Election Reading: P. J. O'Rourke

To get in the mood for Tuesday, I read Don't Vote It Only Encourages the Bastards by P. J. O'Rourke. It got a fairly decent review in the New York Times a week or so ago, but I should have picked up on a populist innuendo when it was readily available from the library, despite being a recently published book.

I never read Parliament of Whores, nor any of PJOR's ouevre. Maybe I would type a couple of quotes for this review, had I not lent it to the man who sits next to me at work. He is a fan of Dave Berry and to some extent that is what this book is, an exclusively political, shallow opining of being a Conservative. I wanted something much more substantive and more analytical. Sound bites I can get on "harangue" TV. Putting them between the covers instead of on the screen does not add weight to the zingers.

I loved going to the Legislative Correspondent Association's annual show, the New York equivalent of Capitol Steps, and laughed raucously at satire jabbing both the Democrats and Republicans. PJOR can laugh at them all and probably at himself as well, but his audience is neither broad-based nor scholarly. The fellow next to me at work will read it and vote the bastards out but the guys down the aisle would never crack the binding.