Escape Artist
Escape Artist
The impresario of The American Spectator reflects on a life of eluding Washington’s joyless orthodoxies.
How Do We Get Out of Here? by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. Bombardier Books. 368 pages.
This is probably the worst time in history to write a book. Books are no longer at the center of the cultural or political conversation. People don’t ask today, “What are you reading?” They ask, “What are you watching?” Going against the grain as usual, Bob Tyrrell’s autobiography of sorts is described on the cover as a “Half a Century of Laughter and Mayhem at The American Spectator—From Bobby Kennedy to Donald J. Trump.”
Before I go on, I must declare an interest. I’ve been a friend of the author since forever, or so it seems, and career-wise I owe him a lot. He somehow managed to get the great Tom Wolfe to review one of my early books, and Tom wrote that my prose reminded him of that of Celine. It was and is the greatest compliment I’ve ever had—prose-wise, that is. Bob also gave me a foreign policy column that led to a TV appearance on The Phil Donahue Show, at the time the most popular daytime entertainment on the idiot box. The subject was “American Women Make Ugly Lovers,” Bob’s idea, and one that led to outraged booing as I entered the stage in Chicago the day Grace Kelly killed herself in Monte Carlo.
Mind you, the article had nothing to do with the sex act. It was an attack on harsh, strident anti-male voices by some pretty ugly female so-called intellectuals. The mostly older female crowd, however, soon began cheering after I pointed out to the host, Phil Donahue, that we Europeans might occasionally or often cheat on our wives but we keep them on a pedestal, honor them, and do not trade them, as Americans do their wives and cars, for a newer model every two years. “And by the way, Phil, didn’t you just divorce the mother of your four children for a new model?”
Sorry, I got carried away; this is supposed to be a review of Bob’s life, not mine. He was the instigator of that article, and I simply executed his orders. We then hit Oprah—but I’m getting away from my subject yet again. As everyone knows, William F. Buckley Jr. was the mesmerizing quarterback that led to Ronald Reagan’s Super Bowl electoral victory of 1980. Buckley received the glory he deserved, but it was Bob Tyrrell who, as a hard-working offensive guard on the line, kept Bill safe from the monstrous tackles of the Left.
Starting in 1967 in Indiana, until he moved his American Spectator to Washington around 1980, Bob Tyrrell attacked the liberal-left orthodoxy that reigned and still does in DC with—unheard of until then—gusto, scholarly rigor, and non-stop humor. The capital has always been to the left of the rest of the country, and the media has always been way to the left of mainstream America. Year in, year out, the same old liberal, boring bromides filled the airways and editorials of the Washington Post. People had become inured to this bull—-. Bob decided to do something about it and went after the usual suspects with vim and vigor and humor.
How Do We Get Out of Here is a rollicking tale of recent American history. Bob has met all the recent presidents of the republic, introduced me to the greatest of them all, Richard Nixon, and took me to his house for dinner; the book has the photographs to prove it. Strange friendships with Robert Kennedy—the slain father of the present nut job—and even Bill Clinton, along with natural ones of both Bushes and Ronald Reagan, and finally with The Donald. Just before the 2016 election, Bob bet me that Trump would win, and he repeated the challenge a month ago when I told him over the telephone that Trump could not possibly win with the media, Hollywood, and even Wall Street stacked up against him.
The wonderful Wlady, the ghastly David Frum, the noble Longfords, the unmatchable Paul Johnson, the beautiful Clare Booth Luce, the ferocious Bob Knight, the wise Doc Councilman, and every president past and present are featured in the tale, as are most of the bigshots of Washington D.C. these last 50 years. Tyrrell’s fight, starting with a tiny publication back in Indiana, has proved a success. Whereas the left has always been in constant disapproval of what really makes America great, the Christian ethic and our European culture, Bob celebrated it with humor and without fear. Anybody with a publication worth reading can get any politician at his table. I was present when Bob had the great Antonin Scalia to speak at one of his annual American Spectator bashes. That’s what I call a coup.
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