Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government
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P.J. O’Rourke does it again. You despise yourself for laughing, but so much of it is right.Amazon.com Review
If satirists are at their best when tussling with something they despise, then this is P.J. O’Rourke’s masterpiece. He clearly despises government–and has despised it since before it was cool to do so–and for all the right reasons, too: it’s clumsy, inefficient, hypocritical, greedy, and arrogant. In additional words, it magnifies the faults of the poor saps who staff it. Parliament of Whores is the humorist’s howl of bitter laughter at the entire bloated, numskulled mess. As befits an ex-editor of National Lampoon, nothing is out of bounds for O’Rourke. Language of the fabled “football”–that satchel that follows the president around 24/7–the leader doubts there are really launch codes in there at all–nothing but “a copy of Penthouse and a pint bottle of Hiram Walker–a Penthouse from back in the seventies, when Penthouse was really dirty, I’ll bet.”
Parliament of Whores is perfect for anyone who longs to cultivate an entertaining brand of cynicism, to be “a lone voice–not crying in the wilderness, thank you, but chortling in the rec room.” O’Rourke is a master at building you laugh in spite of the better angels of your scenery, and the only negative thing to be said about this tour de force is that his flamethrower brand of satire leaves nothing in its wake–certainly not the suggestion of an improvement. –Michael Gerber
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This book is not humor, but an attack by a self-described humorist to show how smart he is by catering to the lowest common element–greed.
From the title through to the last page, the leader shows small respect for honesty. Go over Rush, you have a similar partner
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
This book has nothing to do with ‘Attempts to Clarify the Entire U.S. Government’. It’s all about a humbug journalist ranting and trying to prove that he’s seen it all and knows it all while building very small sense.
While some tiny sections of the book does make sense, most of it’s idiotic, misleading, and filled with conservative rant. PJ is either dumb or lunatic or both! Well, he’s a conservative journalist trying to take in subjects much larger than his background and intellect will ever allow him to know. It’s hard to figure how this guy is much different from Rush the redneck entertainer.
This book is among the worst I ever read. This could be a bit harse agreed that I read reasonably selectively. I could go on and on with examples of how terrible this book is, but what’s the point! Buy it if you’re in for a ranting ride with this idiot humbug.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
I recently recieved a list of Modern Library’s 100 best non-fiction books of all time where Parliament of Whores came in at a promising number 72 on the readers list. I read a couple of on-line reviews and chose it might be worth my money. It’s not. It’s tempting to say that this book is a … transparent, flagrant [borrow] of Hunter Thompson’s Dread & Loathing on the Battle Trail: 72, but to say that makes a mockery of Thompson’s brilliant work. In this book O’Rourke clearly makes an attempt at copying the style of F&L lacking ever capturing any of it’s substance. There is none of the raw, devastating, and ORIGINAL humour of Thompson’s book. There is none of the political insight of Thompson’s book and there is none of the broader social and past contexts in which Thompson frames his rants so brilliantly. There is absolutely nothing to this book, it is a … series of second-rate gags that would be more at home on some name sit-com as opposed to the significant challenge of political satire. Save your money.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
I read O’Rourk’s “A Parliment of Whores” when it first came out in hardcover in 1992.
In the latter part of the book O’Rourk made a prophetic if not profound statement that I straight away committed to memory.
Until the last five years I couldn’t figure out whether the statement was a direct slap in the faces of all us whores out here or a warning of things to come, which when taken into account amounts to a slap in the face.
O’Rourk said: “Any likeminded group, acting in concert, can steal anything they want, and get away with it.”
Considering this current administration and congress I now find that O’Rourk’s 1992 statement was indeed a warning of things to come.
I just added in paraphase: Any likeminded group, like bent president and congress, acting in concert, can steal anything they want, and get away with it, including taking a nation over internally.”
Every practiced in the meadow knows that the only way the United States of America can be defeated is through internal takeover.
We now have an adminizstration and congress that is so overtly and absolutely corrupt that they really flaunt their misconduct in the faces of the citizenry. But “they” are begining to find out that the “get way with it” part is not reasonably as simple as they thought.
Thomas D. Pearson-Leader:
OSAMA-His Loathing of Infidels ISBN 1-4137-3400-6
I wrote my book as an awakening for our people and our government leaders, and as a warning to terror organizations letting them know that at least a few people here in the USA knew something about how they will act and to beware treading on America.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
This book is indeed amusing and occasionally insightful (the chapter on federal farm subsidies is a real eye-opener), but one shouldn’t take it as a substitute for a serious analysis of the philosophical underpinnings of government. At the end of the book, O’Rourke concludes that ANY form government is morally incorrect. What? That’s not libertarianism, that’s anarchism. Sorry PJ, but all forms of social order require some form of coercion to maintain themselves (I’m reminded of the quip, “We tried to set up an anarchic community but nobody would follow the rules.”) Conservatives who feel that O’Rourke is on “their side” should also admit that he not only has a low opinion of his government, but of his fellow Americans as well. He’s a refugee from the sixties who never lost his contempt for America, he merely redesigned it to fit the changing political winds. All in all, but, I’m glad people like him are around, lest we take ourselves too seriously.
Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5