A conversation with P.J. O’Rourke - NYPOST.com

A conversation with P.J. O’Rourke - NYPOST.com

I love to read PJ ... conservative and NOT boring, a GREAT combination. I'm pretty much on board with adding "contempt for the common" to "consistency is not an issue" ... the "common" includes all things common ... common sense, common people for sure ... I likely need to work on the final form, but I think it is right up there in explanatory power with the lack of consistency in understanding the liberal mind.

The progressive mindset, O’Rourke thinks, amounts to a faith that "if you could just get the smartest people in the world together in a room, then by golly you can figure out a health care program. It’s this kind of contempt for the ordinary person’s expertise and what is best for him or her — contempt for the fundamental principle interest of self-interest that the world rests on — that [Obama] took away from the 1960s in large bags and cartons."

But the ’60s ultimately gave us Reagan. Obama has already given us the Tea Party and useful instruction on just how little can be accomplished by even the most eloquent and appealing of leaders. "We don’t vote to elect good people," O’Rourke says. "Certainly not great people, because they aren’t too great. We hold elections to throw the bums out."