P.J. O'Rourke

Washington, D.C., in 2018.

It has different math, geography, and history. And Hillary is president.

French Guiana

The election of 2016 was terrible because it wasn’t an election, it was a rebellion. America is having a civil war, or, to be more accurate, a War of Incivility. The war is not between Republicans and Democrats or between conservatives and progressives. The war is between the frightened and what…

Die young! The counsel is harsh, but the reasons are clear. Imagine portly, blustering, red-faced Romeo, burgher of a provincial Italian town, and frumpy, shrewish Juliet. “A dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death!" versus "a braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by the book of…

I thought I’d wait for the furor to die down a bit before I said anything. It’s been more than two months since Go Set a Watchman was published. Presumably reviewers, pundits, liberal arts professors, people with heightened sensitivity to the role race plays in contemporary society, and the 200…

Toward Ann Coulter I had always taken a “suffer little children to come unto me” attitude. Not that she ever came on to me or anything. It’s just that she’s a kid. She was born in 1961. I’ve got skinny Brooks Brothers neckties in the back of my closet older than that.

Mahomet made the people believe that he would call a hill to him, and from the top of it offer up his prayers, for the observers of his law. The people assembled; Mahomet called the hill to come to him, again and again; and when the hill stood still, he was never a whit abashed, but said, If the…

If this was meant to be entertainment, all 10 Flying Wallendas refused to walk the high wire, none of the clowns got out of the tiny car, and the elephants just stood around relieving themselves.

I would like to address myself to the poor, the huddled masses, the wretched refugees teeming to America’s shore, the homeless, the economically, socially, and mentally tempest-tossed. Also, I’d like to address the young, the hip, the progressive, the compassionate, and the caring. I’d like a word…

Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Robert E. Rubin co-wrote an article for the June issue of The Atlantic titled (in the print edition), “The Blame Trap,” and subtitled, “Why the U.S. and China need to act on each other’s economic critiques.”

Transgender persons are in the news so much lately that they’ve almost forced sinister college fraternities and ISIS off the front page. Media coverage of the transgender issue has been attention-getting, positive, and (please raise my consciousness if I’m somehow making an insensitive pun)…

According to an article in the New York Times on Monday, March 2, “a debate . . . has roiled Colorado’s growing yoga world.” (And don’t start thinking about what kind of planet the “yoga world” is.) 

Sorry I’m a little late. The National Association of Police Chiefs was being given a tour of the White House just when I was showing Joe Biden my new backswing—HANDS UP. They must have fired 600 rounds. The Blue Room—we’re renaming it the “Swiss Cheese Room.” Good thing they all made lousy shots.

To what will Obamacare lead? If the administration’s health policies continue on their present trajectory, Obamacare will lead to some form of European-style single-payer national health system.

I'm sitting at my desk, looking at a photograph of a gangrenous foot. It is a bloated thing in hues of phlegmatic gray rot, sanguine inflammation, melancholic black bile, and choleric open sores​—​exhibiting all the humors of a meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council. Above the…

Chief Executive of Sparta,

Living in rural New England with four dogs teaches important political lessons—to the dogs.

Recently I spent some time surrounded by people who are smarter than I am, who are braver and more committed to human progress, who know more about science and technology, more about business and industry, and more about budgets and expenditures.

“You’re stupid,” is not something even his most severe critics usually say to President Barack Obama. But on Friday morning I picked up the Wall Street Journal and learned that the president had given a speech about the war on terror saying, “This war, like all wars, must end.”

We’ve had some fun with space policy in the 2012 presidential race. Saturday Night Live, the Daily Show, candidate debates, and other forms of low comedy had us all laughing at Newt Gingrich’s proposal for moon statehood. Ron Paul said, “I think we should send some politicians up there.” So it…

Did the baby boom wreck popular culture? “D’oh,” to borrow from the subject in question. On the other hand, consider the source. A generation ago was there anything with as much brains, sly cunning, human comedy, and broad public appeal as The Simpsons?

Dr. James Roberts, professor of marketing at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, exhorts us to curtail our consumer spending. Here’s a place to start. Don’t buy this book.

Merritt Island, Florida

Wipe that smirk off your face, Mister President. “We cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society.” Is there some Sidwell Friends night school class liberal politicians take to perfect an expression of smug disdain? When Teddy Roosevelt was…

It was a weekend of great sorrow. On Saturday, January 8, an insane young man tried to kill Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, injuring her horribly. The man then fired his gun into a small political gathering, murdering a nine-year-old girl, a federal judge, a congressional staffer, and three of…

I think we lost the election on November 2. Every race was won by a politician. True, we elected some angry nuts. These are preferable to common politicians. Their anger provokes honesty, and their mental illness prevents honesty from being obscured by charm. (What a loss -Barney Frank would have…

The Protest Singer

Whew, I'm pooped. Jimmy Carter has got me run ragged with all the hating I'm supposed to do. Jimmy says I'm a racist because I oppose President Obama's health care reform program. Even Jimmy Carter can't be wrong all the time. And since Jimmy Carter has been wrong about every single thing for the…

The Road to Woodstock

Us right-wing nuts sure is scary! That's the message from the Washington Post. To put this in language a conservative would understand, the fourth estate has been alarmed once again by the Burkean proclivities of our nation's citizens. The Post is in a panic about (to use its own descriptive terms)…

I will Twitter the Constitution of the United States of America. And the Bill of Rights. You may well ask, why? The Constitution is readily available, in print and online, set down in full without the distraction or annoyance of abridgments, elisions, abbreviations, acronyms, emoticons, and…

The other day a journalist friend of mine in Washington got a phone call from a colleague in South America. "How's it feel to be a fellow citizen of the Third World?" my friend's friend asked.

As April 15 rolls around let us take a moment to recall why we Americans pay taxes: Because some of our country's good-for-nothing bums are too chicken to rob us at gunpoint. That would be members of Congress and the executive branch. How come we keep electing politicians who will tax the bejeezus…

The good news is that, according to the Obama administration, the rich will pay for everything. The bad news is that, according to the Obama administration, you're rich.

"  .  .  .  part of the success in Iraq involved reaching out to people that we would consider to be Islamic fundamentalists, but who were willing to work with us  .  .  . "

When a Democratic president goes from being wrong to being damn wrong is always an interesting moment: Bay of Pigs, Great Society, Jimmy Carter waking up on the morning after his inauguration, HillaryCare. Barack Obama condemned himself (and a number of human embryos to be determined at a later…

The killjoys are back in charge--the mopes, the fusstails, the glum pots. Their wet blanket has been thrown over the White House and Congress. They're worrying up a storm. (Good thing that George W. Bush is no longer in charge of the weather and FEMA the way he was during Hurricane Katrina.)…

Is it too soon to talk about the failed Obama presidency just because Obama isn't president yet? That depends upon how quickly Barack Obama is able to apply the lessons he's learned from Management Secrets of the Illinois Governors. So far he's not doing very well. He has allowed America's current…

Hello? Bailout people? Mr. Secretary of the Treasury Paulson? Aren't you forgetting somebody? Like me? I'm a print journalist. Talk about financial meltdown! Print journalists may soon have to send their kids to public schools, feed dry food to their cats, and give up their leases on Prius…

Let us bend over and kiss our ass goodbye. Our 28-year conservative opportunity to fix the moral and practical boundaries of government is gone--gone with the bear market and the Bear Stearns and the bear that's headed off to do you-know-what in the woods on our philosophy.

American political methodology is an ontological construct. No, I don't know what I'm talking about, but it's true anyway. Political "science"--like that puppy from the same litter, the dismal science of economics--is not science; it's a branch of moral philosophy. Yet try talking moral philosophy…

The Ancient Americas

Landing on an aircraft carrier is...To begin with, you travel out to the carrier on a powerful, compact, and chunky aircraft--a weight-lifter version of a regional airline turboprop. This is a C-2 Greyhound, named after the wrong dog. C-2 Flying Pit Bull is more like it. In fact what everyone calls…

Busy times for us sinners--there are now an additional Seven Deadly Sins. The fresh abominations in the eyes of the Lord were announced by Bishop Gianfranco Girotti, head of the Vatican body that oversees confessions and plenary indulgences. This organization goes by the contrition-inducing name of…

America is in the midst of an all-important electoral campaign. But, talking to Europeans, I've discovered that there is puzzlement and misinformation on your continent about what's happening on ours. Europeans feel an understandable confusion when faced with a political system consisting of two…

Journals

Thus reported the Associated Press on Tuesday, October 16, 2007:

How much do you suppose it costs the U.S. Mint to produce a penny? Let me tell you--with a deeply self-satisfied howl of execration--almost 2 cents. This little brown item of pocket clutter costs twice as much to make as it's worth, and it isn't worth anything. A penny will not buy a penny postcard…

Political discourse has become so rotten that it's no longer possible to tell the stench of one presidential candidate from the stink of another. They all give off the same skunk whiff. Would-be chief executives and their staffs shovel madly in the manure pile of foreign and domestic policy.…

LIKE OTHER DEEP-THINKING people, I'm full of principled, idealistic, high-minded indignation at the GOP. What a stampede of sleaze. Jack Abramoff is the world's best lobbyist--for the Federal Penitentiary System. Bob Ney was deep in the ethical rough at St. Andrew's. Randy "Duke" Cunningham's…

LEFT-WING LOUDMOUTH and strident anti-American Günter Grass has admitted that he was a member of the Waffen SS. This came as a shock to the socialist admirers of the German novelist, who had no idea just how National Grass's Socialism was. The New York Times sighed at the revelation: "For many on…

I was out on the patio the other day wondering (as writers of conservative opinion pieces constantly do) what's wrong with America. I noticed a tag affixed to my collapsible canvas deck chair, and my wondering ceased. What's wrong with America was printed on the tag:

The Theory of Moral Sentiments

I JUST GOT BACK from three weeks in China. So I'm a China expert--by Bush administration standards. Of course, by Bush administration standards, I'm an expert on Iraq strategy, Social Security privatization, and hurricane relief. But even a fellow with a Bush administration level of expertise can…

I AM JUST NOW CHOPPING up my Danish modern coffee table and throwing the pieces into the fireplace. I want to show my support for Muslims outraged by publication of Prophet Muhammad caricatures in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten newspaper. All over the Muslim world there are riots and boycotts of Danish…

CHIEF AMONG THE MARVELOUS QUALITIES of liberalism is its ability to see the good in human suffering--and make a good thing of it. How like the early Christians, if the early Christians had been in politics. Hurricane Katrina was a blessing to liberals, a consecrated opportunity to make advocates of…

Venice

JUDITH MILLER OF THE New York Times has been sent to jail for refusing to reveal the anonymous source who told her (and presumably told the whole damn world via Robert Novak's syndicated column) that Valerie Plame was a covert CIA agent. Never mind that Miller's source has probably been revealed…

Guadeloupe

THE GREATEST PLEASURE OF RUNNING a country (although no politician will admit it) is getting to tax people. We Republicans decry exactions and imposts and espouse minimal outlay by the sovereign power. But we control all three branches of government. This won't last forever. Let's have some fun…

JOHN KERRY EFFECTIVELY ENDED HIS political career on February 28, 2005, during a little-noticed event at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston. Senator Kerry was being presented with the library's "Distinguished American Award"--a bust of John Kennedy. The artist had portrayed JFK with…

MY FELLOW AMERICANS, I had intended to reach out to all of you and bring a divided nation together. But I changed my mind. America isn't divided by political ethos or ethnic origin. America isn't divided by region or religion. America is divided by jerks. Who wants to bring a bunch of jerks…

(1) My opponent, Massachusetts senator John Kerry--or, as I like to think of him, Teddy Kennedy with a designated driver . . .

Old Boys

I'VE HAD A NONPARTISAN grudge against John Kerry for 18 years. This seems an appropriate time to air it.

Living History

CORPORATE CORRUPTION endangers everything in which we have, over the past many years, invested our time, effort, and money--particularly Republican control of the House of Representatives. And our 401(k) plans aren't doing so well either. In this period of gloom--with liberals seeking to make hay…

I SUGGEST THAT YOU members of "the party of Jefferson" do something that Jefferson would have done -- I don't mean make like Bill Clinton with Sally Hemings -- and stop and think for a minute. Why are you a Democrat? Are you a Democrat because you're poor? Poor people vote for Democrats. Rich…

PERHAPS, midst the enthusiasm of the Republican convention, we stalwart GOP supporters should take a step back from our partisanship and give a moment's thought to the decent, well-meaning, intelligent people who oppose us -- and how there aren't any.

THERE ARE a number of Americans who shouldn't vote. The number is 57 percent, to judge by the combined total of Clinton and Perot ballots in the 1996 presidential election. Or maybe the number is 65 percent, that being the ABC News poll tally of Americans who supported the forced removal of Elian…

ROSIE O'DONNELL IS RIGHT: It is a shocking fact that guns kill people. But if we are concerned about people getting killed, we must realize that mere gun control will not put an end to tragic violence. During the past 300 centuries millions of people have died because of the negligent possession of…

Here's good news: The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has just voted 11-0 to ban discrimination against fat people. The District of Columbia had already adopted such a law -- no Ted Kennedy jokes, please! -- and so had the state of Michigan, as well it should. I was just in Michigan, and at…

I WANT HILLARY CLINTON to get that New York senatorship -- the one Pat Moynihan had for years until he misplaced it after a long lunch. I'm sending $ 5 to Hillary's campaign fund. Make that $ 10, because she got gouged on the $ 1.7 million house in Chappaqua. Chappaqua? From Whitewater to Castle…

REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS impeached the president for doing what Republicans would have loved to have done if the Mrs. hadn't hidden the Viagra and the intern hadn't cracked the Republican across the face with a Prada backpack full of cell phone batteries. Congressional Democrats know Democratic…

ON JANUARY 8, 1999, the United States Senate, in all its dignity, solemnly swore . . . And talk about great TV! Especially when Trent Lott got tongue-bungled and said that the chief justice "will now administer the oaf." Anyway, the United States Senate, in all its dignity . . . If we don't count…

I'D JUST LIKE TO APOLOGIZE TOmea culpa his way around Africa, read Newt Gingrich's new humble pie of a book, and listened to the pope say "oops" about the Holocaust. My fault if I ever doubted the wisdom or intelligence of any of you guys.

FOR SIX YEARS, COVERING THE BILL CLINTON scandals has been like being in a greased-pig contest. So the Monica Lewinsky disgrace raises the question, What do you do with a greased pig once you catch him?

Ten days before the most charity-soaked of holidays, a story appeared in the Washington Post, front page, above the fold, like the Ghost of Christmas Real Time: "Inside Welfare's New World," subhead: "Watching Reform at Work." In this, the threatened "First in a series of occasional articles,"…

New Satan takes over in hell, wants to install airconditioning. That is Memoirs by Mikhail Gorbachev in brief. And brevity is a thing of which you'll have a high, fine appreciation after 769 densely printed, generously sized pages containing, in total, more than 350,000 words. Memoirs (Doubleday, $…