P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022), a Founding Member of the Board of Advisors for the Independent Institute, was America’s leading political humorist and the best-selling author of 20 books. After graduating from Miami University of Ohio and attending the graduate program at Johns Hopkins University, O’Rourke began his career of skewering both the left and the right on the ends of his razor-sharp one-liners.

Among the many publications for which O’Rourke wrote are The National Lampoon for which he was editor-in-chief, Automobile, American Spectator, Playboy, Esquire, Vanity Fair, The Independent Review, and Harper’s. He was also a regular correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly and the Foreign Affairs Desk Chief for Rolling Stone, a position that allowed him to expose the hypocrisies of world politics from the Persian Gulf to the Philippines. He was also Editor-in-Chief for American Consequences, H.L. Mencken Fellow at the Cato Institute, a regular panelist on NPR's Wait Wait . . . Don't Tell Me! and a member of the editorial board for World Affairs.

Among his many best-selling books are Thrown Under the Omnibus, reviewed here in the Wall Street Journal; Modern Manners; The Bachelor Home Companion; Republican Party Reptile; Holidays in Hell; Parliament of Whores; All the Trouble in the World; Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut; The American Spectator's Enemies List; Eat the Rich; The CEO of the Sofa; On the Wealth of Nations: Books That Changed the World; Driving Like Crazy; Don't Vote! It Just Encourages the Bastards; Holidays in Heck and The Baby Boom.