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Friends and Loyal Readers:
Here's a quick
year in review for the Moore family. Read on at your own risk.
First off,
absolutely no more Margarita Parties at the Moore household. Everytime
we have a Margarita party we have another baby.
David Julian
Moore arrived on April 11th 2001 at 3:30 p.m. while Steve was doing
a telephone-radio interview on cutting the capital-gains tax —
yes, in the delivery room. He even had the audacity to ask Allison
to keep the noise level down. Now that David is eight months old,
we have concluded that he has inherited Steve's looks and Allison's
brains and coordination. Genetically, this is a nightmarish outcome.
We were praying for an athlete, but so far he's shown us nothing.
In some ways
though David is saintly. Ever since he was three months old he goes
to bed at 9:00 and doesn't awake until 7:00 the next morning. (The
secret of our success? We put a smidgeon of Valium in his bottle
every night! Sometimes Steve even takes a swig or two.)
There's an
old saying that the big difference between having two kids and three
is that you have to switch from a man-to-man to a zone defense.
That hasn't worked for us though. Will's eyes light up like a neon
billboard when he sees us in a zone. So we have had to switch to
gimmick defenses like a box in one where Steve tries to defend Will
(who we've nicknamed "Osama") mano-a-mano, which is no
small feat, while Allison takes the easy assignment of playing a
zone on the other two.
Will was described by his teacher on his last report card as "uncooperative,
unruly, and utterly unteachable." Steve's relieved that none
of the political correctness that the education blob's trying to
indoctrinate Will with is actually sinking in. Will is a complete
skeptic when it comes to things like recycling, global warming,
the hole in the ozone layer, progressive taxation, and spelling.
Will's science-fair project for this year is to figure out how to
clone himself — and there's some genuine concern at Haycock
School that he may actually succeed. He's obsessed with the idea
of winning the $25 million bounty for bin Laden and his theory is
that the monster has escaped Afghanistan and he is hiding out in
the U.S. working as a general manager of a 7-11. His attitude is
that if he captures bin Laden, "I'm set for life and the first
thing I'm going to do is go tell that Miss Winchester what she can
do with her spelling assignments."
Justin and Will have what we both think is an unhealthy fascination
with the inheritance tax. "Let me get this straight,"
Justin asks. "The only way we can avoid paying an inheritance
tax is if you both die in 2011? This was followed by a litany of
weird technical questions. Would you have to die in fiscal or calendar
year 2011? Do we get double if you were pushed off a train or fell
out of a tall building? Hypothetically, of course, what would happen
if you died of arsenic poisoning? Would we get all the money at
once or would it come in installments? Would we have to give David
a share?"
We answered
no to the last question, just to keep him safe.
Will someone out there please help us get Allison a job? It's not
so much that we need her income, but that when she sits at home
idly day after day she becomes a compulsive shopper. This year she's
been acting as if it's her patriotic duty to single-handedly revive
the American economy with her frenetic pace of consumer spending.
Last month the number crunchers at the commerce department calculated
that consumer spending was up three percent "with Allison Moore
of Falls Church Virginia personally accounting for one percentage
point of the nationwide increase." George W. Bush called to
commend her for "your heroic contribution to the war effort."
Without skipping a beat, Allison replied: "Mr. President, the
$24,000 debt on our credit-card balance is my little way of telling
the terrorists that they can never defeat us. And I promise that
I will continue to spend until bin Laden and every terrorist on
the face of the globe is successfully hunted down." With Allison
around, who needs a congressional economic-stimulus package.
Steve too has done his part to nudge the economy along. A few months
ago he bought a cherry red Camaro convertible. When he asked his
22-year-old college intern what she thought of a 41-year-old guy
driving a hot car like that, she replied: "Mr. Moore, frankly,
that car screams midlife crisis!" In fact, Allison got Steve
a license plate that reads: "NVR GRU UP."
On more than one occasion Steve has been cruising around town with
the top down and a gorgeous 20-something blond has pulled up beside
him: he looks longingly at her, she gives him a "come hither
look," and then the mood is spoiled when she sees David drooling
in the baby seat and then Justin and Will start making weird faces
at her. She sticks her finger in her mouth and zooms off and Steve
is left screaming at the kids:" How many times do I have to
tell you tyrants to stay out of sight when I'm hitting on girls?"
And then Will, with a puzzled look on his face says, "but daddy,
we already have a mommy." And then Steve says, "Yes, but
imagine, just for a moment, how nice it would be if you had a much
younger mommy."
Steve continues his job as the president of the Club for Growth,
trying to inject some spinal fluid into the Republican party. He
might as well be working to try to put a man on Uranus. Increasingly,
he finds himself in agreement with his friend Kate O'Beirne who
says that it is no wonder that Republicans are the pro-life party,
they always find themselves in the fetal position. A few weeks ago
Steve was a guest on The O'Reilly Factor and the next day
he was inundated with e-mails from hundreds of adoring fans from
around the country all asking the same question: "Was that
a zit on your forehead or are you growing a third eye?" (It
was a zit.)
Steve published his third book this year (co-authored with the late-great
Julian Simon) entitled
It's Getting Better All the Time. This optimistic book
hit the bookstores four weeks before the September 11th attacks.
Not only is the proposition suspect now, but 40% of the people who
actually bought the book are demanding their money back.
We're normally upbeat people, but let's face it: 2001 has been a
pretty rotten year. The World Trade Centers attacks. George Harrison
dead. The economy in the tanks. Paul O'Neill named the treasury
secretary. Barbara Streisand and Alec Baldwin have reneged on their
promises to leave the country if George W. Bush was elected president.
The only good news is that Allison is pregnant again. Nooo. There
isn't enough Tequila in the whole world to allow that to happen
again.
Merry Christmas
and Happy New Year
Stephen Moore
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