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P.J. O'Rourke
Over at the Weekly Standard (don't get me started...) a once great right wing polemicist embraces self-disgust and moral posturing over the Founders' eternal principles, prompted by the illusory greatness of His O-liness, Barack Obama.
We've seen a lot of this lately: Peggy Noonan, Christopher Buckley, all the pro-bailout conservatives, including the most recent GOP nominee for President.
But PJ O'Rourke? The hip, the cool, the blazingly talented?
Getting married and having kids was obviously the worse thing that could have happened to his mind and his prose style. He's clearly hanging out with other upper class elites with their SUV strollers and nannies.
After all, when you get to the point that you employ a nanny or two, the once-dreaded phrase "nanny state" loses some of its power to induce cringes.
For instance, he declares baldly: "Nobody with kids is a liberal."
Apparently PJ O'Rourke is the only sentient being in America who didn't see and hear Obama fan Peggy Joseph declare (in the presence of her children) how happy she was now that President Obama would pay for her gas and mortgage, just like the man she couldn't be bothered marrying in the first place.
O'Rourke continues:
"Everybody wants his or her children to respect freedom, exercise responsibility, be honest, get educated, have opportunities, and own a bunch of guns. (The last is optional and includes, but is not limited to, me, my friends in New Hampshire, and Sarah Palin.)"
Actually Peej, that your kids "own a bunch of guns" may be the only thing you and Peggy DO agree on.
Wow, he has really lost it. What a shame for America. We need all the right minded polemicists we can get. And right when we need them most, they're revealing themselves to be nothing more than Democrats with different friends.
Read the rest of my fisking of PJ O'Rourke here.
For a more polite but quietly devastating take down, check out this fine post by "The Other McCain."
Comments
Wow Kathy, you are one little angry whack job.
I am so, so, so happy that you are now miserable. Your pathetic, selfish philosophy has just been dealt its worst blow since 1964. I hope you wallow in your misery and develop all the health problems one would expect in a malevolent overweight troll.
PS - great use of the word "polemicist" -- too bad you used it twice. Did you learn what it means recently?
That's the term I've been searching for...'faux-cons'. Thanks.
maybe it's all that time he spends on NPR . it may have just been osmosis.
Artemis, thanks for giving us all a wonderful example of the Left's tolerance and wisdom!
Artemis son, what the hell? Please take your meds. It sure is awful funny that so-called liberals or progressives(whatever the PC name is) are so tolerant of different opinions. Like in most cases people get angry when they are wrong or caught in a lie. What will you liberal dweebs want next-no more Fox News or talk radio??
Obama couldn't shine Barry Goldwater's shoes. I'm the nature boy and I'm kiss stealing-wheeling dealing-limo driving-jet flying-styling and profiling all the way to Space Mountain brother so all you liberal pencil-neck dweebs go cry somewhere else. WOOOO!!!!!!!!
Well, one good thing. At least this sinking ship will have no rats on it left. Expect many more to be drawn upon the rocks of their own treachery. If there is any thing that has really made me mad in this election, besides the obvious frauds of Obama. Its the skullduggery of the media, even so called Conservatives who have scrambled onto the band wagon knowing what is in store for America. No integrity or honesty left in these beggars in silk. Being a canuck we have already been threw this & are still suffering the effects 40 years latter.
Bodes well for a future in a party that actually follows its own precepts. That’s in the future though.
Mean while we had better make Obamas form of change as hard as possible to achieve.
In the Canada's as well.
The Champaign Journalist van go hang themselves for all I care & it seems a lot of others agree. The treatment meted out to Sarah Palin is abominable. As has been the attitude of the press against Women by Women & nut less monkeys who think there men.
Kathy nice lay out on your blog today. Enjoyed it vastly.
JMO
Could have been getting married, but I think it was joining Cato. Anyone who comes up with a word like 'Libertarianism', and means it, cannot be funny.
Why one earth Conservative Examiner continues to post Shaidle's puke-ups is beyond me.
Here in Canada she's known as an incorrigible racist who tried to jump the Ann Coulter/Rush Limbaugh Express - just as it was in the process of being retired forever.
Tough luck, Kathy! Time to go back to the Lynn Crosbie rip-off poetry!
Maybe ya can dig up some of your old chapbooks and auction them off to pay your legal fees!
Yes, Kathy: another former conservative has decided to become acquainted with objective reality...
Soon you'll be the only one left bravely fuliminating against all them durn minorities from beind your computer monitor.
fight on warrior!
russ;
No wonder the party you admire has a donkey as its signature Token. Folks like you are always the Jack asses that show up at the ball nude.
Must be chocking you alive to know you had nothing to do with your Messiahs rise. You could not even vote. It must be like acid in your throat to know YOU where never a part of this history.
Its why the Canadian left is so bitter. There the horse left out, & Obama hears them not. Nor do Canucks as the last election proved.
When Canada’s economic sector suffers under this protectionist, you will be squealing like a pig.
Kathy is hardly a bigot. She tells it as she see’s it, which is 90% more than most people have the guts to say but think. Seems to me you libs believe in race to the point of idiocy, & the misfortune of those you designate minorities. Keep em down & stupid eh? Divide them into neat categories with all the attendant restrictions covered in a sugar placebo of lies, but bleed poison for any Human dignity. Than forget where all just 6 generations apart genetically. There are no mules in the human race dummy. Where all inter-fertile. Race is a chimera used for subjugation of others that folks like you support by buying into the BS.
There is coming a time when synchronic retard activists will be scrounging for food in your wonderful Utopia‘s dirt. Remember you where warned. So was Zimbabwe. People like russ seem to be just dhimmies acting out like the morally superior terrorist-coddling whiners they are.
JMO
Revnant Dream: 5-star post *****
Go ahead all you arugula eating brainwashed Obamabots make my day.
Russ:
A racist is anyone winning an argument with a liberal.
As for Rush and Coulter: Rush has more listeners than all the network news shows combined have viewers.
Coulter has a new book out next month and it promises to be another million selling hardcover.
My new book just went into its second printing.
Sorry: what were you saying again?
Hey Russ, are crime statistics racist too?
The blazingly talented? I can't put my finger on when O'Rourke became irrelevant, but it sure happened, just like the Republican Party.
Apparently, brevity and logic elude O'Rourke like smaller government and balanced budgets elude the GOP.
"a racist is someone who's winning an argument with a liberal"?
You're so boring! How many times have you pulled that one outof the mothballs? You're like a machine - do you think that's a bon mot of great wit? Don't your fingers curl with boredom when you go to type it?
Is that really the best you can do?
Comeon, you're a dyed in the wool racist! Be proud of it! You're always saying how you hate mealy mouths.
You call Jamaicans 'filthy' and Pakistanis'illiterate violet savages', Native Indians 'parasites'.
If those aren't racist statements nothing is.
You speak for all the people like your workingclass Hamilton parents who are tired ofholding back what they think about minorities just 'cause some fancy-pants intellectuals in the big city say that racism is *wrong* or somethin'!
So- go for it! The Examiner's here to support your racism - and the profits from the 'second printing' of your pamphlet will take care of all your legal fees.
Russ let it go man? You talk about Kathy using the same lines? If you disagree with Kathy so much why are you constantly reading her posts. Would you have a problem if she used names like "rednecks", "white trailor trash", etc.. It seems the only time someone like yourself gets their panties in a knot is when someone is calling minorities names. I support Kathy's right of free speech, and hell I even support your right to the same. So russ let it go, their are plenty of "progressive" columns you could read and praise to your hearts content.
Reading this opinion reinforces my opinion about racism in the USA. Blatant Racism at that. Very sad.
Yes Carolyn, it's sad, and disgusting that racism is still so blatant as well as the unbelievable obsession with guns. Those are just two of the reasons I chose to emigrate from the USA as a young adult. Observing the continuing racism and obsession with guns and the last 8 years has confirmed yet again that I made the right decision.
You know, folks - all this "purge the Party" stuff just reminds me of back when Dennis Miller was still sane.
He actually said something pretty profound before he became one of the crazies he used to mock:
"Don't you see? First you kill off the other races, then you start killing off the other religions, then you start killing off left-handed people, then you start killing off each other over the length of your crew-cuts, until finally there's only one guy left - and no doubt that crazy SOB will attack the mirror."
What is up with all these crazy posts? What planet do some of you people live on? What the hell.
Arguing with people who comment on your column isn't something real writers do, so stop embarrassing yourself.
Anyone familiar with his work knows that P.J. O'Rourke's has always been a libertarian. He's saying the same things he's said for years, but I guess you have to make it seem like he's now abandoning decades of hating fur'ners and thumping Bibles in order to blame someone for the Democratic win.
In fact, he's especially undeserving of your scorn because he was at least saying these things during the Bush administration. I sure didn't hear any "fiscal" conservatives blaming the "social" conservatives back when they were winning elections.
Finally, congrats on your book going into its second printing. Remember though, just because you're drawing flies doesn't mean you're made of honey. Flies like other things too...
Thus far, most of the 'analysis' regarding the GOP, conservatism, and the free market movement seems to be equal parts score settling and CYA excuses. I'd love for one of these guys to stop and explain how they failed to move the public in the direction of freedom. Take the CATO Institute and the Libertarian movement. After how many years and how many dollars worth of donations, and the free market is being blamed for the current economic situation. For all the folks Mr. O'Rourke has inspired in his writings, it hasn't translated into an actionable success. Until those failures have been addressed, we won't be able to make any progress.
To put it another way, Ron Paul has been a libertarian sweetheart for ages. But he only gained traction by embracing the looniest, restrictionest, Bircher/Truther-esque section of the electorate. And he's the closest thing to a standarbearer for Libertarians these days. Not really a great time to be a free marketeer, if that's the only apparent way to be successful in the public arena.
Ah...a breath of fresh air. Great article, searing insight.
Great piece.To Russ aka Raustus,the word"racism" lost meaning and currency when it was hijacked by the Marxist MLK in the 60s.The use of shoutdown ephithets is what silenced decent people from debating the explosion of minority crimes,entitlements,victimhood status,and legal and illegal immigration problems that has destroyed Western Civilization.Yes,it is about to end,as designed by the Illuminists that invented Communism,Socialism,Marxism,and multiculturalism and preached the virtue of diversity that history proved utter insanity.The Left-Right paradigm is a hegelian dialectic,but the liberals are the biggest hypocrites on earth.Gated communities have kept them immune from the harsh realities of politically correct written and unwritten laws that are dirty inner city experiences that must be suffered by the sheeple.A free and sovereign person should have the right to be a racist as long as they are not physically assaulting others.And tribalism is an intrinsic part of human nature.Which is why races self-segregate when not forced together.The demonization of whites has gone on for so long that even the dimmest amongst the human race are waking up,and speaking out,and taking the flack from the mainstream Communist media in the West.
Otis one hell of a post! Tell it like it truly is and everybody knows it!
Maybe Russ could explain all the ways our country has benefitted by multiculturalism in the last 50 years, because frankly I don't see it. Otis you are completely right tribalism is completely natural and certainly nothing to be ashamed of. It seems the white race is the only one buying into this farce, certainly a estimated 95% of African-Americans voting for Obama proves that blacks unabashedly support their own kind. The jews have many organizations that support their own interest such as AIPAC, ADL etc., while the mexicans have LaRaza or LaRaza Unita, which means united race in spanish. It is perfectly natural and desirable for a race to defend and support their people and cultures. Many liberal whites will support the Tibetan people in their struggle to maintain their culture and identity against massive Chinese immigration, or say the Indians in the rain forest. Yet if some white person comes along, who only wants to perserve his race and culture in the country his forefathers built and founded he or she is a racist of the most evil sort. The hypocrisy is obvious to the point of being absurd. Look at the haven of multiculturalism that is Brazil, now compare it to the homogeneous country of Japan. No comparison in which is the most livable and successful country.
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