No Deficit Of Laughs

By Michael Riley

PARLIAMENT OF WHORES

by P.J. O'Rourke; Atlantic Monthly Press; 233 pages; $19.95

Forget everything you ever learned about the U.S. government. You can toss it all -- the separation of powers, the electoral college and even the pocket veto -- into the trash can. Then pick up P.J. O'Rourke's Parliament of Whores, a riotously funny and perceptive indictment of America's political system. You'll stop reading only when you stop laughing.

O'Rourke, one of America's funniest writers and potentate of gonzo journalism, tried to find how the U.S. government works. His not-so-startling conclusion: it doesn't. Yet O'Rourke, an unabashed conservative with libertarian leanings, tells you why government is a flop in a way no civics textbook ever could. "I'm not sure I learned anything," he writes, "except that giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."

The author adheres to several tenets. First among them, government is boring. Why? "The last person left awake gets to spend all the tax money," he writes. And government is morally wrong. "If enough people get together and act in concert," argues O'Rourke, "they can take something and not pay for it."

His scathing critique of U.S. agricultural policy should be required reading for every presidential candidate. O'Rourke may be the first writer to explain the savings and loan fiasco in a manner that keeps you from falling asleep after the first mention of subordinated debt. He also reveals, in terms a mathematical dunce can fathom, the Social Security system's purpose: it's the best way for voting everyone rich.

There are some flaws. Rolling Stone magazine's premier essayist has spliced together discrete essays, making the book more a collection of pieces than a unified whole. At times he grows as shrill as those he skewers. Nonetheless, O'Rourke manages to ask all the explosive questions -- Why are taxes so high? Why doesn't government work? How did things get so bad? -- that tap into the deep vein of discontent running through America today. Parliament of Whores may not spark a revolution, but it is one of the few books on civic affairs worth reading from cover to cover.