O'Rourke

The folks at Samizdata had been discussing a line from the P.J. O'Rourke column in CATO's Letter.

Now, if you're electing Democrats to control government spending, then you're marrying Angelina Jolie for her brains.

Some closet Virginia Postrels came out and suggested that just because Ms. Jolie is attractive does not mean that she is not intelligent. I'm going to duck that question. And not even post a picture. When O'Rourke is on form, as he is in this piece, almost any paragraph can be pulled for a Quote of the Day or a Blog Post. Professor Mankiw likes this one:

I have a 10 year old at home, and she is always saying, “That’s not fair.” When she says that, I say, “Honey, you’re cute; that’s not fair. Your family is pretty well off; that’s not fair. You were born in America; that’s not fair. Honey, you had better pray to God that things don’t start getting fair for you.”

I can excerpt too -- how about the intro:

Well, I wish I had better news for you, but the barbarians are at the gates. We are besieged by pagans—savage, brutish worshippers of big government. Theirs is not even a golden calf. They’ve abandoned the Gold Standard. They worship the taxing and spending of a fiat god, all the more dangerous for being both false and imaginary.

Must. Read. Whole. Thing.

Politics Posted by jk at May 19, 2008 10:39 AM