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.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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
