“To persons of limited horizons—those lacking the world view of, say, the editors of Foreign Affairs—a Parameter may look like a perimeter. It is not. . . . In the world of politics, Parameters live to be defined. Their arms embrace the illimitable and the unknowable, but usually they embrace the expendable. ‘Within the Parameters of our budget,’ people say. Then the Parameter, like the squid, emits an inky cloud and disappears.”—Eugene J. McCarthy and James J. Kilpatrick, A Political Bestiary: Viable Alternatives, Impressive Mandates and Other Fables (1979)
The recent death of retired conservative columnist James J. Kilpatrick (in the image accompanying this post) did more than bring to mind his 1970s jousts on 60 Minutes with Shana Alexander, which inspired the great Dan Aykroyd-Jane Curtin “Point-Counterpoint” skits on Saturday Night Live. It also led me to a fine appreciation of his writing skills by Andrew Ferguson in The Weekly Standard, which in turn brought to mind his collaboration with former Presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy, A Political Bestiary.
True, cartoonist Jeff MacNelly made his own, not insignificant contribution to this wry satire on the clichés that grow in the peculiar soil of Washington. But in the quote that Ferguson included—one that I’ve reproduced here—it’s easy to see the mocking wit and literary grace that the two authors—one, Kilpatrick, a DC outsider by profession; the other, McCarthy, by inclination—brought to this project.
The recent death of retired conservative columnist James J. Kilpatrick (in the image accompanying this post) did more than bring to mind his 1970s jousts on 60 Minutes with Shana Alexander, which inspired the great Dan Aykroyd-Jane Curtin “Point-Counterpoint” skits on Saturday Night Live. It also led me to a fine appreciation of his writing skills by Andrew Ferguson in The Weekly Standard, which in turn brought to mind his collaboration with former Presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy, A Political Bestiary.
True, cartoonist Jeff MacNelly made his own, not insignificant contribution to this wry satire on the clichés that grow in the peculiar soil of Washington. But in the quote that Ferguson included—one that I’ve reproduced here—it’s easy to see the mocking wit and literary grace that the two authors—one, Kilpatrick, a DC outsider by profession; the other, McCarthy, by inclination—brought to this project.
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