American Spectator's Enemies List: A Vigilant Journalist's Plea for a Renewed Red Scare [Paperback]

P. J. O'Rourke (Compiler)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 11, 1996

Written with the same acerbic wit and infectious humor that has made P. J. O'Rourke one of the most popular political satirists of all time, The Enemies List will keep you howling and his enemies scowling. From Noam Chomsky to Yoko Ono, from Peter, Paul, and Mary (yes, they're still alive) to all the people who think quartz crystals cure herpes, from Ralph Nader to the entire country of Sweden, P. J. O'Rourke has created a roster of the most useless, politically disgraceful, and downright foolish people around. Although a rating system of S=Silly, VS=Very Silly, SML=Shirley MacLaine was ultimately cast aside, the distinguishing feature of the cluster of dunces presented here is silliness, not political subversion. The Enemies List began as an article in the American Spectator and, as readers contributed their own suggestions, quickly grew into a hilarious and slashing commentary on politicians and celebrities alike. Now they have been named, we just need to figure out what to do with them. "To say that P. J. O'Rourke is funny is like saying that the Rocky Mountains are scenic - accurate but insufficient." - Chicago Tribune

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The ghosts of Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon live on through political humorist O'Rourke's compilation of his New Enemies list. Debuting in 1989 in the conservative monthly American Spectator, it has since appeared annually. Readers of the magazine responded to the list by gleefully sending in their own nominees of individuals and organizations deemed too "politically correct." Thus, feminists, liberals, any elected Democrat at any level, various organizations (including the American Library Association), celebrities, TV talking heads, and the like are skewered here. Funny as the columns and reader comments are (even to liberals), in book form it's a one-joke, redundant whine. If your library doesn't have anything by O'Rourke and doesn't carry American Spectator, buy this; otherwise, save the money and interlibrary loan the magazine. Better yet, buy some of O'Rourke's previous books.?Pamela R. Daubenspeck, Warren-Trumbull Cty. P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

If words were resources, O'Rourke would deserve a Sierra Club recycling award: he cross-merchandises his work more assiduously than Disney sells cartoon tie-ins or the NBA markets warm-up jackets. Much of this latest slim volume wasn't even written by O'Rourke: two thirds of the book consists of annual compilations of readers' responses to O'Rourke's July_ 1989 "Call for a New McCarthyism" in the American Spectator. In addition to brief introductions to and comments on readers' snarling put-downs of everyone to the left of Edmund Burke--yes, Virginia, ALA is someone's enemy here, as are oddities like safe sex, sushi, and Augustine of Hippo!--O'Rourke contributes the original article (republished in Give War a Chance [1993]), "100 Reasons Why Jimmy Carter Was a Better President Than Bill Clinton" (included in Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut ), a list of "enemies" within the Clinton White House (from the July '93 American Spectator), and "Why I Am a Conservative in the First Place" (from the July 13^-27, 1995, Rolling Stone). Hardly new news, but O'Rourke fans who don't subscribe to the American Spectator will surely clamor for copies. Mary Carroll

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Product Details

• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press; 1st edition (March 11, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871136325
• ISBN-13: 978-0871136329
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,134,607 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A better American Spectator feature than book subject, June 23, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: American Spectator's Enemies List: A Vigilant Journalist's Plea for a Renewed Red Scare (Paperback)

P. J. O'Rourke is one of the best political satirists of this age. I recently read the latest book to bear his name, though it was not entirely written by him. "The Enemies List" began as a spleen venting feature in The American Spectator several years ago. This book consists of lists of people or organizations who pose a threat to freedom and personal responsibility as judged by P.J. and those who contributed. Reading the book was a chore. I finished it more as a testiment to finishing that which I start, than entertainment and information. There are some chuckles in the book. If the reader is just learning about Mr. O'Rourke, I highly reccomend "Parliament of Whores," as "The Enemies List" is more a tribute than enjoyable reading

20 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars not his best, May 17, 2002

By 

Orrin C. Judd "brothersjudddotcom" (Hanover, NH USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: American Spectator's Enemies List: A Vigilant Journalist's Plea for a Renewed Red Scare (Paperback)

The American Spectator is sadly gone now (what's left of it is called the American Prowler), a victim of its own overzealous pursuit of President Clinton and its
dalliance with the loathsome David Brock. But many of the best writers on the Right once wrote in its pages, among them P. J. O'Rourke. Mr. O'Rourke is one of
those writers who entertains us often enough that he can be forgiven for cashing in once in awhile, which is fortunate, because this is only barely a book. It starts with
a very funny column, A Call for a New McCarthyism (American Spectator, July 1989), in which he calls for a new blacklist. Unlike the McCarthy era list though :
"The distinguishing feature of this cluster of dunces is not subversion but silliness." And rather than barring these dunces from working and trying to hush up their
views, he has the more diabolical idea of exposing them and their ideas to the harsh light of day :

[T]he worst punishment for dupes, pink-wieners, and dialectical immaterialists might be a kind of reverse blacklist. We don't prevent them
from writing, speaking, performing, and otherwise being their usual nuisance selves. Instead, we hang on their every word, beg them
to work, drag them onto all available TV and radio chat shows, and write hundreds of fawning newspaper and magazine articles about their
wonderful swellness. In other words, we subject them to the monstrous, gross, and irreversible late-twentieth-century phenomenon of Media
Overexposure so that a surfeited public rebels in disgust. This is the 'Pia Zadora Treatment,' and, for condemning people to obscurity, it beats
the Smith Act hollow.

That's pretty funny stuff, but then you read the list and realize that almost all of the folks on it--Gore Vidal, Tom Hayden, Angela Davis, Amy Carter, Susan
Sarandon, Mike Farrell, Tikkun, Garry Trudeau, the Sheen brothers, etc.--faded into obscurity on their own; they were so awful they weren't even worthy enemies.
Unfortunately though, this initial essay was followed by six more installments (the last in November 1993) and some of these consist of nothing more than
nominations from readers and Mr. O'Rourke's comments on their nominations. It all gets pretty tiresome.

But then just as you're ready to toss the book on the trash heap, it's redeemed by two final pieces that were seemingly tacked on at the end just to flesh the book out to
150 pages. The first, 100 Reasons Jimmy Carter Was a Better President Than Bill Clinton (American Spectator, September 1993), is very funny. The second, Why I
Am a Conservative in the First Place (Rolling Stone, July 13-27, 1995), is not only amusing but also presents as good a defense of conservatism as you'll find
anywhere these days. In light of its title and the gist of the piece, it almost has to be read as a response to F. A. Hayek's famous libertarian essay, Why I Am Not a
Conservative. Hayek, who seems to have understand American conservatism not at all, wrote :

Let me now state what seems to me the decisive objection to any conservatism which deserves to be called such. It is that by its very nature
it cannot offer an alternative to the direction in which we are moving. It may succeed by its resistance to current tendencies in slowing down
undesirable developments, but, since it does not indicate another direction, it cannot prevent their continuance. It has, for this reason, invariably
been the fate of conservatism to be dragged along a path not of its own choosing. The tug of war between conservatives and progressives
can only affect the speed, not the direction, of contemporary developments. But, though there is a need for a "brake on the vehicle of progress,"
I personally cannot be content with simply helping to apply the brake. What the liberal must ask, first of all, is not how fast or how far
we should move, but where we should move. In fact, he differs much more from the collectivist radical of today than does the conservative.
While the last generally holds merely a mild and moderate version of the prejudices of his time, the liberal today must more positively oppose
some of the basic conceptions which most conservatives share with the socialists.

Mr. O'Rourke on the other hand, though often characterized as a libertarian, accepts the conservative label and his definition of conservatism :

The purpose of conservative politics is to defend the liberty of the individual and--lest individualism run riot--insist upon individual responsibility.

contains the all important corollary to liberty, that the price of our freedom must be that we each take responsibility for ourselves. Libertarianism's major fault is
that it insists on the former but refuses the latter.

On balance, the first and then the last two pieces make the collection marginally worthwhile. And Mr. O'Rourke does have to earn a living, so we'll not begrudge
too much the filler in between.

GRADE : B-

10 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Needs an Update, June 16, 2000

By 

R. W. Rasband (Heber City, UT) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: American Spectator's Enemies List: A Vigilant Journalist's Plea for a Renewed Red Scare (Paperback)

These side-splitting lists were first published in the late '80's and early '90's. Since then, thanks to the Clinton administration the enemies of freedom and democracy have multiplied like mosquitos. P.J., get back to work, please.