The right at night - conservatives and fun; humor - NR's Guide to the New Majority

National Review, Dec 11, 1995 by Jennifer Grossman

UNTIL recently, the social life of Republicans received little ink outside the Packwood diaries. For better or for worse, that age of anonymity may be coming to an end. Recent weeks have witnessed a spate of articles -- from George, Newsweek, the Wall Street Journal -- each breathlessly reporting the alarming discovery that conservatives may be having fun.

To a certain extent, this is a case of the mainstream media being the last to know. Right-wingers have been meeting for years, and not just in the Watergate's basement garage. In the past, of course, conservative social options were far more limited than they are today, prompting many simply to stay home, or, more drastically, marry liberals.

I remember one party so desolate and depressing that for a brief, treasonable moment the mind drifted to what Michael Kinsley might be doing that night. It was Clinton's inaugural, and a motley crew of disgruntled conservatives and former Bush staffers had gathered in the ballroom of some low-rent motel for our very own Counter-Inaugural Ball. Oh sure, there were a few celebrities; I think Howard Phillips was there. There was nothing much to do but mill about, exchange meek gestures of mock defiance, and get gratefully drunk.

What Arianna Huffington calls "bonding by bitching" has been the mainstay of conservative social activity for many years, and certainly we've had more than our share to bitch about (the welfare state, the liberals, the media, each other). Lately, though, there's an air of insouciance about the most committed curmudgeons. Who could fail to notice that spring in our goosestep, that twinkle in our beady little eyes?

The New Subversives. Alice Roosevelt Longworth used to carry with her to Washington parties a little pillow embroidered with her motto: "If you can't say anything good about someone, come sit by me." If the understated elegance of David Brock's overstuffed sofa could countenance such tackiness, its pillow might read, "Living well is the best revenge." Across the street from Madeleine Albright and down the block from JFK's old house, Brock moved into his Georgetown brownstone after the publication of The Real Anita Hill. "Losers don't have good parties," explains Brock. "Part of what energizes the Washington social scene is being in power."

Ironically, what makes Brock's parties work is their subversive allure. Guests at his intimate suppers are as likely to feast on the freshest Arkansas dirt washed down with Whitewater scandal as on three-pepper soup and pecan-encrusted snapper. Postprandial activities at one recent dinner included dramatic readings from Gennifer Flowers's Passion and Betrayal. Part of what made liberalism so hip for so long is that it could claim to be seditious -- a rebellious chic that carried from the fight against curfews to the fight against capitalism. The social cachet of the Left was dissipated, not by its failure, but its overwhelming success. By the time I got to college, the only options for irritating your parents were to get your nose pierced or become a Republican.

Eschatological Entertaining. "I knew something was up when the D.C. police came and made me lock all my weapons in the basement," recalls Grover Norquist, remembering the moment he realized that the Speaker would be coming to his party after all. It was the night of the Hundred Days, and to the three hundred Republican party animals who packed his four-story frathouse, warm beer and cold take-out never tasted so good. Sometime after 11 P.M. it began as a rumble and grew to a roar: "Newt! Newt! Newt!!" The happy warrior had arrived, and a sea of beer cans was hoisted heavenward in salute.

Norquist is a student of the Marxist revolutionary dialectic, knowledge he no doubt imbibed from the fluoridated drinking water of his home state, Massachusetts. To him, party planning is Party building -- a necessary stage in the withering away of the state. "Conservatives don't know each other," says Norquist. "It struck me, after years of dealing with liberal groups like the Social Democrats and the AFL - CIO, that everyone on the Left had slept with each other." Strategic partying is Norquist's safe-sex alternative -- a way of getting conservatives to go forth and multiply, while speeding the spread of STIs (Socially Transmitted Ideas).

Perhaps this explains why some see bipartisan socializing as tantamount to sleeping with the enemy. "I've seen too many people come to this city and get seduced by its social ways," says Brent Bozell, chairman of the Media Research Center. "First they lose their edge, then they lose their principles. You can't come here railing against the Kennedy Center as a playground for rich bureaucrats, then go to their black-tie parties every night. Because by the end of the week you'll be singing a different tune."

Arianna Huffington takes a more nuanced view. Gathering eclectic groups of intellectuals, politicians, and activists for candle-lit conversation over rack of lamb and California Cabernet, her aim is less compromise than a new consensus about how to replace the failed status quo. One example was a dinner aimed at finding common ground beyond the labels of the abortion debate. Mrs. Huffington and her co-host, Marvin Olasky, though at odds over abortion's legal status, are both committed to curtailing its grim harvest. Talk centered less on platforms and pledges than on how to reduce the demand for abortion by expanding alternatives such as adoption and crisis-pregnancy centers.