The only funny conservative is dead. P.J. O'Rourke, a satirist happy to suborn his formidable wit to the braying morons of the right, had lung cancer.
He defied the leftward trend of American humour – particularly the "gonzo" style of irreverent journalism popularised by writers like Hunter S Thompson – by offering a more conservative, but equally cutting and iconoclastic, critique of the nation's culture and politics.
It's never too soon. O'Rourke would be amused to see how quickly the bland veneration of his best work fades to alarm at the nastiness of the worst—all those "hoo boy I didn't remember that one" moments which ensure that the eulogies will be the last word. It's been recently noted by learned men that death no longer deifies authors but collapses their reputations into the footnotes; in P.J.'s honor I propose we name this process after him before everyone forgets.
