Humorist O'Rourke leaves 150 laughing

Political author and journalist P.J. O'Rourke addressed a crowd of about 150 people yesterday evening in an appearance sponsored by Connaissance. "I'm here to talk about the federal government without making you and me throw up," O'Rourke said. He spoke to the crowd about the need for reform in government. He pointed to the excessive number of government workers as one reason for the nation's economic woes. O'Rourke also cited the large amounts of money given to small special interest groups and excessive farm subsidies, totaling over $50 billion, as wastes in government. O'Rourke labeled the infamous savings and loans crisis, costing the government $500 billion, as the economy's biggest problem right now. "That's enough money to pay for a New York City cab ride from Earth to Uranus and back ten times," he said. O'Rourke described voting as an overrated activity and urged the audience not to look to politics for the answer to the world's problems. "The Democrats say there is something wrong with America and they can fix it. The Republicans deny that there is anything wrong in the world and say that they can fix that too," he said, after admitting that he did not vote in the last election because he incorrectly filled out his registration. "Politicians are merely well-scrubbed rush candidates, sorority pledges, who smile, make small talk, and will go do anything when yelled at," he said. O'Rourke targeted Social Security as a government area in need of reform. Thirty percent of the federal budget is spent on the elderly while only two percent goes to education, he said. He hopes for people to be less dependent on government in the future and dismissed the political correctness movement as "mystical thinking." O'Rourke, a self-described Republican, worked as the White House correspondent for Rolling Stone magazine and has spent the past two years working on his best-selling novel Parliament of Whores. Connaissance paid O'Rourke $12,000 for his appearance, more than either previous speakers Arthur Ashe or Danny Glover recieved, Connaissance Chairperson and College junior Robyn Allen said. Connaissance Vice Chairperson and College junior Guy Raviv enjoyed the speech. "He was right on the ball," Raviv said. "Although I may not have agreed with everything he said, he put that certain twist on it that made everything a little more acceptable." "I could never really identify with the Republican thing but I do agree that people count on government too much," Wharton sophomore Ed Sappien said.