P. J. O'Rourke Political Quotations

The good news is that, according to the Obama administration, the rich will pay for everything. The bad news is that, according to the Obama administration, you're rich.

The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop.

Once you've built the big machinery of political power, remember you won't always be the one to run it.

Our democracy, our culture, our whole way of life is a spectacular triumph of the blah. Why not have a political convention without politics to nominate a leader who's out in front of nobody? Maybe our national mindlessness is the very thing that keeps us from turning into one of those smelly European countries full of pseudo-reds and crypto-fascists and greens who dress like forest elves.

God has no role to play in politics except to make sure politicians go where they belong. To hell.

I try to ONLY ridicule people who's efforts are sincere. Very little trouble has been caused in the world by insincere efforts. An occasional seduction maybe. There were very few insincere Stalinists or Nazis.

The purpose of the Senate is to keep 100 middle aged knuckleheads out of the private sector where they can do real harm.

You can't get something for nothing. Everybody remembers this except politicians.

Intelligence collection has been given an additional bureaucracy to correct the problems created by too much bureaucracy in intelligence collection.

Haitians weren't screwed-up, but everything political, intellectual, and material around them is.

The American political system is like fast food - mushy, insipid, made out of disgusting parts of things and everybody wants some.

Many reporters, when they go to work in the nation's capital, begin thinking of themselves as participants in the political process instead of glorified stenographers.

Mankind is supposed to have evolved in the treetops. But I have examined my sense of balance, the prehensility of my various appendages, and my attitude toward standing on anything higher than, say, political principles, and I have concluded that, personally, I evolved in the backseat of a car.

So what if I don't agree with the Democrats? What's to disagree with? They believe everything. And what they don't believe, the Republicans do. Neither of them stands for anything they believe in, anyway.

I'm a political conservative.

The political process consists entirely of politicians talking out of their butts.