I'm currently re-reading P.J. O'Rourke's Parliament of Whores. A true classic. P.J. had some interesting thing to say at Dartmouth recently:

O'Rourke also voiced skepticism about several of the major Democratic presidential candidates' plans for the reconstruction of Iraq.

"Kerry voted to threaten Iraq with force, but he thought that actually using force is wrong," O'Rourke said. "The technical political term for this is, of course, 'bullshit.'"

Of Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich's plan to create a "Secretary of Peace" cabinet position if elected, O'Rourke said that this official "would do for international understanding what the Postmaster General currently does for the mail."

Former Vermont governor Howard Dean, on the other hand, has spoken about leading "a Cold War against terrorism," which he hopes to win by inspiring terrorists to follow the American way.

Noting the long history of religious influence over American politics, O'Rourke said, "Our president's a born-again, America was founded by religious lunatics … religious loonies can even get their own state, like Utah." He said he was skeptical that America was likely to combat terrorists by example alone.

While Howard Dean's campaign platform boils down to "it worked in Vermont," according to O'Rourke, Gen. Wesley Clark's campaign platform is essentially "it worked in Kosovo."

P.J. is among my favorite authors/writers/essayists, probably the list fluctuates between him, Hitchens, Krauthammer, Dave Barry, and Lileks.