O’Rourke hates politics, but finds humor everywhere

Al-Qaida operatives might not be surprised to hear that Americans do not hold them in high… Al-Qaida operatives might not be surprised to hear that Americans do not hold them in high esteem, but humorist P.J. O’Rourke does not mince words in his estimation of their profession.

“One thing we know about terrorism is that it’s conducted by losers,” O’Rourke told an audience at Carnegie Music Hall Monday night. “When a man blows up himself in a suicide attack, he doesn’t have many career prospects.”

O’Rourke brought his unvarnished wit to Pittsburgh as the first speaker of the 2004-2005 Drue Heinz Lecture Series. Directing his broadsides to everything from organized religion to Social Security, the former Rolling Stone foreign correspondent’s comments echoed the liveliness of his book titles, like “Peace Kills” and “Parliament of Whores”.

While O’Rourke’s writing tends to focus on politics and policy, he said he recently decided that he “hates” politics, and he particularly decried efforts to register young voters.

“I wish MTV would run a series of ads that said ‘Election 2004: Kids, could you care less? Just stay home and smoke dope’,” he said.

O’Rourke plans to vote for President George W. Bush in the upcoming election, although he said the results of the spring Democratic presidential primaries disappointed him.

“I was very upset because I belonged to a core group of Dean supporters,” O’Rourke said, referring to former Vermont governor and presidential candidate Howard Dean. “We’re called Bush voters.”

O’Rourke called Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry a “Ted Kennedy with a designated driver,” and he mocked Kerry’s positions on Iraq.

“What does John Kerry propose to do? Give Saddam Hussein a Mulligan, let him take another tee shot?” O’Rourke asked.

O’Rourke also saved some of his salvoes for President George W. Bush, suggesting that Bush’s 2000 victory did not meet the historical standard for disputed elections in the United States.

“When John F. Kennedy became a president through fraud, at least his old man had enough respect for free-market principles to buy the election,” O’Rourke said.

O’Rourke’s libertarian leanings shaded many of his remarks, including an attack on federal entitlements like Medicare and Social Security. According to O’Rourke, both Democratic and Republican health-care reform plans are deeply flawed, and neither party has addressed the burden of Social Security on younger generations.

O’Rourke’s solution for reforming Social Security: raise the retirement age. He said the government conceived of Social Security as insurance, not as an old-age pension.

“Social Security was supposed to support [retirees] from when they’re 65 until they kick off, which was about a month later,” O’Rourke said of the original purpose of the benefit. “Now, they’re playing tennis and buying jet skis.”

When asked about Bush’s religious beliefs, he dismissed them as harmless but ill-conceived, and he instead proposed that the course of history refuted Bush’s Christian worldview.

“Does it look like God has been involved in politics?” O’Rourke asked.

Several members of the audience attacked O’Rourke for his support of Bush’s Iraq policy, which O’Rourke attached to a broader war on terrorism.

“Is the war on Islamicists worth fighting? I think we should fight it tooth and nail,” O’Rourke said.