SOURCE: Wolcott, James. Review of The White House Mess, by Christopher Buckley. Los Angeles Times Book Review (30 March 1986): 1.

In the following review, Wolcott expresses his disappointment with The White House Mess, arguing that the novel lacks the acerbic wit necessary for successful satire.

Christopher Buckley's The White House Mess is a comic peek into the linty head of a political loyalist and winky-dink named Herbert Wadlough. A satire of Washington and Washington memoirs, The White House Mess is a tattling account of life in the Oval Office as seen by this nervous, pedantic weenie, whose job as personal assistant to the President is to stamp out fires before they become blazes. His feet are kept jitterbug busy. On Inauguration Day in January, 1989, President-elect Thomas Nelson Tucker (“TNT”) arrives at the White House only to discover that President Reagan is still in his pajamas, too pooped to vacate the...