Kyle Smith’s “Weirdo O’Rourke” story at National Review received a good bit of attention for good reason: Smith has well summed up what we’ve guessed, sensed, or had an inckling about when it comes to Beto Pancho.
Of O’Rourke, Smith keenly wrote: “He might be the first person ever to run for the White House on a platform of asking the nation help him figure out who he is.”
Explaining such, Smith wrote:
“The source of the angst is evident: Beto is a brainless rich kid who yearned to be cool and wasn’t very good at it. He flunked out of punk. He failed as a fiction writer. He belly-flopped as an alternative-newspaper publisher. And he’s so clueless that his apartment was once robbed while he was sitting in it.
Beto Pancho & his bullhorn
“At his pricey Virginia prep school (Woodberry Forest School these days carries a sticker price of $48,000 a year), he thought he “just stuck out so badly” because of the “monoculture” there, which the Dallas Morning News called “white, wealthy and southern.” O’Rourke was and is white, wealthy, and southern, so he couldn’t have stuck out much more than Miracle Whip at the mayonnaise convention, yet he was wounded and alienated. Or maybe not. He put this in his high school yearbook: “I’m the angry son. I’m the angry son.” Below that: “I owe you everything, Mom, Dad . . .” You have to pick one, though, don’t you? You can’t be a seething rebel and a dutiful child. You can’t be Kurt Cobain and Kenny G. One pose nullifies the other. Or maybe O’Rourke was even then trying to position himself as acceptable to all constituencies.”
The piece by Smith is top-notch and correct in saying O’Rourke’s life story looks more like a life of privilege and being a dilettante than any history rising to meet challenge after challenge.
Is it weirdo Beto Pancho or just failed dilettante Beto Pancho?
Of O’Rourke, Smith keenly wrote: “He might be the first person ever to run for the White House on a platform of asking the nation help him figure out who he is.”
Explaining such, Smith wrote:
“The source of the angst is evident: Beto is a brainless rich kid who yearned to be cool and wasn’t very good at it. He flunked out of punk. He failed as a fiction writer. He belly-flopped as an alternative-newspaper publisher. And he’s so clueless that his apartment was once robbed while he was sitting in it.
Beto Pancho & his bullhorn
“At his pricey Virginia prep school (Woodberry Forest School these days carries a sticker price of $48,000 a year), he thought he “just stuck out so badly” because of the “monoculture” there, which the Dallas Morning News called “white, wealthy and southern.” O’Rourke was and is white, wealthy, and southern, so he couldn’t have stuck out much more than Miracle Whip at the mayonnaise convention, yet he was wounded and alienated. Or maybe not. He put this in his high school yearbook: “I’m the angry son. I’m the angry son.” Below that: “I owe you everything, Mom, Dad . . .” You have to pick one, though, don’t you? You can’t be a seething rebel and a dutiful child. You can’t be Kurt Cobain and Kenny G. One pose nullifies the other. Or maybe O’Rourke was even then trying to position himself as acceptable to all constituencies.”
The piece by Smith is top-notch and correct in saying O’Rourke’s life story looks more like a life of privilege and being a dilettante than any history rising to meet challenge after challenge.