Letter to Our European Friends
O'ROURKE, P. J.
Letter to Our European Friends Everything you need to know about our presidential campaign. BY P. J. O’ROURKE America is in the midst of an allimportant electoral campaign. But, talking to...
...John’s campaign slogan is “Strong and Wrong...
...Before they did, they managed, between them, to raise almost $1,000 (2.79 euros) for their campaigns...
...Just the outline of Hillary’s 1993 health care plan was 1,400 pages long, almost as long as that equally successful reform document, the EU constitution...
...His campaign promise is that there will be a tragedy every week...
...Mike Huckabee is one of the latter...
...Democrats are in favor of higher taxes to pay for greater spending, while Republicans are in favor of greater spending, for which the taxpayers will pay...
...Sleepy was great in the 1980s, but he’s dead...
...However, there is a “Disney factor” is American politics...
...They will continue to think they aren’t sure where it is on the map...
...Europeans feel an understandable confusion when faced with a political system consisting of two houses of Congress and a White House, and nobody is home in any of them...
...Bill Clinton...
...At the moment Republicans seem inclined to John McCain...
...Barack Obama looks like he was raised in Hawaii...
...Democrats intend to end the war, but they don’t know when...
...We may have a deep recession in the not too distant future...
...I forget which British journalist said that...
...Everyone respects John McCain...
...Who else do the Democrats have...
...Not that I personally agree with you Europeans that John is wrong, but the voters do...
...Think of America’s politicians as the Seven Dwarves...
...They should campaign to make it retroactive...
...Barack Obama is cute, and he’s nice...
...This is like applying to be pope and listing your prior job experience as “Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem...
...The number of American presidential candidates varies with the sunspot cycle and the phases of the moon...
...Except every now and then someone who came to Europe lately and is a Muslim blows himself to bits...
...I think Al Gore should give up blowing smoke out his . . . John Edwards is a personal injury lawyer, the sort of fellow who covers North Carolina with billboards reading, “Y’all May Have Been Malpracticed on by a Doctor and Not Even Know It...
...After the events of the 20th century, God, quite reasonably, left Europe...
...Call (800) S-H-Y-S-T-E-R...
...But there are so many British journalists who should be forgotten...
...Dennis Kucinich swept the Mars caucuses...
...Mitt Romney is also the “corporate candidate,” promising to bring the organizational skills and fiscal discipline of corporate America to Washington...
...Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown...
...Many political analysts say that the failure of Hillary’s health care plan almost destroyed Bill Clinton’s fi rst term...
...Incidentally, there’s a balanced position that all of America’s presidential candidates could take on the controversial abortion issue...
...Grumpy lost in ’04...
...He’s consistent...
...May I ask you Europeans, are your Norwegians crazy...
...All three have dropped out of the race...
...But I understand that you have EU funding to address these social problems and help Muslims build bombs that release fewer pollutants and less carbon dioxide, reducing the threat of global warming...
...He may have just a good tan...
...If a kid reaches 25 and he or she is still jobless, feckless, and sitting around Starbucks acting like a—no offense—European, then whack...
...The electorate doesn’t...
...Maybe it was Alexander Cockburn...
...There are two factors in American politics that may seem strange to Europeans, race and religion...
...This is not to be confused with the disastrous Bush/Cheney/ Rumsfeld policy of using a minimal number of troops on the ground to pursue the war in Iraq...
...But so was Scooter Libby...
...He’s tough...
...You may remember Senator Bob Dole in 1996...
...The Republicans will have a hard time coming up with someone who can’t beat Hillary Clinton...
...We’ve had big corporate scandals—Enron, WorldCom, Tyco—in the not too distant past...
...But it is diffi cult to comprehend how a political interest group that contains both Al Sharpton and Halle Berry could be based on looks...
...Not so nice...
...If they want votes they shouldn’t campaign to make abortion illegal or legal...
...This leaves the Democrats with Hillary Clinton...
...Is this the moment to be pitching the voters on “business savvy...
...Meanwhile, in the Democratic field, Barack Obama may be altering our national political equation...
...I’ve given up cigars...
...O’Rourke is a contributing editor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...John thinks the war in Iraq is a good idea...
...But, talking to Europeans, I’ve discovered that there is puzzlement and misinformation on your continent about what’s happening on ours...
...The difference between American parties is actually simple...
...He’s wrong...
...They’re all short—short on ethics, short on experience, short on common sense, short on something...
...Yes, he’s a Republican who was seen on TV a lot...
...Also, America’s political parties are indistinguishable to the European eye...
...But He’s still here in the United States...
...A British journalist once described the situation thus: “America is a one-party state, but just like Americans they’ve got two of them...
...Let us not forget Ron Paul who is very popular—with people who stay up all night in Ayn Rand chatrooms, bury Krugerrands in the yard, and think the Trilateral Commission causes subprime mortgage foreclosures...
...Democrats are making the “high school sex promise”: I’ll pull out in time, honest...
...A man can be a Democrat to the core, going into the voting booth to pull the lever with the donkey label no matter what...
...Then there are the Mormons such as Mitt Romney who believe some unusual things—things that no sensible European like Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Heidegger, Benito Mussolini, Karl Marx, Emanuel Swedenborg, or Cherie Blair would ever believe...
...The question of race in America is supposed to be a matter of what one looks like...
...But we keep thinking that one of these dwarves is going to save our snow white butt...
...The reason is not that she’s a woman...
...The majority of Americans are Christians, and Christians can be divided into two kinds, the kind who think you should get Jesus and the kind who think Jesus is going to get you...
...Did Al forge a truce in the war with the penguins...
...Hillary Clinton is P.J...
...One of the remaining virtues of European civilization is that you aren’t overrun with his ilk...
...Everyone loves John McCain...
...But I don’t put it past them...
...In foreign policy, Republicans intend to pursue the war in Iraq but to do so with a minimal number of troops on the ground...
...What does the Nobel Peace Prize have to do with global warming...
...Then there are the Democrats who’re actually qualifi ed to be president— Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, and Chris Dodd...
...As for Fred Thompson, he didn’t have much impact...
...Being a Republican, I’m backing Hillary Clinton...
...John Edwards should go sue Krispy Kreme doughnuts for making his supporters too fat to get into the voting booths...
...I’m trying to lead a carbonneutral lifestyle myself...
...There is, of course, Nobel Peace Prizewinning Al Gore...
...Rudy Giuliani is a wonderful person to have around during a tragedy...
...Don’t get cute...
...The rest of the public remains alert to the fact that evangelical Christianity, as a movement, has two faces—the Moral Majority face and the Tammy Faye Bakker face...
...The reason is that she’s the particular woman who taught the 4th grade class that every man in America wished he were dead in...
...Mitt Romney is supposed to be my own type of candidate, a true conservative...
...You, of course, don’t have any religion...
...Obama is an indication that America has reached an important benchmark in race relations...
...The problem for Obama is that, as yet, he doesn’t have much political stature...
...But Mitt was governor of Massachusetts...
...And it all comes back to him . . . the fi rst marriage . . . the time he came home a little late, it wasn’t even midnight, and he’d only had four or fi ve beers, and she threw his bowling ball down the storm sewer...
...We had Sleazy before him...
...Then he sees Hillary’s name on the ballot...
...Mike Huckabee lost some support among the hard-core fundamentalists when Bible Belt denizens realized that John McCain was the only candidate with enough guts to really handle rattlesnakes at church...
...Memo to Hillary: You already reformed America’s health care system, 15 years ago...
...Hillary Clinton is “America’s ex-wife...
...In America it is now officially more important to be cute than to be white...
...But we are in the midst of a global credit collapse and all the air is hissing out of the world’s equity market balloons...
...It’s been a long time since any political party in America had the cute, nice vote sewn up...
...Rudy Giuliani...
...Because she could lose...
...But no matter who is elected America’s next president—whether Barack Obama, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, or even Ron Paul—it is important that Europeans be reassured that ordinary Americans will not change the way they think about Europe...
...How about Obama...
...She’s going to reform America’s health care system...
...You’ll recall that Bill Clinton had to seek help from a different woman to almost destroy his second term...
...We’ve got Dopey right now...
Vol. 13 • February 2008 • No. 20
