PJ O'Rourke on Hugh Hewitt

PJ O'Rourke is on a tour for his new book Driving like Crazy. On Friday, he was a guest on Hugh Hewitt's radio show and it proves to be a fun 35 minutes of audio. (Click here to listen.)

PJ O'Rourke On Conservative Talk Personalities

Here's an oldie but a goodie from 2004 as conservative PJ laments against people he might even agree with: the Limbaughs, Hannitys and Coulters. I Agree With Me

Coulter begins her book thus:

Liberals have a preternatural gift for striking a position on the side of treason. You could be talking about Scrabble and they would instantly leap to the anti-American position. Everyone says liberals love America, too. No they don't. Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy.

Now, there's a certain truth in what she says. But it's what's called a "poetic truth." And it's the kind of poetic truth best conveyed late in the evening after six or eight drinks while pounding the bar. I wasn't in a bar. I was in my office. It was the middle of the day. And I was getting a headache.

Read the whole thing.

The argument continues to this day at NRO.

PJ O'Rourke: The Ditch Carp of Democracy

Enjoyable as always, PJ has a column in an Aussie newspaper. (here)

When charming leftists stick their nose into things they don't understand they become ratchet-jawed purveyors of monkey-doodle and baked wind. They are piddlers upon merit, beggars at the door of accomplishment, thieves of livelihood, envy coddling tax lice applauding themselves for giving away other people's money. They are the lap dogs of the poly sci-class, returning to the vomit of collectivism. They are pig herders tending that sow-who-eats-her-young, the welfare state. They are muck-dwelling bottom-feeders growing fat on the worries and disappointments of the electorate. They are the ditch carp of democracy.

PJ O'Rourke: What Would Adam Smith Think Today?

As usual, PJ hits the ball out of the park. The Financial Times has this new commentary. Don't let me get in the way, just read it:

How then would Adam Smith fix the present mess? Sorry, but it is fixed already. The answer to a decline in the value of speculative assets is to pay less for them. Job done.

We could pump the banks full of our national treasure. But Smith said: “To attempt to increase the wealth of any country, either by introducing or by detaining in it an unnecessary quantity of gold and silver, is as absurd as it would be to attempt to increase the good cheer of private families, by obliging them to keep an nnecessary number of kitchen utensils.” [440]

We could send in the experts to manage our bail-out. But Smith said: “I have never known much good done by those who affect to trade for the public good.” [456]

And we could nationalise our economies. But Smith said: “The state cannot be very great of which the sovereign has leisure to carry on the trade of a wine merchant or apothecary”. [818] Or chairman of General Motors.

Read the whole thing.

Relevent Quote of the Day

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

- PJ O'Rourke

Hope!

Feeling good about government is like looking on the bright side of any catastrophe. When you quit looking on the bright side, the catastrophe is still there.

-PJ O'Rourke

PJ O'Rourke: We Blew It

PJ O'Rourke is one of the biggest influences I've had in forming my political opinions. Fiscal conservatism mixed with libertarianism. Parliament of Whores and Holidays in Hell spoke to me in my 20's. Here's a great, long article on the aftermath of the 2008 election.

We have all of this going for us, worldwide. And yet we chose to
deliver our sermons only to the faithful or the already converted. Of course the trailer park Protestants yell "Amen." If you were handling rattlesnakes and keeping dinosaurs for pets, would you vote for the party that gets money from PETA?

...

To go from slime to the sublime, there are the lofty issues about which we never bothered to form enough principles to go out and break them. What is the coherent modern conservative foreign policy?

We may think of this as a post 9/11 problem, but it's been with us all along. What was Reagan thinking, landing Marines in Lebanon to prop up the government of a country that didn't have one? In 1984, I visited the site where the Marines were murdered. It was a beachfront bivouac overlooked on three sides by hills full of hostile Shiite militia. You'd urge your daughter to date Rosie O'Donnell before you'd put troops ashore in such a place.