P. J. O'Rourke writer and humorist, dies aged 74....

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/15/pj-o-rourke-dies-writer-humorist

The conservative writer and humorist PJ O’Rourke, whose acerbic wit and writings often won admiration on both sides of America’s political divide, has died, media reports and colleagues said. He was 74 years old.

Peter Sagal, O’Rourke’s colleague and host of the NPR radio show Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!, said on Twitter: “I’m afraid it’s true. Our panelist and my dear friend PJ O’Rourke has passed away.”

The CNN host Jake Tapper reported that O’Rourke had died of cancer. “Our dear friend and cherished Grove Atlantic author P.J O’Rourke passed away this morning from complications of lung cancer,” Tapper quoted O’Rourke’s publisher as saying.


O’Rourke was one of the most quoted writers in America, dissecting US politics and culture with a withering disdain and a powerful line in put-downs – often laced with a warm, self-deprecating humanity.

He held a variety of roles that showcased his writing, commentary and reportage – and most importantly his humor. They included stints as editor in chief of National Lampoon and Rolling Stone’s foreign affairs desk chief.

His targets featured government and politicians in works like Parliament of Whores and Don’t Vote: It Just Encourages the Bastards but also ranged towards foreign reporting such as his war correspondent book Holidays in Hell. Nearly all his work was laced with tales from his own life and joy of hard partying, at least in his early writing.

Though he was notably – and briefly – a hippy in the late 196os and early 1970s O’Rourke found his home on the right of the political spectrum, though far from the conservative social values that many in the Republican party embraced. One of his best-known works was titled Republican Party Reptile: The Confessions, Adventures, Essays and Outrages of PJ O’Rourke.

Though O’Rourke often reserved his sharpest barbs for the left and Democrats, he admitted that in 2016’s election he would be supporting Hillary Clinton over the Republican nominee, Donald Trump. “She’s wrong about absolutely everything, but she’s wrong within normal parameters,” he said.

O’Rourke was from Toledo, Ohio, born the son of a car salesman. He went to university in Ohio and, later, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. He was married twice, latterly moving to New Hampshire with his second spouse, Tina Mallon, with whom he had three children.

Numerous friends and former colleagues paid tribute to him.

“PJ was special. When he came by the office, the fun and wit went up a notch, sparks were in the air, and we all felt a certain joie de vivre. I cherish the memories,” wrote the conservative writer Bill Kristol of a shared time at the rightwing the Weekly Standard.

“PJ O’Rourke was one of the nicest writers I ever had the pleasure of meeting and drinking and (very rarely) corresponding with. No reason whatsoever for him to be decent to some junior editor at one of the many outlets he wrote for, and yet. What a loss,” posted Sunny Bunch, culture editor at the Bulwark.


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/15/pj-o-rourke-dies-writer-humorist

 

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The Inimitable P. J. O’Rourke

Across 11 years of writing at The Atlantic, the late journalist and satirist championed a sense of fun.

www.theatlantic.com

The Inimitable P. J. O’Rourke
Across 11 years of writing at The Atlantic, the late journalist and satirist championed a sense of fun.
By Faith Hill
David Howells / Corbis / Getty
FEBRUARY 15, 2022, 7:55 PM ET
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The journalist and political satirist P. J. O’Rourke, who died today, had a knack for making serious subjects funny. In 11 years of writing for The Atlantic, he covered bleakness—Enron, war memorials—with skepticism and a dash of absurdity. (Explaining his wariness of lawmakers, he wrote: “A chilling characteristic of politicians is that they’re not in it for the money.”)

Over his career, he was the editor in chief of National Lampoon, the foreign-affairs desk chief for Rolling Stone, and a research fellow at the Cato Institute. He was also, notably, a conservative libertarian committed to dissension and intellectual honesty, who was often at odds with other Republicans. Yet for all his grumpy criticism, real warmth and humanity shone through O’Rourke’s writing. He poked fun at himself right along with everyone else; he reminded us that it’s possible to care deeply without taking ourselves so seriously.


The sense of fun that O’Rourke championed feels rarer now. Even his own writing took on a harsher edge over the years. But that might be all the more reason to return to his work, some of which feels particularly prescient. In 2004, he wrote about listening to Rush Limbaugh in his car and wondering about the purpose of shouting into an abyss of like-minded listeners: “When was the last time a conservative talk show changed a mind?” In an oeuvre full of sardonic wit, it was an earnest moment, showing us that his appeals to open-mindedness weren’t jokes at all. Here are six of his memorable stories for The Atlantic:

“Was Clinton Cool?” (2001)

In his first piece for The Atlantic, O’Rourke described interviewing then–Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton in 1992, along with three other journalists. “Who’s your favorite Beatle?” they asked. Clinton’s answer spoke volumes to O’Rourke about the future president’s level of coolness.

“How to Stuff a Wild Enron” (2002)

This piece not only explained the Enron scandal, but was a biting commentary on the limits of marketplace regulation: “We don’t understand finance, but it’s regulated, so we’re safe,” O’Rourke wrote.

“No Apparent Motive” (2002)

O’Rourke made the logic-based case for distrusting politicians. What’s motivating them, anyway? “The average practical politician has less power than a high school senior-class president and cannot so much as unilaterally decree that the annual House-Senate sock-hop theme will be ‘Hula Luau.’” His conclusion: They’re not all evil, but they are all ridiculous.


“The Veterans of Domestic Disorders Memorial” (2003)

O’Rourke reflected on his younger days protesting the Vietnam War with a heavy dose of sarcasm. “As a generation, perhaps we weren’t the ‘greatest,’ but we certainly were the greatest surprise, when we returned from college drenched in patchouli oil, spouting Karl Marx, and wearing clown pants and braids in our beards,” he wrote.

“I Agree With Me” (2004)

After listening to Limbaugh, O’Rourke wondered why everyone seemed to be yelling past each other, and whether the same brand of hectoring existed on the left. “I looked for things that debased freedom, promoted license, ridiculed responsibility, and denigrated man and God—but that was all of TV,” he wrote. “How do you tell the liberal parts from the car ads?”

“Let’s Cool It With the Big Ideas” (2012)

In his last piece for The Atlantic, O’Rourke voiced a characteristically counterintuitive take: When it comes to ideas, “the bigger, the worse.” Yet his own life was rich with ideas—and his readers are better for that.

 

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