Whenever I am down in the LA area, as I am today, my mind runs to ordering French fries “animal style” from In-and-Out burgers. (IYKYK.) But today, opening up the Washington Post, I discover the origins of a possible new sect of conservatism: Animal-House conservatives, who naturally do things “animal-style.”

Yes, the Post really does suggest that the 1978 comedy blockbuster Animal House bears some responsibility for the Reagan era coming to pass. The movie, quite simply in the eyes of the Post, “changed everything.”

You think I’m kidding?

[Hey, Steven, you *&^%$d up — you trusted the Post! Time to put you on double secret probation. Anyway, it would be harder to miss the point of “Animal House” and its middle-finger approach to authority worse than to argue it led to the Reagan era. It was a celebration of a Summer of Love/anti-establishment era that was already largely fading by 1978, when the film came out, but it was still a classic for all sorts of reasons. The one film that really missed a chance of being “Animal House II,” as Steven pleads for in his post, was 1994’s “PCU.” That had a good cast and a really good opportunity to stick it to political correctness — and did succeed in that to a limited extent. But it succumbed to the temptation to blame it on Reaganism, which was passé well before its release, rather than the progressive Academia establishment that was already coming to the fore by that time. — Ed]