P.J. O'Rourke on the American Car

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

P.J. O’Rourke reads from his new book Driving Like Crazy at the Cato Institute (hat tip: Chris Moody).

Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

More by Edward Niedermeyer

Comments
Join the conversation
4 of 17 comments
  • Ronnie Schreiber Ronnie Schreiber on Jun 19, 2009
    Along with inventing the car, the best cars are made by the nationalist, socialist countries of Japan and Germany. With the nationalist, socialist country of China coming up quickly. When the car was invented (Siegfried Marcus 1870 or Daimler and Benz 17 years later) Germany and Austria were hardly socialist. Nationalist, yes, but hardly socialist. I wonder just who are all the socialists buying 7 Series BMWs, S Class Mercs and LS460 Lexii. Oh, and while he's had some successful books, P.J., like Harlan Ellison, has always been somewhat obscure. It was in Eat The Rich that O'Rourke pointed out that the only successful socialist countries, like in Scandinavia, were rich due to longstanding existing industries. It seems that socialism needs some functioning capitalists to pay for it all.
  • Reclusive_in_nature Reclusive_in_nature on Jun 19, 2009

    Give the public a means of buying a new Camaro SS (or performance equivalent) for about $15,000 and I might find myself wanting an 'Obamamobile'. Until then, no thanks.

  • Thebanana Thebanana on Jun 19, 2009

    PJ was funny when he wrote for National Lampoon in the 70's. Now...not so much.

  • Psarhjinian Psarhjinian on Jun 22, 2009
    It seems that socialism needs some functioning capitalists to pay for it all. And capitalists need socialists to keep them from metastasizing. Anyhoo, back on topic: the man is funny, not always (ever?) objective, but funny. His new stuff is starting to sound a more than a little "get off my lawn", and lot less like the writer of "Eat the Rich" or "Parliament of Whores". I've only started to read the book, and it really comes across as kind of flat and rather more playing to the crowd than making a statement.
Next