P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

If politicians are good copy, I like them. If not, I don’t care about them.

We shouldn't require our politicians to be movie stars. Then again, we're all influenced by charisma. It's hard not to be. We all collectively fall for it.

The journalistic and political classes are very eager to borrow the cultural authority of comedians when it suits them, sending out gala invitations and posing for photos in hopes that a bit of that edgy satirical shine will rub off on them.

Our love of Hollywood-style glamour helped elect two presidents: JFK and Reagan, who fulfilled the prophecy that a country so enamored of actors would eventually make one their president.

The entertainment person gets a certain credibility, and the politician gets a certain notoriety. I'm against it.

Today Washington is our Hollywood, the Senate our Warner Bros., the White House our Beverly Hills. People who never read a line of a movie magazine deal with the lives of leaders as if they were Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

People want to pick the leader, and we are obsessed with celebrity and whoever is on the cover of this or that.

The response is to the image, not to the man, since 99 percent of the voters have no contact with the man.

Barack Obama is not only going to reside in Washington and be on call, essentially, with the Drive-By Media, he's setting up what essentially is going to be a shadow government.

Even with the help of anti-Russian propaganda in the mass media, Germany has not succeeded in damaging this sympathy.

We pick politicians by how they look on TV and Miss America on where she stands on the issues. Isn't that a little backwards?

I call him Governor Bush because that's the only political office he's ever held legally in this country. I don't care where they hang his portrait, I don't care how big his library is. To me, he'll always be "Governor Bush." I don't even capitalize his name when I type it anymore.

He [Tony Blair] was always ambivalent about the [Rupert] Murdoch papers. But he gave other papers the chance to believe it was just about 'The Independent.' And that was wrong.

The New York Times carries as much weight as the FBI, and if the New York Times says there's nothing to see between Trump and Russia and Putin, then there's nothing to see.

Donald Trump was underrated, but he understood social media and he understood reality television.

Perception is everything and that becomes the reality. It's a big problem for Hillary Clinton.

George Clooney says he's had sex with too many women to ever run for office. He was immediately made Prime Minister of Italy.

Whether it's Paris Hilton or Kim Kardashian or whoever, stupidity is certainly celebrated.

Obama is seen as very, very cool. I think a lot of people find him sexy.

People in show business who are interested in politics, like Ronald Reagan, fare so well because they do know the magic of dealing with the public. This is something that can't be taught in a book. If they can produce after they've won over the public. If you can live up to your ballyhoo, you've got it made.

On the BSkyB bid, Rupert Murdoch is now in town in London seeking to sort things out. I would simply say to him, look how people feel about this. Look how the country has reacted with revulsion to the revelations. So do the decent and sensible thing and reconsider, think again, about your bid for BSkyB.

Television is likely to do more to revolutionize politics than sound broadcasting did. Political candidates may have to adopt new techniques to benefit from visual radio: their dress, their smiles and gestures, all will be important. How they look, as well as what they say, may determine to an appreciable extent their popularity. The eyes of the public will be upon them.

The whole framework of the presidency is getting out of hand. It's come to the point where you almost can't run unless you can cause people to salivate and whip each other with big sticks. You almost have to be a rock star to get the kind of fever you need to survive in American politics.

When you do a computerized poll, where people are comfortable, Donald Trump vote goes up very dramatically. And I think people don't realize the effort by the elite media, the totally dishonest effort to submerge him, has had an effect.

I don't know if Mika Brzezinski intended to be that honest. She's very worried the president intimidating the media is gonna lead to people believing what the president says instead of what the media says, and it's the media's job to control what people think. She used the word "control." She worries that Donald Trump is acing them on this and her fear is rational, but her philosophy is off course, all wet.