The Republican strategy: pass the Bombay

After Bill Clinton won re-election in 1996, Robert Bork, who had by then retired from his perch on a federal appellate court, asked, in the National Review, how Republicans could "take the edge off our pain"? What could be done to forget "the carnage" of Clinton's electoral victory?

"Different strategies will occur," Bork continued, "but one of the most promising is the judicious use of alcohol." Not to excess, mind you, or during daytime: "The tactic is definitely recommended, however, for the early evening hours when, as you zap around the TV channels, you are all too likely to come without warning upon the Clinton visage … Just the right amount of alcohol taken at the right time will … enable you to see the humor in America's having a Banana Republic government, and to fall asleep congratulating yourself on having risen above despair."

Bork's drink of choice was (and presumably still is) the martini. And on that subject he held some predictably absolutist views. Never vodka. No olives (an obscenity enjoyed only "by people who think a martini is a type of salad"). The ratio of gin to vermouth must fall within the range of 4-to-1 to 10-to-1, preferably closer to the latter. Ideally, the lemon twist ought to be squeezed and then discarded. As for a martini "on the rocks," Bork sputtered, with Colonel Kurtz, "The horror, the horror!"

With President Obama settled in at the White House and still riding high in the polls (despite a few rough patches for his tax-amnesiac nominees), it's no coincidence that National Review Online elected to reprint Bork's essay today.

Martinis, Bork wrote 13 years ago, "are essential to cultural conservatism" and would help Republicans endure their season in the wilderness. But, to echo President Obama's one-America rhetoric, do we not also enjoy potent gin-based cocktails in the blue states?