Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

P.J. O’Rourke Was America’s Greatest Satirist and Coolest Conservative
New York Post ^ | February 15, 2022 | John Podhoretz

Posted on 02/15/2022 3:17:46 PM PST by nickcarraway

P.J. O’Rourke, who has died at the age of 74, once hosted a small New Year’s party at his apartment in Washington. The year was 1990. He’d just returned from Germany, where he had covered the fall of the Berlin Wall.

I expressed my sorrow that I hadn’t been there to see it. He went into his bedroom and returned with a small tin of mints. He’d emptied it — and he’d put a shard of the wall he’d pickaxed himself with his own hands inside it.

“Happy New Year,” he said. That was P.J. Though he and I liked each other, we weren’t intimates. And yet he gave me something of inestimable value just because he could.

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 90s; media; obit; pjorourke
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-35 last
To: carriage_hill
"Thanks; he was good. Sorry I missed that time period here on FR."

In those days there were Freepers protesting alongside the nation's busiest streets. We had the "Freeper Air Force" (often compliments of the great "Gonzo") toting banners with political statements over filled sports stadiums. Chapters in every state had occasional "conventions" (in fact, a lifetime ago I organized the first such convention at the Marriot on International Blvd in Orlando).

In those days we were simply standing on principle. We were the "Tea Party before the Tea Party".

21 posted on 02/15/2022 5:22:57 PM PST by The Duke (Search for 'Sydney Ducks' and understand what is needed.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: The Duke

My dad and I loved Firehat. We had many hearty laughs over his witticisms.


22 posted on 02/15/2022 5:23:45 PM PST by punknpuss
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Rastus
"Well, he invented the Munsters. That’s quite something."

That's true, and contributed to a number of other popular programs as well.

23 posted on 02/15/2022 5:24:44 PM PST by The Duke (Search for 'Sydney Ducks' and understand what is needed.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: quikstrike98

I will be buy several of his books in the next few days.


24 posted on 02/15/2022 6:02:40 PM PST by Maine Mariner
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

No, he wasn’t. He voted for Hillary.

Screw him.

L


25 posted on 02/15/2022 6:04:33 PM PST by Lurker (Peaceful coexistence with the Left is not possible. Stop pretending that it is.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: The Duke

I joined the local Tea Party in PA in 2010, heard about FR in 2011 from a neighbor of my nursery business in 2011, and joined here in 2012. Tea Party things sort of fizzled-out here in 2015-16.


26 posted on 02/15/2022 6:33:38 PM PST by Carriage Hill (A society grows great when old men plant trees, in whose shade they know they will never sit.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: Jacquerie

RIP


27 posted on 02/15/2022 6:34:58 PM PST by xp38
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Lurker

From the New Statesman last year

Contrarianism remains his product. O’Rourke sprang back into the national spotlight during the 2016 presidential election by announcing that he was going to vote for Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump.

He puts the decision down to his natural conservatism. “Politics is a matter of least worst,” he told me when I recently stayed at his farm. “She was the devil I knew – she was going to be another eight years of Obama, which we had endured. Donald Trump? I knew people who knew him. Nobody liked him. I just thought he was unstable…dangerous. I still do.”

Apparently he wasn’t aging that well in 2016 or last year. I’ll hazard a guess that he remained silent about or actually cheered the coup.


28 posted on 02/15/2022 7:07:08 PM PST by hardspunned (former GOP globalist stooge)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: carriage_hill

Yes. He was.


29 posted on 02/15/2022 7:34:01 PM PST by sauropod (Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad. Life is risk, your highness.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: carriage_hill

People just to drop the Tea Party and go Trump. The era of small government ended, probably for good.


30 posted on 02/15/2022 9:10:29 PM PST by nickcarraway
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: sauropod

Sorry I missed that era. I also understand Tony Snow was here.;


31 posted on 02/16/2022 5:18:00 AM PST by Carriage Hill (A society grows great when old men plant trees, in whose shade they know they will never sit.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: nickcarraway

Wasn’t going to say anything til I saw John “The Pud” wrote this. Pud is an evil man, a total warmonter anti-Trumper. As for P.J., God rest his soul. I never found him all that funny.

Instead, I looked to American Spectator’s “Continuing Crisis.”

But hey, that’s just me. Different humor for different people.


32 posted on 02/16/2022 5:57:45 AM PST by LS ("Castles made of sand, fall in the sea . . . eventually" (Hendrix) )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: LS

Podhoretz blocked me on twitter for pointing out there was nothing conservative about Never Trumpers supporting Hillary Clinton in 2016. It’s kind of funny to me he did that because usually higher profile people just ignore the replies from the unwashed masses.


33 posted on 02/16/2022 6:09:49 AM PST by lodi90
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: quikstrike98
I pulled out my copy of Holidays in Hell and read the intro last night. I was blown away by his summary of what he learned on his travels. This world has fallen so far away from this truth.

Finally, people are all exactly alike. There's no such thing as a race and barely such thing as an ethnic group. If we were dogs, we'd be the same breed...People are all the same although their circumstances differ terribly. Trouble doesn't come from Slopes, Kikes, Niggers, Spics, or White Capitalist Pigs; it comes from the heart.

RIP, PJ.

34 posted on 02/16/2022 6:17:28 AM PST by FalloutShelterGirl (Cool! I found my original screen name!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: lodi90

He called me a “dirty pig,” an interesting choice of words from a Jew when Jews were called exactly that in Nazi Germany.


35 posted on 02/17/2022 5:34:39 AM PST by LS ("Castles made of sand, fall in the sea . . . eventually" (Hendrix) )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-35 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson