Greg Gutfeld on R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.: Be an Outsider – The American Spectator

I got my first job as a journalist at The American Spectator in the late 1980s. My first boss was R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.

I wasn’t even close to being a journalist.

I drove Bob around in his diesel Mercedes, fetched him lunch, and delivered his columns to the Washington Post. Those duties are not relevant, but I mention them for others who end up in jobs that call for running errands for others: It’s the price you pay to get close to the people who interest you.

What made Bob different — and, therefore, a lot like me — was a reluctance to join anything. To be apart from the game, and mess with it from outside, or above.

My goal has always been to join things so that I can change them, not the reverse.

I didn’t become a Republican so that I would learn the secrets of khaki and cigars.

I became a Republican so that they would discover the Clash and National Lampoon.

The goal in life is not simply to find comforting tribes but to take that tribe you like and get it to assimilate to you. I’ve spent 35 years doing just that.

Bob was one of the first to do the very same thing.

For that reason, he’s been lauded and maligned. It’s always a good sign when you get both.

He wasn’t a typical right-winger. He heard his own song in this head — and it told him to zig when everyone else would zag. I think it probably didn’t help him as much as it would if it were simply conforming — but that’s never the point.

His biting humor and his commentary’s audacious silliness dared others to do the same.

The message: to take risks based in the joy of surprise and the wisdom the surprise brings you. The goal: to have fun and speak truth; to be a “merry prankster” with receipts — or, in my case, a “merry troll.”

I never had any interest in anyone who worked within a system. Everyone who I learned from did the opposite.

Some of them don’t get the credit they deserve. Bob is one of them.

Editor’s Note: The American Spectator’s editor-in-chief, R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., recently released his long-awaited memoirs, which detail the past 50 years of this magazine’s run. Order your copy of How Do We Get Out of Here?: Half a Century of Laughter and Mayhem at The American Spectator — From Bobby Kennedy to Donald J. Trump here today!