"This is not an election on November 2. This is a restraining order."

"Power has been trapped, abused and exploited by Democrats. Go to the ballot box and put an end to this abusive relationship. And let’s not hear any nonsense about letting the Democrats off if they promise to get counseling."

Says P.J. O'Rourke.

What's this election about?

An amazing number of words are spoken in this 9 seconds — mostly by Bob Wright — but it's Mickey Kaus who's answering the question:

"They don’t just hate our Republican, conservative, libertarian, strict constructionist, family values guts."

"They hate everybody’s guts. And they hate everybody who has any. Democrats hate men, women, blacks, whites, Hispanics, gays, straights, the rich, the poor, and the middle class."

P. J. O’Rourke works a theme.

P.J. O'Rourke wants newspapers to publish pre-obituaries for the not-yet-dead.

So they can have their feelings hurt.

The main advantage of the Pre-Obit over the traditional obituary is the knowledge of reader and writer alike that the as-good-as-dead people are still around to have their feelings hurt. It was a travesty of literary justice that we waited until J. D. Salinger finally hit the delete key at 91 before admitting that Catcher in the Rye stinks.....

Bea Arthur (1922-2009) performed a grievous disservice to popular culture by uniting two equally dreadful but previously discrete American types. In her portrayal of loud, Bolshie Maude, Arthur taught every angry feminist to be a common scold and every termagant housewife to be Emma Goldman. Once Arthur had become respectable by dying no one had the nerve to title her funeral notice “The Taming of the Shrew.”

Paul Newman (1925-2008) was not, in and of himself, a bad person. But he deserved to be damned to his face for lending charm to the smirk of liberalism. And after he’d become an immortal only a heartless writer would have pointed out that for an entire generation of young people, Paul Newman is, mainly, a salad dressing.

Neo Neo-con flunks Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow.

It's that statement of the facts.

How bad is it to say "one of our students suggested that black people are genetically inferior to white people" when what the student wrote was "I absolutely do not rule out the possibility that African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent"? There is a difference between "suggesting" something is true and conceding that you don't have a basis for excluding the possibility that something is true.

The language in the email places itself in the context of a continuing conversation, and any attempt to interpret it should acknowledge that we have it out of context — and that it seems to have been leaked by someone who was privy to the whole conversation. The phrase "I absolutely do not rule out the possibility...," implies that that during the conversation, the student was criticized by someone else for ruling out the possibility. What does that... suggest... about the full context of the email and the motives for leaking it?

AND: In the comments, Jon said: "[T]he student didn't say 'genetically inferior,' she said 'less intelligent.' Does Dean Minnow think that everyone less intelligent than her, is genetically inferior?"

It's possible — possible! — that Minow thinks that everyone less intelligent than her is inferior, but for reasons having only to do with nurture. This must be an interesting subject for her, because she's the daughter of a highly successful man, Newton Minow (the FCC chairman who called TV a "vast wasteland"). Does she trace her high intelligence only to environmental factors? Most likely, it's a subject about which she chooses not to speak. Not in public anyway. Perhaps she once emailed someone about that.

But consider Minow's other interpretive leap — that to be less intelligent is to be inferior. Why isn't that an even more outrageous statement than what the student (Stephanie Grace) said?

Are less intelligent individuals inferior? It's time for our lesson in Elementary Class Consciousness. From Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" (PDF, page 20-21):

“Elementary Class Consciousness, did you say? Let’s have it repeated a little louder by the trumpet.”

At the end of the room a loud speaker projected from the wall. The Director walked up to it and pressed a switch.

“. all wear green,” said a soft but very distinct voice, beginning in the middle of a sentence, “and Delta Children wear khaki. Oh no, I don’t want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They’re too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly colour. I’m so glad I’m a Beta.”

There was a pause; then the voice began again.

“Alpha children wear grey They work much harder than we do, because they’re so frightfully clever. I’m really awfully glad I’m a Beta, because I don’t work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don’t want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They’re too stupid to be able .”

Are the Alphas superior? They have to work so hard and wear grey... I’m so glad I’m a Beta. Betas don't think they're inferior! They are less intelligent though.

Do you think the most intelligent people are the best? Let's hear from P.J. O'Rourke:

I’m sure up at Harvard, over at the New York Times, and inside the White House they think we just envy their smarts. Maybe we are resentful clods gawking with bitter incomprehension at the intellectual magnificence of our betters. If so, why are our betters spending so much time nervously insisting that they’re smarter than Sarah Palin and the Tea Party movement?...

The C student starts a restaurant. The A student writes restaurant reviews. The input-worshipping universe of the New York Times is like New York itself—thousands of restaurant reviews and no place we can afford to eat.

Let us allow that some intelligence is involved in screwing up Wall Street, Washington, and the world. A students and Type-A politicians do discover an occasional new element—Obscurantium—or pass an occasional piece of landmark legislation (of which the health care reform bill is not one). Smart people have their uses, but our country doesn’t belong to them. As the not-too-smart Woody Guthrie said, “This land was made for you and me.” The smart set stayed in fashionable Europe, where everything was nice and neat and people were clever about looking after their own interests and didn’t need to come to America. The Mayflower was full of C students. Their idea was that, given freedom, responsibility, rule of law and some elbow room, the average, the middling, and the mediocre could create the richest, most powerful country ever.

"Is It Too Soon to Start Talking About the Failed Obama Presidency Just Because He Isn’t President Yet?"

Reputed title of a Weekly Standard piece by P. J. O’Rourke, according to this NYT article called "Irony Is Dead. Again. Yeah, Right."

What's the connection between the death of irony and Barack Obama? Joan Didion made the connection, saying people these days were into "naïveté, translated into 'hope.'"

The Times -- struggling mightily to develop its theme -- tried to get Didion to explain herself:

“Basically,” she said on the phone Tuesday, “I don’t like to talk about anything I’ve written or that I’m writing. What you write down, there it is and you’ve done it.”

Which means: Fuck you, I'm a wordsmith.

"But God, Sir, in Your manner of teaching us about life's consequential nature, isn't death a bit ... um ... extreme, pedagogically speaking?"

"I know the lesson that we're studying is difficult. But dying is more homework than I was counting on."

Writes P.J. O'Rourke, who will -- in all likelihood -- survive his "inglorious" cancer.

Perhaps one of your body parts is lying in wait and will, one day, rise up and drag you to your doom. If it has to be one body part, what body part would you want it to be? Surely not that one.

Railing against light rail.

P.J. O'Rourke in the WSJ:

Then there is the cost, which is--obviously--$52 billion. Less obviously, there's all the money spent locally keeping local mass transit systems operating. The Heritage Foundation says, "There isn't a single light rail transit system in America in which fares paid by the passengers cover the cost of their own rides." Heritage cites the Minneapolis "Hiawatha" light rail line, soon to be completed with $107 million from the transportation bill. Heritage estimates that the total expense for each ride on the Hiawatha will be $19. Commuting to work will cost $8,550 a year. If the commuter is earning minimum wage, this leaves about $1,000 a year for food, shelter and clothing. Or, if the city picks up the tab, it could have leased a BMW X-5 SUV for the commuter at about the same price.

Top ten cars lists.

Stephen Bainbridge approves of my car choice and is impressed that I didn't buy any of the cars on the Top Ten Cars For Women Executives or the Top Ten Cars for Soccer Moms. I've never been either an executive or a soccer mom though. (I've never even been to a soccer game.) Where's the Top Ten Cars for Women Law Professors? I agree with Bainbridge that most of the cars on these lists are boring. But then most cars are boring.

Tomorrow, I'm picking up my car, and I plan to have some nice photos of it. One of the errands I need to do once I've got a car is to drive over to Schmidt's Towing and get the last few things out of the old car. There are some maps I might as well salvage, and somewhere on the floor are Tonya's good sunglasses. Also, there are six CDs in the CD player, but after the accident the button that ejects the cartridge stopped working. Any idea how to get it out? Is it acceptable to break it out with pliers or something? Well, how valuable are the CDs? Two are from the audio book "Peace Kills" by P.J. O'Rourke. The others are the four CDs we put in to drive to Milwaukee a few weeks ago: Stevie Wonder, Prince, Radiohead, and Green Day. I would like to get them out, but I don't know how. Anyway, I want to take a couple pictures of the wreck. I took a good look at it before they towed it away, but I was kind of in a daze at the time, and I'd like to see just how far in it crumpled.

UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit readers. Let me invite you over to my blog's home, where you can scroll down to Sunday, January 23, and read about the accident, then scroll up through the week, for quite a few car posts.

That 60s mindset.

"No More Miss America!" -- first mentioned in the previous post -- really is quite a fascinating screed, a nice window into the 1960s.

On September 7th [1968] in Atlantic City, the Annual Miss America Pageant will again crown "your ideal." But this year, reality will liberate the contest auction-block in the guise of "genyooine" de-plasticized, breathing women. Women's Liberation Groups, black women, high-school and college women, women’s peace groups, women's welfare and social-work groups, women's job-equality groups, pro-birth control and pro-abortion groups- women of every political persuasion- all are invited to join us in a day-long boardwalk-theater event, starting at 1:00 p.m. on the Boardwalk in front of Atlantic City's Convention Hall. We will protest the image of Miss America, an image that oppresses women in every area in which it purports to represent us.

Back in 1968—back before John Lennon came up with the Plastic Ono Band -- one really did worry about being "plastic." The one word everyone remembered from the 1967 film "The Graduate" was "plastics." Everyone understood why it was so ridiculous for an old man to advise a young man to enter the field of plastic. Frank Zappa was singing to us in 1967, "Plastic people! Oh, baby now, you're such a drag!" The idea that the new generation was going to permanently de-plasticize the human race felt quite real and important.

And note that back in 1968, groups that favored abortion rights went ahead and labeled themselves "pro-abortion."

There will be: Picket Lines; Guerrilla Theater; Leafleting; Lobbying Visits to the contestants urging our sisters to reject the Pageant Farce and join us; a huge Freedom Trash Can (into which we will throw bras, girdles, curlers, false eyelashes, wigs, and representative issues of Cosmopolitan, Ladies' Home Journal, Family Circle, etc.- bring any such woman-garbage you have around the house); we will also announce a Boycott of all those commercial products related to the Pageant, and the day will end with a Women's Liberation rally at midnight when Miss America is crowned on live television. Lots of other surprises are being planned (come and add your own!) but we do not plan heavy disruptive tactics and so do not expect a bad police scene. It should be a groovy day on the Boardwalk in the sun with our sisters. In case of arrests, however, we plan to reject all male authority and demand to be busted by policewomen only. (In Atlantic City, women cops are not permitted to make arrests -- dig that!)

So this was all back before the word "Liberation" was excised from the term "Women's Movement." It fell within that short span of time when people used the word "groovy" nonjocosely.

"Bad scene" was a trendy slang expression of the time. And if you were arrested, it was always "busted." And note: "dig that."

Male chauvinist-reactionaries on this issue had best stay away, nor are male liberals welcome in the demonstrations. But sympathetic men can donate money as well as cars and drivers.

Male reporters will be refused interviews. We reject patronizing reportage. Only newswomen will be recognized.

I tend to think that much of this, like the "demand to be busted by policewomen only," was a pretty effective way to send a message about what was very real employment discrimination at the time. I remember reading "Help Wanted—Male"/"Help Wanted—Female" classified ads at the in the newspaper, and I had an English teacher in high school who informed my class that women could not be TV or radio announcers because of their unacceptable voices.

Next comes a list of ten points of protest, including the one that appears in my previous post. I'll just call attention to a couple more:

The Consumer Con-Game. Miss America is a walking commercial for the Pageant's sponsors. Wind her up and she plugs your product on promotion tours and TV--all in an "honest, objective" endorsement. What a shill.

This really displays a sort of hippie mentality that one still finds in the wit and wisdom of Ralph Nader. What exactly was so wrong with—gasp!--products? You were supposed to already understand that was was part of what made you plastic!

Competition Rigged and Unrigged. We deplore the encouragement of an American myth that oppresses men as well as women: the win-or-you’re-worthless competitive disease. The "beauty contest" creates only one winner to be "used" and forty-nine losers who are "useless."

We know how this idea played out in the culture: let's boost everyone's "self-esteem" with games where everybody wins. I think in 1968, it really was possible to think that people, en masse, were going to "drop out" of the evil, competitive world of commerce. Maybe a nice little life of subsistence farming on a commune -- what do you say?

1968 was really happening.

UPDATE: Speaking of 1968, I was just following an Instapundit link to ReasonOnline's "Who's Getting Your Vote? Reason’s revealing presidential poll," and I ran across this, from P.J. O'Rourke:

Most embarrassing vote: A 1968 write-in for "Chairman Meow," my girlfriend’s cat. It seemed very funny at the time. As I mentioned, this was 1968.

Exactly.

Talk show strategy.

Did you see P.J. O'Rourke, Cornel West, and Julie Delpy panelling together last night on "Real Time With Bill Maher"? There was a lot of inane yammering, especially by Delpy ("My English is not so good"), and, rather than compete for air time, O'Rourke pursued a finely executed minimalist strategy. Take a look at the rerun, and check out his tiny one-liners. O'Rourke got a lot of mileage out of deadpanning the kind of outlandish opinions that everyone else on the panel blithely attributes to conservatives. I especially liked when he had West for a half-second, after a West rant about drug companies that ended with asking whether you would prefer drug companies that looked for more remedies for sexual impotence or a vaccine for AIDS, and O'Rourke said, "It depends on if I had AIDS."