Party on, all slackers/boozers/stoners. You have elected one of your own, and you have a right to crow.
One word of caution: In real life, the leader of the free world might need more than boyish charm. Of all the charming people I have met in my life, not many of them have been very honest. They say Hitler was charming. Of course, since you have only met Bush in a drugged state, he may not be as charming as you think.
One thing your article should do: put to rest once and for all the myth that the hypocritical Republicans have a franchise on upright, grown-up, responsible behavior. I know it was too much to hope for, but I noticed the one thing glaringly missing from your rundown on why all your adolescent friends voted for Bush: that they were voting for what was best for the country as a whole, not their own narrow little self-interests. I guess you would have to be sober to consider such weighty issues.
Joy Williams
Allen
A young, degenerate Republican speaks: After reading Joe Pappalardo's article, I had to contact the Dallas Observer and let you know this is the best article I have read in more than five years.
I am a 29-year-old journalism graduate from the University of South Carolina and have written professionally and worked briefly with the Associated Press. Your article is the first piece I have read that accurately described a person like myself without grouping me into that bland and overused category of Generation Xer. I think you may be the first writer to pinpoint a group of people like myself. I am no "Klansman or a seal-clubber; not an oil baron, a defense contractor, or a hick." I work in the information technology field and my salary is slowly climbing, and I have had to endure eight years of this amateur administration. The most powerful line in your article is one that struck me like a ton of bricks: "There are gangs of us out there, a sub-nation of drunken Republicans with guns and just enough sense to know that the GOP isn't made up of fanged demons who meet at secret KKK meetings and plot ways to loot the system and oppress people."
Good job, and keep up the excellent writing. I hope this article propels your career and sheds light on these gangs of drunken/stoned Republicans with guns!
Russell Ensley
Via e-mail
Real Texans shoot birds: Get rid of this Pappalardo guy--he is not funny. Just dumb, unbelievable, and silly. Real Texans shoot birds and eat them. We also know the eatin' kind from the watchin' kind. Duh (I mean Dubya duh here!)--bird watchers are dips! Ever been on a hiking trail when these lardo-butts stop? Ever have to go into the prickly pears off the trail to get around those fat butts? Guess not!
I knew all the folks that voted for Bush were evil, stupid, or drunk! Pappalardo's all three.
P.S. Gore won.
Anna Casey
Via e-mail
Duh: I read Joe Pappalardo's "The Party Party" with great interest. As a former reporter at a daily paper (Indianapolis Star), a former sales exec/brainstormer at an Association of Alternative Newsweeklies newspaper (Cleveland Free Times/nee The Edition), and a former civil rights attorney, I find Mr. Pappalardo's message convoluted and his analysis flawed and simplistic, at best. To excoriate Mr. Gore for exercising reasonable legal remedies is flat-out hypocritical and demonstrative of unbridled naiveté. Pappalardo should have the maturity to know that G.W. would have done the exact same thing had the shoe been on the other foot, and it very well could have been. People don't run that race to come in close and "just let it go."
As for being a partyer and wanting to continue in that vein (as we all do), I recommend that Pappalardo take a look at the positions that most Republican-appointed Supreme and federal court justices take on drug raids, DUI, etc. I'll take my chances with the Dem appointments there, pal--like, totally. Duh.
By the way, I can see some measure of charm in G.W., but that doesn't justify voting for him when we've just had eight years of economic prosperity, just because some of y'all have some self-hatred issues about voting for a man whose predecessor's debaucherous base parallels that of your own.
And trickle-down/voodoo economics? Please. G.W.'s daddy let those go years ago. Get a grip. And cover up that naiveté while you're at it.
Christopher King
Colleyville
You've done it again: Joe Pappalardo's story on degenerate Republicans must be another Dallas Observer literary hoax. The giveaway is the implication in Pappalardo's story that not all Republicans are degenerate creeps. We Democrats know this to be a lie: Witness the way the sociopathic Republicans have robbed Al Gore of the presidency. It follows that anyone who suggests that some Republicans might be morally decent people are simply engaged in deception.
Charles Barton
Dallas
