Political Journalist/Humorist Tells All

The Onion conducts a real and entertaining interview with P.J. O'Rourke, discussing the glory days of the National Lampoon, the through-line of American satire from the 1950s to the 1980s, and the triumph of certain libertarian ideas. There's also this little salutary nugget:

If there are three words that need to be used more in American journalism, commentary, politics, personal life… it's the magic words "I don't know."

Link via Tim Blair.

Comments

[Michael Gushulak]

Great interview -- and it's good to hear that somebody's reprinting the National Lampoon 1964 High School Yearbook. Second-hand copies of the original edition have gotten too pricey for my pocketbook.

[fyodor]

Matt, is this supposed to back your position on Iraq? 🙂

[Matt Welch]

Fyodor -- Thanks for noticing....

[Brad S]

O'Rourke is onto something here. It's ironic that, in the "age of information", where news and data fly around the globe literally at the speed of light inside fiber optic cables, that our population is probably less able to decipher information than it has ever been. In other words, we have a society of people who have a tremendous appetite for information, a great deal of discomfort with uncertainty, and a curious disregard for accuracy. As a result, politicians and other public figures are naturally afraid to say the words "I don't know". Saying "I don't know" is not only admitting ignorance (i.e. lack of information), it also smacks of uncertainty. As Americans, we want people who are assertive and we want people who are confident and sure of themselves. We don't care if they're flat out wrong in that confidence. That's why you'll see a politician pull a bullshit, contrived answer directly out of his ass before he admits that maybe, at the moment, he simply doesn't have all the facts necessary to come up with a good answer.

[Kevin Carson]

O'Rourke will always have a special place in my heart for his review of "It Takes a Village."

[Ray]

I own more P.J. O'Rourke books than any other single author. In fact, he probably helped shape me politically as I started reading him at Rolling Stone when I was still in high school.

It was hard to figure politics out: pre-internet and pre-Rush era, there weren't many alternate views to be found if you were a 15 year old whose dad somehow voted for every presidential victor since JFK.

Then you find this smart alleck talking about smoking dope and poking fun at everyone,. . .

[Warren]

Kevin,
Is that review online anywhere?

[tim]

I loathe P.J. O'Rourke, but his story "A Ramble In Lebanon" from Holidays In Hell is every bit the equal of Thomas Friedman's much lengthier and more celebrated collection of anecdotes in From Beirut to Jerusalem.

[thoreau]

I can really sympathize with O'Rourke's comment on the tractor manual:

Somewhere in there is an important piece of info on maintenance, and if you don't do that maintenance you'll spend a bunch of money on repairs later. But that important tidbit is buried between a bunch of warnings like "Don't tip over the tractor", "Don't run into power lines", etc. So he missed the important piece of info, and spent a bunch of money on repairs.

I'm a physicist, and when I work with chemicals the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) is useless. The warnings for table salt are almost exactly the same as the warnings for dangerous compounds. If you ever spill table salt, please evacuate the building, wear an OSHA-approved breathing apparatus, have a fire extinguisher on hand, and take the spilled salt to a hazardous waste collection site.

Don't get me wrong, there are ways to get useful info on chemical hazards. But the information from the chemical company is useless, because any chemical supplier who says "It's just rubbing alcohol. As long as you don't ingest it or set it on fire you're fine" risks getting sued if some idiot finds a creative way to injure himself with it. Our tort system has effectively ended the free dissemination of information by manufacturers.

[Plutarck]

I can find the review of Hillary's "Living History", but not of "It Takes A Village [Idiot]" - which I believe is in his latest book, "Couch CEO" or something.

Drat. Anyone able to find an online copy of the review?

[Brian]

"Foreigners Around the World" is vile and disgusting. It's also one of the funniest things ever published. You can see it online here:

http://www.nationallampoon.com/flashbacks/foreigners/foreigners.html

[Kevin Carson]

Warren,

I don't know. I'm gonna Google it and see if I can find a link to put up on my site. I don't hold out much hope, since it came out when the press was still talking about the "information superhighway" in the same tones you'd use speculating on a matter-energy transporter.

I do, however, remember O'Rourke's opening sentences: "The village is Washington. You are the child. That's all you need to know." He also responded to Hillary's confession that she used to cry when other kids pushed her down or made fun of her hair-bands, with a remark about the wisdom of children.

[Mark S.]

Ahhhh P.J. I remember first reading his stuff in high school. By far my all time fav of his compilations is "Republican Party Reptile" followed by "Give War A Chance."

On that note, I personally find that O'Rourke has become too much of an old fuddy duddy in his middle-aged. In his last book "CEO Of The Sofa" O'Rouke sounds more and more like a neo-con subscriber for "The Weekly Standard" than the fast-paced crypto-libertarian how would write articles entitled "How To Drive Fast On Drugs While Having Your Wing Wang Squeezed And Not Spill Your Drink."

Seems old P.J. is suffering from a nasty bout of post-60/70/80s Baby Boomer guilt and hides behind the I'm-an-adult-now-and-have-a-wife-and-kids argument for what I personally see as creeping statist attitude and wariness of freedom in general.

[Ray]

Ironically, P.J. would agree with Mark S's "fuddy duddy" declaration.

I went looking for O'Rourke's "Village Idiot" review and found many quotes but failed to find the whole enchilada.

It's a bit of an aside but I found a very interesting interview by The American Enterprise with O'Rourk and Robert Bork. Very good actually.

[Not Joseph Heller]

Joseph Heller once wrote a whole novel based on the phrase "I don't know". Can't remember the title ("Good as Gold"?). It followed the career of someone who ends up in a basement office of the Whitehouse. When asked what his function was, he always relpied honestly: "I don't know".

The President heard this astounding observation, and proceeded to make it his catchphrase. E..g, when asked what his views were on some obscure policy subject, he would simply reply: "I don't knwo".

The press and the public were of course also amazed at this.

Don;'t remember the ending...anyone help out?

[Anonymous]

"All the Trouble in the World" is his last truly great work. But O'Rourke in half-assed form is still better than anybody writing anything, anywhere.

[Plutarck]

He seems to be an excellant humorist, but the more I read of him the less I agree with him. It's the same old, same old left/right "'Them' are evil and/or dishonest and/or stupid" sort of crap, at least from some selected "conservative" quotations of his.

Then again, anyone taken in bits and bites can be made to look like an idiot, so without actually reading his books I cannot say with any meaningful certainty.

[Anonymous]

Read the books, Plutarch. Start with "Republican Party Reptile," "Eat the Rich," "Parlaiment of Whores," or "All the Trouble in the World." That's a big list, but if you like one, you oughta read 'em all.

[librarian]

If all else fails, trying to find works by P.J., look no further than Laissez-faire Books.

http://www.lfb.com/Home.asp

(They say they "beat Amazon.com's prices, guaranteed!")

Of course, if you're a penny-pincher and are looking for the FREE stuff, sorry, can't help you there. You're probably gonna havta spend an hour scouring Google links or something.

[Rabbitt]

Librarian reminds me of a bad call I made just last week.

I'm a very busy fella, so I haven't had much time to read lately. So I decided to go to the library and pick up a few of the cassette versions of P.J.'s books. (He does have a few of those.) Figured I could listen to the guy while driving or cleaning my desk.

Big mistake.

P.J.'s got an incisive mind, a great wit, and novel ideas -- but his narrative voice stinks. I found myself having to rewind very often, just to be able to "get" what he said. (On his tapes, he obviously just reads to you.)

Sooo boring! His voice almost put me to sleep.

After a while I couldn't stand it any longer, and returned the cassettes -- having tried to listen to only about the first eight minutes or so.

I guess I'm just going to have to make the time to read his material and pick up his BOOKS instead of his tapes.

[Anonymous]

It seems in the last decade or so the three little words are not "I don't know" but "I don't recall."

[Jeff Smith]

My favorite P.J.-ism was in an old review of
a book about the Kennedys in the American
Spectator. He lamented the fact that they
had been killed under romantic circumstances
rather than, as one might have wished, after
due course of law.

Jeff

[Franklin Harris]

I don't know about "fuddy duddy," but P.J. isn't funny anymore. It's been all downhill since "Give War a Chance."

[Russ D]

thoreau, I agree with you. That tractor tidbit needs to be expanded into something. Technical manuals have probably saved the lives of a few idiots we'd be better off without, while costing everybody gobs of money. The only good thing is the idiot who, beacause of the manual, didn't kill himself on power lines probably missed the really important stuff, too. The extra expenses do help the economy in some perverse way I guess. But maybe our economy has more help than it deserves at this point.

[yelowd]

Russ-
Regarding the benefits to the economy, take a look at Bastiat's "Broken Window Fallacy".

http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basEss1.html

Scroll down a bit.

[Kevin Carson]

Jeff Smith,

It must have cheered him up considerably when that Kennedy died a few years back playing touch football on skis (and crashed into a tree).

I keep hoping the Kennedy (there's so many I can't tell them apart) with the missing leg will have a sex scandal so Jon Stewart can say "Well, at least he's still got two good legs."

Smart-ass retort when somebody asks a stupid question: "Does Rose Kennedy own a black dress?"

[Kevin Carson]

Ray,

I've got an old clipping of "It takes a Village Idiot" around here somewhere. I may rekey it at the rate of a few paragraphs a day and post it on my site one of these days.

tim,

Why do you loathe O'Rourke, if I may ask? I don't know much about him personally. But I've got a bunch of old National Lampoons, and I used to love those rambling stories of his back when he was editor.

[Charles Hueter]

His Letter from Egypt back last year was the biggest exposure to him I've had, but it's a good one.

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