P.J. O’Rourke is a 21st-century H.L. Mencken—a libertarian satirist and quote-machine who’s deeply suspicious of most any office-holder (“Politics is the attempt to achieve power and prestige without merit”).
Since the 1970s, O’Rourke has written for all kinds of publications, including Playboy, Esquire, Vanity Fair, Automobile, and The National Lampoon. He is the H.L. Mencken Research Fellow at the Cato Institute, a regular correspondent to for The Atlantic Monthly, and the best-selling author of 12 books, the latest of which is Driving Like Crazy: 30 Years of Vehicular Hell-Bending.
In June, Reason.tv’s Ted Balaker sat down with O’Rourke at the Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. Topics include: bailouts, who ruined the U.S. auto industry, politicians’ love affair with trains, how easy women made O'Rourke a youthful socialist and how getting a paycheck turned him into a libertarian.
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Approximately 15 minutes. This interview produced by Ted Balaker. Director of photography is Alex Manning, editor is Nate Chaffetz, and associate producer is Paul Detrick.