; he identifies as Republican; and he is no mere thumb-sucker, having visited more than 40 countries to report on wars, regime changes, economic revolutions and the experience of drinking cocktails garnished with the poison sacs of cobras. Some of the earlier pieces are reminders of how much times have changed since Mr. O’Rourke took up the pen, including a primer, from his 1987 masterwork “Republican Party Reptile,” on how to drive while drugged, possum-eyed drunk and within easy grope range of a feral female, an article that might get him arrested today. In the same spirit, he was an early opponent of the war on tobacco. “If someone asks you not to smoke, tell him you have no intention of living to be an embittered old person. But thank him for his concern.” Of greater delight are his takedowns of the smug drones who insist they know The True Way. In 1982, Mr. O’Rourke infiltrated an entire boatload of such people who were engaged in the heroic work of taking a “peace” cruise down the Volga River. Our correspondent was truly a fish out of water. Among other things he considered socialism “a violation of the American principle that you shouldn’t stick your nose in other people’s business except to make a buck.” His fellow travelers, on the other hand, were fans of the Soviet state, then under the enlightened leadership of longtime KGB thug Yuri Andropov.Yet Mr. O’Rourke, exercising profound investigative skill, spotted the chink in their ideological armor. These “were people who believed everything about the Soviet Union was perfect, but they were bringing their own toilet paper.” Small details reveal large truths. In another throwback moment, he describes one true believer on the cruise radiating “not the kind of ugliness that’s an accident of birth but the kind that is the result of years of ill temper, pique, and petty malice. These had given a rattish, shrewish, leaf-nosed-bat quality to her face.” Today this passage might be dismissed as hag-shaming, though less fevered minds might recognize it as an excellent example of literary portraiture. As the years passed Mr. O’Rourke found his way to many conflicts, including the invasion of Iraq, where his traveling companion, Atlantic editor Michael Kelly, was killed in an accident during the assault on the Baghdad airport. His interviews with internees at Palestinian refugee camps may have permanently scotched any chances of a speaking gig for Aipac. “This is barbarism. I’ve covered a lot of rioting and civil disorder, and there is no excuse for this kind of civilian hammering by soldiers and police.” When the jihadists flew into New York and Washington on 9/11, he covered the aftermath from the bar at the Palm restaurant in D.C., whose assistant manager told him: “Ten minutes after the Pentagon was hit, I was getting reservations” because his customers “just wanted to be with other people.” Which brings up one caution about Mr. O’Rourke’s work: If you’re early on in an attempt to regain sobriety, it might be best to leave this book on the shelf until your legs are fully under you, for Mr. O’Rourke is a friend of the grape—or, more precisely, of whiskey. “Yes, alcohol kills brain cells,” he writes, “but it’s very selective. It kills only the brain cells that contain good sense, shame, embarrassment, and restraint. Wield a heavy hand at the bar.” One senses that if you needed to find the best bartender in the expanding caliphate, Mr. O’Rourke could point you in the right direction. I found myself using a swizzle stick for a bookmark. He is also passionate about his patriotism, as vividly expressed in his description of ordinary Americans: “We’re three-quarters grizzly bear and two-thirds car wreck and descended from a stock market crash on our mother’s side. You take your Germany, France, and Spain, roll them together, and it wouldn’t give us room to park our cars.” This thumbnail sketch surely won’t please his fellow countrymen who look longingly at Europe’s high-speed trains and green initiatives and look down on American politicians for not having read Descartes or memorized Voltaire. Mr. O’Rourke can probably live with their contempt. His conservatism was somewhat long in coming. Though he hails from a Republican background—his grandmother said that the difference between Republicans and Democrats was that “Democrats rent”—Mr. O’Rourke during his youthful years “was swept out to Marxist sea by a flood of sex. I was trying to impress cute beatnik girls. Then, one day, I found myself beached on the shore of jobs and responsibilities and I was a Republican again.” His hippie friends, he adds, had become parasitical. “They continued to be convinced that everything was going to be shared soon, so they hadn’t gotten jobs.” While some of them may still be singing “White Rabbit,” Mr. O’Rourke would rather sing the praises of Adam Smith, whose views are foundational to his philosophy of “leave me alone” (after you buy his book). He writes that he became a full-blown conservative on Dec. 4, 1997, when his wife gave birth. “Suddenly I was an opponent of change.” He felt an urge to stand athwart history shouting, “Don’t swallow the refrigerator magnet!” Mr. O’Rourke has gathered other fruits of aging, including a surprise appearance of cancer in his posterior and a doctor who hoped to put him on a lighter whiskey ration. He is also given to geezerly reflections on his boomer generation, whose exhaustion of “the supply of peculiar” forced the new generation to take extraordinary measures to outweird their parents, including paying serious money “to pierce their extremities and permanently ink their exposed flesh. That must have hurt. We apologize.” Boomers, he lightly rhapsodizes, channel Lord Byron, “thinking noble thoughts somewhat thoughtlessly, and being high-minded in a mindless sort of way.” But while vain and self-adoring, they are not “greedy for power.” This claim may stun readers who are weary of Clintons, Bushes and boomer bureaucrats or who see the heaving demographic as the middle act in an eternal drama: The older generation wins the peace, their children grow fat and decadent, leaving the youngest generation in the chains of debt and serfdom—perhaps with some hideous tats. Some boomers might also carp about the book’s squintworthy typeface, while the batface hordes will denounce it as a continuous microaggression. Mr. O’Rourke has a message for them, delivered with a theological flourish: “Jesus said ‘love your enemies.’ He didn’t say not to have any.” —Mr. Shiflett posts his music and writing at www.Daveshiflett.com.

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