Appreciation: P.J. O'Rourke, 1947-2022
By: Dave Shiflett (WSJ)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The world seems ragged these days—roiled by viruses, inflation, rampaging woke folk, omnipresent smartphone zombies and a ruling class that makes romantic types pine for the good old guillotine. The good news is that history has provided sages who have beheld the grim and gruesome and have somehow come through with a smile—or at least a smirk—on their faces. Among them is P.J. O'Rourke, who died this week at the age of 74. He now belongs to the ages—which are no doubt happy to have him.
O'Rourke didn't have an easy childhood. "My own family was poor when I was a kid," he once recalled, "though I didn't know it. I just thought we were broke. . . . What we managed to escape in 1966 in Squareville, Ohio, was not poverty. We had that. What we managed to escape was help."
He went on to prosper in a major way, writing for National Lampoon, Car & Driver, the American Spectator, Playboy and (especially) Rolling Stone. He wrote roughly 20 books, including “Modern Manners” (1983), “Republican Party Reptile” (1987), “Parliament of Whores” (1991), “Eat the Rich” (1998) and “Peace Kills” (2004).
New readers will want to start with “Thrown Under the Omnibus” (2015), a delightful collection of his work and a constant reminder that O’Rourke was a high deacon in the Church of Mirth with a talent for upsetting all the right people. He happily provided tips on how to drive while drugged and possum-eyed drunk while engaging a female companion—one of the many valuable insights found in “Republican Party Reptile,” which assured right-leaners that they need not be bound by the rules they might have picked up in the Revival Tent.
“Parliament of Whores” aptly described Congress as a place where non-cinematic Mr. Smiths don’t stand a chance. “How did an allegedly free people spawn a vast, rampant cuttlefish of dominion with its tentacles in every orifice of the body politic?” he wonders. O’Rourke’s commendable cynicism enlightened a multitude of readers, including a young Greg Gutfeld: “He could step back and see the big picture: that the back-and-forth between political parties was simply a time-consuming activity while both sides made money off the rest of us. . . . He reminded us that none of these people we saw in politics or on TV were very smart. You aren’t the idiot; they are.”
O’Rourke wrote some unforgettable magazine pieces. One of the most striking, which appeared in Harper’s in 1982, followed his infiltration of a “peace” cruise down the Volga River. (He had seen the adventure advertised in the Nation magazine.) These were the good old days, at the run-up to the reign of KGB thug Yuri Andropov, who was too modest to pose shirtless but whose Soviet Gulag, by some estimates, would house five million guests. O’Rourke considered socialism “a violation of the American principle that you shouldn’t stick your nose in other people’s business except to make a buck” and didn’t feel much at home with his fellow travelers either.
One peacenik, he reported, radiated “not the kind of ugliness that’s an accident of birth but the kind that is the result of years of ill temper, pique, and petty malice. These had given a rattish, shrewish, leaf-nosed-bat quality to her face.” His investigative skills uncovered another telling datum: His shipmates “were people who believed everything about the Soviet Union was perfect, but they were bringing their own toilet paper.”
O’Rourke reported from more than 40 countries over the course of his career and was often horrified by what he found. Many of his foreign-correspondent dispatches—often from war zones but not always—are found in “Holidays in Hell” (1988), “Give War a Chance” (1992) and “Peace Kills” (2004). He covered the invasion of Iraq, where his traveling companion, Atlantic editor Michael Kelly, was killed in an accident during the assault on the Baghdad airport. His eye was ever sharp: Kuwait City is “Houston without beer,” while suicide bombers in Afghanistan, a guide tells him, usually attack at morning because “it’s a hot country and the explosive vests are thick and heavy.”
Yet he also found signs of progress during his travels. In Albania, post-communist entrepreneurs raised their game to awe-inspiring levels: “The National Commercial Bank in the city of Gjirokaster was robbed with a tank.”
But it was mostly the American scene that captured his interest. He loved nothing more than tying a deserving politician to his bumper and taking him for a spin. He also closely identified with ordinary Americans. “We’re three-quarters grizzly bear and two-thirds car wreck and descended from a stock market crash on our mother’s side. You take your Germany, France, and Spain, roll them together, and it wouldn’t give us room to park our cars.”
He was proudly (or perhaps defiantly) conservative, even declaring the Almighty a Republican, though this didn’t mean all Republicans were worthy of adoration. So appalled was he by Donald Trump that he announced his intention to vote for Hillary Clinton.
O’Rourke was also a friend and mentor to young writers trying to make their way. Hannah Long, now an editor at HarperCollins, came under his wing while writing an early-career article for American Consequences, an online publication that he edited. “I was hovering on the threshold between the academic and the ‘real’ world,” she says, “and it felt magical to step across it with his blessing.”
He gave his blessing to other deserving entities, advising us to “wield a heavy hand at the bar” and even describing the resonating pleasure of drinking a cocktail made of cobra blood during a visit to China. None of which likely endeared him to the Surgeon General.
P.J. O’Rourke seemed prepared for that contingency. “Jesus said ‘love your enemies.’ He didn’t say not to have any.”
—Mr. Shiflett posts his original music and writing at Daveshiflett.com.
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He was such a pleasure to read:
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences."...P.J. O'Rourke
R. I. P.
Sadly O'Rourke's mental decline long preceded death.
O'Roarke had become an angry old man deranged by conspiracy theories and irrational delusions. May He Rest Now In Understanding Which Eluded Him In Life!
An angry old man?
I'm starting to feel self conscious.
LOL
Ah..yes,
As with other shock jocks like Tucker Carlson and Ben Garrison
They aren't at all like their public ( greedy ) persona, but it paid the bills.
I sent my regrets to the family 6 days ago. A very very nice man in person.
So appalled was he by Donald Trump that he announced his intention to vote for Hillary Clinton.
Says a lot about how the Republican Party evolved to abandoned actual conservatives.