P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

I wonder about guys like Sean Hannity, Keith Olbermann and Mark Levin. They're on such a mission. I mean, I love Hannity and Levin to death, but on the radio they're insane. How can you keep that up?

Glenn Beck is Rush redux - Limbaugh with liposuction, partying like it's still 1993.

The reason that conservative talk radio works is because there is an audience for it.

The reason I take Rush Limbaugh seriously is not because he's offensive or right-wing, but because he is one of the few people addressing a large group of disaffected people in this country. And despite his frequent denials, Limbaugh does indeed have a somewhat cult-like effect on his ditto heads.

I refuse to listen to Rush Limbaugh. I listen to a lot of conservative radio when I drive around in my car. I refuse to listen to him because he's just ridiculous, just a clown. I love Rachel Maddow obviously.

I remember a prominent conservative media figure, talking to him about prominent liberal media figures that he knew, that he liked. And I questioned him. "How can you trust these people? I mean, these are..." "No, no! They're good guys. In fact, one of them likes you, says you're not a hater." And I was supposed to be thrilled to hear this!I was supposed to be mollified that some liberal media figure had just pronounced I was okay because, after he had listened to me, he had determined I wasn't a hater. I did not take that as a compliment, and I got kind of mad.

I've gotten balanced coverage and broad coverage - all we could have asked. ... For heaven sakes, we kid about the liberal media, but every republican on earth does that.

When you've got somebody who's a flaming liberal like Bill Maher calling you out, something's wrong.

I don't think Fox News or Rush Limbaugh need Clinton it turns out. I think there's a hunger out there for - whether it's on the left or right - a more lively and provocative type of political journalism. I think Salon and Fox on the other side have both benefited from that.

A lot of young poets today, from what I've heard and experienced, can't get their heads past George W. Bush, and I've heard so many poems about this democracy and this era of politics that I'm kind of bored by it.

Conservative talk radio works because there are lots of conservatives who are convinced that they are not getting the whole story from the regular media.

I had to make a movie about politics sometime in my career and it was impossible to do it seriously.

These right wing talk radio show hosts can’t even deliver a pizza, much less a Presidential nomination.

I am not saying Russia is not important, but Trump's base is very well defended against that: 'the liberal media is out to get him', 'it's fake news', and all the rest.

I don't think what you hear on talk radio is representative of America.

In a weird way, our satirists probably have the most complicated, nuanced views of our politics now - Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver. I don't know what that says about our country.

I've had shows where, afterwards, people have commented or hoped I would talk more about something in politics or that I would make a joke about Mitch McConnell or something like that.

It's interesting to me that apparently distasteful comments from the Right against weak targets tend to draw a lot less media fire than apparently distasteful comments from the Left against hard targets. That's one of the threads that runs through the show and that people hopefully pick up on.

The people who didn't vote for [Donald Trump], didn't watch his rallies. They only know what the media said about him.

Steve Bannon has quoted as lamenting the fact that he predicts a "Fox News" that will be more centrist in the future. He came after our boss Rupert Murdoch in some unflattering terms.

Liberals are hopping mad because Rush Limbaugh referred to phony soldiers as "phony soldiers." They claim he was accusing all Democrats in the military of being "phony." True, all Democrats in the military are not phony soldiers, but all phony soldiers seem to be Democrats.

Because Fox News is allegedly biased in favor of conservatives, critics whine like children whose lunch money got snatched. Conservatives have been pummeled for decades. Now that Fox News and conservative talk radio give people alternatives, critics squeal as if being sodomized.

Politics has become incendiary. People don't find it so funny now so I have to be careful, but I have to wake them up with some truths and the truths I aim at them are over 100 years old. Facts that no one can dispute.

Where would the Republican Party being without talk radio the last 25 years? And yet who now is enemy number one? Talk radio! I don't know what I did to Michael Gerson, but he's back again in the Washington Post blaming everything [Donald] Trump on me.

I checked the emails the same theme that I could summarize them. "Rush, whatever you're talking about here - [Donald] Trump, you talk about the Republicans, [Barack] Obama and so forth - nothing's gonna change with the media the way it is. And all of it is academic, Rush. You know it".