The American Spectator

Sex had become democratized long ago, but by the mid-'90s, so had celebrity. Ten years on, the revolution is as revolting as it is complete. One needn’t be Rob Lowe or Paris Hilton to trade sex tapes and get on TV. The rich mimic the lower classes, and the middle classes ape the rich. The undeniable truth of 2005 is that in 1985, Paris and Nicky and a lot of other sexy, druggy, wealthy young people would be Republicans, by choice or default. Today that demographic is unthinkable, impossible. The Left owns that world. Republicans in the style of Patrick Bateman or Tony Montana are an endangered species. George W. Bush swore off those kinds of antics long ago. Now he runs five miles a day, and his daughters can barely get away with a beer. Only Arnold remains.

THIS IS A WORLD perhaps beyond the comprehension of a man like Hunter Thompson, whose righteous fight against a whole society of ignorant roughnecks has ultimately only brought them into the fold. How many people can carry on the lie that Thompson has anything in common with VH1’s “Celebreality” lineup, with 50 Cent, with Andy Dick? How long could the Good Doctor last at an Oscar afterparty?

Hunter Thompson died, like he lived, for his own reasons; but the Left that he left behind has no monopoly on his mantle. The man who has written All my life my heart has sought a thing I cannot name is beyond liberalism. He is beyond fashion, beyond ownership, and now beyond time.