The Blogfather notes that Charles Murtaugh (another blog that needs to be in the links here) is calling for more Republican Party Animals. I agree with the sentiment, but in what can be only be described as a pedantic and petty observation on my part, I must point out that the actual phrase coined by P.J. O’Rourke (one of my heroes) is ‘Republican Party Reptile.’ This is actually the name of a collection of shorts by P.J., in which P.J. offers up some of my favorite things he has ever written, including The Safety Nazi’s, High-Speed Performance Characteristics of Pickup Trucks, and the greatest story of youthful indiscretion ever written, How to Drive Fast on Drugs While Getting your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink.
P.J. describes what a Republican Party Reptile is, and why he wants to be called one, in the Introduction: Apologia Pro Vita Republican Party Reptile Sua:
Neither conservatives nore humorists believe man is good. But left-wingers do. They think man’s misbehavior is caused by a deprived environment, educational shortcomings, and improper bonding within the family unit. They believe there are people so poor they can’t pick up their yard. Down that line of thinking lie all sorts of nastiness. Just ask the Cubans.
So I’m a conservative; what else could I be? However, I’m not completely happy about it. Let’s face it, conservatives can be buttheads, too. There are the reborn Jesus Creeps, for instance. We should do to these what the conservative Romans did, with lions. But even regular country club-type Republicans can be stuffy about some things- dope smuggling, for example, and mixing Quaaludes in your scotch, and putting your stereo speakers on the roof of your house and turning the volume all the way up an playing Parliament of Funk at 3:00 A.M.
So, what I’d really like is a new label. And I’m, sure there are a lot of people who feel the same way. We are the Reublican Party Reptiles. We look like Republicans, and think like conservatives, but we drive a lot faster and keep vibrators and baby oil and a video camera behind the stack of sweaters on the bedroom closet shelf. I think our agenda is clear. We are opposed to: government spending, Kennedy kids, seat-belt laws, being a pussy about nuclear power, busing our children anywhere other than Yale, trailer courts near our vacation homes, Gary Hart, all tiny Third World countries that don;t have banking secrecy laws, aerobics, the U.N. taxation without tax loopholes, and jewelry on men. We are in favor of: guns, drugs, fast cars, free love (if our wives don;t find out), a sound dolar, a cleaner environment (poor people should cut it out with the graffiti, a strong military with spiffy unuiforms, Nastassia Kinski, Star Wars (and anything else that scares the Russkis) and a firm stand on the Middle East (raze buildings, burn crops, plow the earth with salt, and sell the population into bondage).
Yeehaw. P.J.’s best book is Parliament of Whores.