The Enemies List

  All the West Side Reform Democratic Clubs of Manhattan

  Local 1199, Hospital Workers Union

  Barry Feinstein of the Teamsters Union

  Sandra Feldman of the United Federation of Teachers

  Stanley Hia ofAFSCME

  Jay Mazur of the ILGWU

  Elizabeth Holtzman

  Ruth Messinger

  Howard W. Whetzel of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, warns us that our current strategy against Boob Nation is misguided. “All rabble multiply exponentially,” he says. “Elimination by individual identity will necessarily result in defeat.... I propose going to the heart of the matter: the breeders. To wit”:

  Women with two last names

  Male teachers of American History under fifty-eight years of age

  All teachers of “Health”

  All school boards whose school hours are determined by a bus drivers’ contract

  Tim Ferguson of the Wall Street Journal sends a memo saying simply:

  Presidential spouses and offspring

  Which seems a bit rough on Barbara and Millie.

  An anonymous source at UCLA nominates:

  Physicians for Social Responsibility: May they all get a large dose of socialized medicine right where they deserve it.

  Roy Marokus, who’s an M.D. but no Bolshie croaker, writes in to protest the inclusion, in a previous Enemies List, of his hometown of Dayton, Ohio. “Wait,” says Dr. Marokus. “Now that I think about it...”:

  Phil Donahue used to do morning egg market quotations on Channel 7 ... and that drip

  Martin Sheen went to Chaminade High School.

  Sorry, Doc.

  Terry Przybylski of Des Plaines, Illinois, would like to put the Enemies List on the Enemies List. “How,” he asks, “could you do this to me? After I went to all the trouble of submitting such a splendid enemies list, you quoted me as naming ’Marvin Miller, the former head of the basketball players union’!!!!” Mr. Przybylski points out that the “cloddish Miller” is the former head of the baseball players union and blames this error, quite rightly, on an excess of Hoosier hoop-heads on the American Spectator staff.

  Mark Saucier of Gulfport, Mississippi, who claims that he likes Frank Zappa and dislikes George Bush too much to ever be a conservative, writes to us anyway, to condemn:

  Andrea Dworkin, whose all-sex-is-rape theorem transcends all common sense in an effort to make the male of the species look like the cretinous, barbaric ape-devils that we truly are, aren’t we?

  Stay as sweet as you are, Mark.

  Mike Northrup, whose handwriting renders his hometown in Maryland illegible, names:

  The Maryland State Employees United Charity Campaign, for allowing the Maryland Nuclear Weapons Freeze Education Fund to be listed in its contributors’ guide as a charity

  An anonymous correspondent from “The People’s Republic of Oregon” proposes:

  Any journalist, commentator, or other fool who refers to the old guard in Moscow or Peking as “conservatives “

  Whoever invented the brassiere and put the hooks in the back

  Every state with state-run liquor stores

  Ms. or Mr. X continues: “After six days and a few twelve-packs spent in deep reflection, I believe I have a non-cruel, unusual punishment for the condemned. ... Give them what they want!”

  We’re cold-hearted conservatives here at the American Spectator. Heck, we have to call a Frigidaire service representative to get an EKG. But giving liberal bed wetters what they claim to desire is too callous even for us. Imagine Pamela Harriman trapped in a world where everyone had to do her own laundry. We shudder.

  Don Lynch of Arlington, Virginia, condemns:

  Demagogic Southern senators and congressmen who are mislabeled “conservative”

  Conservatives who call discrimination “affirmative action” and pro-death people “pro-choice”

  People who call things like alcoholism, drug abuse, and poverty a “disease”

  Sorry we didn’t print your letter sooner, Don, but we were “sick.”

  Charles Perry of Sylmar, California, singles out:

  Gloria Allred, the Church Lady of the Left, fuming defender of gay foster parents and triumphant integrator of boring men’s clubs

  J. Edgar Williams of Carrboro, North Carolina, sends no candidates of his own but has some valuable suggestions about where to go to look for auto-da-fé fodder: “There are several sources I find valuable. . . . The Isaacs’ Coercive Utopians; Brownfeld and Walker’s The Revolution Lobby; Powell’s Covert Cadre; Collier and Horowitz’s Destructive Generation; and Tyson’s Prophets for Useful Idiots.” Mr. Williams also mentions a Biographical Dictionary of the Left but notes that the work was published in 1969 and is somewhat out of date.

  A few of us neo-types at the American Spectator sincerely hope we aren’t in there.

  Tom Gordon, address unknown, hands a page of the Bible with a large black spot in the middle to:

  John Cougar Mellencamp: his fulminations on the family farm, racism, the working man, unions, and Vietnam vets—did Mr. Mellencamp serve?—are wearing very thin

  Lou Reed, who finds the time to pose for American Express ads when he’s not bemoaning American greed and selfishness

  “Enjoyed reading your enemies list ... until I noticed that you use those awful two-capital-letter state abbreviations that the post office thought up so addresses can be read by robots,” writes Dale E. Elliott, who lives in IL.

  Richard A. Showstead of Boston, Massachusetts, moots:

  Sigmund Freud, cokehead

  Anna Freud, daddy dearest

  B. F. Skinner, redneck

  Philip Averbuck of Watertown, Massachusetts, drops a dime on:

  Randolph Ryan, a writer for the commie Boston Globe

  Mr. Averbuck encloses a column by Comrade Ryan in which the FMLN terrorists in El Salvador are quoted using surfer slang. Hang ten, maybe. Hang Randolph, definitely.

  Eddie Page of Crawfordville, Florida, thinks P. J. O’Rourke should go to the head of the Enemies List for his admitted friendship with arbitrarily nonlisted liberals Pat Schroeder and Michael Kinsley. P.J. says, Watch your back,

  Eddie Page

  Another wannabe self-nominee is Molly Gill of St. Petersburg, Florida, who signs herself “Editor, Independent Woman,” beneath which, in parentheses, she puts “Feminist Newsletter,” as though, with that title, we might suppose Independent Woman to be a trade journal of the offshore oil-drilling industry or something. “’The New Enemies List’ is very funny,” says Ms. Gill. “I can only conclude that the majority of your readers suffer from irregularity. P.S. You now have somebody else to hate.” Not at all, Ms. Gill. We consider you a valuable source of intellectual roughage.

  Kurt D. Baumgardner of Smyrna, Georgia, is not at all amused by recrudescent McCarthyism. He cancels his subscription to the American Spectator and says, “I can think of few things that disgust me more than the thought of a return to the time when the prejudiced opinions of a few immoral power-seekers gripped the nation with fear.” Yes, Mr. Baumgardner, we’re upset by the Mayor Barry verdict, too, but shouldn’t you be taking this up with the Nation?

  Bob Foster of Purcellville, Virginia, would put paid to:

  Anybody whose car sports one or more of the following bumper stickers:

  Think Globally/Act Locally

  Test Peace/Not Nuclear Weapons

  If You Want Peace/Work for Justice

  Love Animals/Don’t Eat Them

  Demonstrators who go limp when arrested

  “May someone from the Caribbean backwoods propose some members for the ‘Hall of Shame’?” asks Carlos F. Mendoza-Tio of Santurce, Puerto Rico. His choices:

  The (dis)Honorable Ron De Lugo (D-Virgin Islands)

  The (dis)Honorable Jaime Fuster (D-Puerto Rico)

  “These two scoundrels,” says Mendoza-Tio, “are in cahoots to torpedo the proposed plebiscite for Puerto Rico, effectively disenfranchising millions of American citizens.
”

  Jonathan J. Cohen of Brookline, Massachusetts, writes on behalf of the American Spectator’s Zionist wing, saying, quite reasonably, “We Jewish righties have to be careful when making such a list. Certain bona fide lefties can be absolved if they’re hard-line supporters of Israel. Thus, we spared Alan Dershowitz, Representatives Tom Lantos and Steve Solarz, Charles Krauthammer (and most of the New Republic gang), and—yes—Barney Frank. Although the last may be back on other grounds.” Mr. Cohen amends:

  Pat Buchanan: because of his infamous anti-Semitic remarks inspired by the Auschwitz convent flap. I tried to like Paddy-boy, but he’s a regular Father Coughlin.

  Ah, Jonathan me lad, imagine a whole family of them the way yours truly has got.

  And, speaking of the Harps, John F. Curran of River Edge, New Jersey, would list:

  Everyone responsible in any way for the Calvin Klein Obsession commercials on TV

  “We should talk to the Japanese,” says himself. “Our televisions should be designed to recognize these incoming signals and to explode, rather than permit these assaults on the human soul to enter our homes.”

  Bryan R. Johnson of Blacksburg, Virginia, complains about the response to his previous contributions to the Enemies List:

  Imagine my pride and extreme nervousness when I found my name and current location published in the American Spectator. I mean, I’ll stand behind my list against all comers (particularly since I’m more heavily armed than any of the people on my list) but the American Library Association has some pretty tough characters. . . .I loaded Mr. Shotgun with #4 buck (more effective than 00—more pellets per load and a better pattern) and kept it within reach at all times. Then, I waited. And waited. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.... Is it possible that the left actually got the joke?”

  No.

  Ed Rice, who’s keeping his address to himself, sends us a note of clarification:

  In the November 1989 installment of your Enemies List you include the Greenpeace mailing list. I’m on it but I’m innocent! Back in the spring my twelve-year-old Brittany spaniel, Jack, treed a Greenpeace canvasser. To avoid the trouble, I gave the guy a couple of bucks....P.S. Can we put Jack in for an award or medal or something?

  Paul Hagstrom of San Francisco, California, would gladly sic Jack on:

  Mr. Herb Caen, San Francisco columnist for whom clans, cults, and perverts come under the category of sacred special-interest groups. All except God-fearing, church-going Christians.

  Any and all who go around “feeling good about themselves”

  Carol Ann Calamia of Rochester, New York, does not feel anything like that way about:

  The New York Times Magazine

  “An enemies list could be constructed with all the people featured in the magazine alone,” says Ms. Calamia.

  Kenneth M. Mason, also of Rochester, would like to turn in to the authorities:

  Gregory Peck, that great American who did so much to assassinate Robert Bork’s character, narrating the “commercial” that so many TV stations saw fit to play as a news item

  Thomas D. Watt of Omaha, Nebraska, drops a line just to let us know that “a fitting punishment for the loony left is to make them commit to memory the newspaper columns of Mary McGrory.” Please, please, Mr. Watt, there’s such a thing as the Eighth Amendment.

  Daniel Rodriguez, who sojourns in this mortal vale of woe (that is, Washington, D.C.) but who is careful to point out he’s “formerly of Texas,” looks askance at:

  Nuclear-free Takoma Park, Maryland

  White singers with fake Jamaican accents

  City slickers who speak like country folk (like Ann Richards and Molly Ivins)

  Daniel Young of Ottawa, Canada, would make a burnt offering of:

  HUD

  The California Raisins

  Teenage homosexual encounter groups

  Tupperware parties

  Publicly funded health care

  Canadian artists who move to the U.S. to make dollars and return to Canada once a year to share their anti-American views

  Mark Katzenbaum of Arlington, Virginia, takes a swing at:

  Anyone who uses only one name

  He points out that rock stars who use one name were on a previous Enemies List but says, “We can’t forget Cher and Lucifer.”

  Donna Marmorstein of Aberdeen, South Dakota, unloads on:

  Whoever invented illiteracy billboards

  The left half of Joan Beck

  Burger King’s marketing company: the one that came up with the “Sometimes ya just gotta break the rules” ad

  Educated people who use “impact” as a verb

  Makers of sugar-saturated, additive-laced children’s cereals

  Makers of whole-grained, oat-branned, vitamin-encrusted adult cereals

  Any church whose name begins with “United”

  Anyone who believes in deconstructionism, semiotics, and critical thinking without being able to define each term in fewer than fifty words

  Drug education programs that equate coffee, aspirin, and cough drops with pot, heroin, and crack

  Whoever named last October “Head Injury Awareness Month”

  Kent Gordis of Geneva, Switzerland, sends a rueful missive saying, “There is no corner of the earth so remote or bucolic that it does not contain candidates for the New Enemies List.” And he sends us two from Switzerland:

  Jean Zeigler, a socialist member of the Swiss parliament who accused Nestlé of having conspired with the CIA in the overthrow of Salvador Allende

  Franz Weber, who devised and animated the gigantic campaign to “save the baby seals,” enlisting Brigitte Bardot and other celebrities, thereby amassing his fortune

  While we’ve got the animals in our crosshairs, let’s listen up to David A. Stephens of Pecos, Texas, who says:

  Peckerheads here who claim one shouldn’t shoot coyotes!

  Alan N. Cowan of Australia turns the dingos loose upon:

  Senior executives of U.N. agencies (usually Scandinavians) who jet around the world in first-class luxury and sanctimoniously lecture the Western democracies on the need to do more for the poor

  Professors Pam Brown and Gary Anderson, from the Economics Department at California State University in Northridge, plant the sharp ends of their analytical skills in the hides of:

  People concerned with empowerment

  All Nobel Peace Prize laureates

  Most economics Nobel prizewinners

  Anyone who knows what tofu is

  Wendy Connors, address unknown, suggests:

  People who cheat the welfare system

  The welfare system

  Anthony Hasek, of the Toronto office of the commendable Canadian organization Conservative Insight, sends us a list of frozen northerners who should be further chilled:

  The entire Progressive Conservative Party, an oxymoron full of morons.

  Canada’s $100 million loan to China after Tiananmen

  Anyone Canadians call a “national treasure,” usually because they’re hauling down the big bucks in the States and are lauded by American pinkos

  Quebec separatists

  Philippe Ruston, a lunatic head-measurer who claims that Orientals are genetically superior to whites, and that whites are in turn superior to blacks

  Americans who fled up here with their tails between their legs in the 1960s

  Americans who fled up here with their tails between their legs in the 1980s

  Americans I’ve met while traveling who:

  wear Canadian flags on their luggage so they can hitchhike and not get blown up

  say what a great country we have, having never been here

  don’t know Canada is not another state

  “P.S.,” says Mr. Hasek. “Don’t just open your floodgates to the Great White North either. Send all your lefties to Alabama—they’ll know what to do with them.”

  Here is a heartrending letter from one James R. Erwin who, understandably, does not give his address:

  I lov
e my wife, don’t get me wrong. But it’s a mixed marriage (she has liberal tendencies; myself I’m still a YAF member in good standing). On the eve of our ninth anniversary, I feel compelled to denounce her, in the hope it may shock her into reality. I’ve tried reading the Spectator to her... but with a mocking laugh she says things like “Reagan on the rock... HA!” For the list:

  Sharon D. Erwin

  I pray I’m not too late to help her; naturally, I will go wherever the Committee finds it necessary to send her, and will continue to read the Spectator to her until her soul is revived. Please give this request top priority; the political future of my six-year-old daughter weighs heavily on my mind.

  Rest easy, Mr. Erwin. Just leave everything to Dr. Bob Tyrrell and Nurse P.J.

  Scott Rains of Indianapolis, Indiana, wishes to include:

  Terre Haute Mayor Pete Chalos, for being the dumbest liberal in the world

  We’d all been wondering who that was.

  Lawrence M. Heavey, Jr., doesn’t say where he’s from, but we surmise it’s one of the nicer suburbs. He condemns:

  Businessmen who wear jogging shoes with their suits on their way to and from the train station

  A mysterious stranger called “Vulca” delivered this message: “I use here the name Vulca. Vulca was the Etruscan architect who built the first public buildings in Rome, thus providing at least the material foundations of a great and noble civilization. But perhaps I should not say this, lest someone call me Eurocentric. Ha.”

  Vulca has it in for:

  California quacks who say that good foods which have benefited us for several millennia, things like meat and milk, are harmful and full of “toxins” even as they promote their vegetarian diet and vitamin cults

  Anyone who calls swamp grass a health food

  Vulca has spoken.

  Speaking of unusual communications, there is this from W. J. Provance of Murrieta, California: “I prevailed upon the Governing Board of the Secret Team ... to allow me to provide you with a copy of their Standing Operating Plan No. 112228, The List.’ I would like to tell you more about the Secret Team but everything is a secret. And we’d like to tell your readers about Plan No. 112228, but it’s secret, too.”