P.J. O’Rourke named as 2007 commencement speaker
Best-selling author and leading political satirist

(Nashua, NH) – Peterborough, N.H.’s P. J. O’Rourke won’t have far to travel when he presents the 2007 commencement address and receives an honorary degree May 12, 2007,  at Daniel Webster College in Nashua, N.H.

With more than a million words of incisive journalism under his byline and more citations in The Penguin Dictionary of Humorous Quotations than any other living writer, P.J. O'Rourke is America's premier political satirist.

Although known as a hard-bitten, cigar-smoking conservative (unique among contemporary humorists), he is, in fact, a basher of all political persuasions. As he puts it, "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."

Whether dealing with the inner workings of Washington bureaucracy, the shifting political and economics of the new world order, or his own living room, O'Rourke is a savvy guide to national and world affairs, where his razor sharp insights never fail to inform and entertain.

O'Rourke toured the fighting in Iraq, visited the West Bank disguised as P.J. of Arabia, lobbed one-liners on the battlefields of the first Gulf War, and traded quips with communist rebels in the jungles of the Philippines. He covers current events with the skill and discipline of an investigative reporter, but with a unique spin that has earned him a reputation as a modern-day Will Rogers.

He is the best-selling author of ten books, including Parliament of Whores, Give War a Chance, Eat the Rich, The CEO of the Sofa, and, most recently, On the Wealth of Nations. Both Time and The Wall Street Journal have called him "the funniest writer in America."

Patrick Jake O'Rourke, born in Toledo, OH, began life as a Republican but in the late ’60s changed his politics to conform to the rest of the nation's youth. "At least I was never a liberal,” he said. “I went from Republican to Communist and right back to Republican." O'Rourke attended Miami University in Oxford, OH, and graduate school at Johns Hopkins, where he was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. He worked at small newspapers in Baltimore and New York after receiving an M.A. in English.

In the early 1970s, O'Rourke joined The National Lampoon where he became the editor-in-chief and created, with Doug Kenney, the now-classic 1964 High School Yearbook Parody. In the 1980s, he determined that the real world was funnier than anything National Lampoon could invent and became a roving reporter covering crises and conflicts around the world.

O’Rourke has written for such diverse publications as Automobile, The Weekly Standard, House and Garden, The Atlantic Monthly, Forbes FYI, and Rolling Stone, where he was the foreign-affairs desk chief.  He is the H.L. Mencken Research Fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington, DC. and a frequent panelist on National Public Radio’s radio game show “Wait, Wait..Don’t Tell Me!” 

A self-confessed Luddite (a person opposed to technological progress or technological change), O'Rourke still types his manuscripts on an IBM Selectric typewriter.

Daniel Webster College provides educational programs for professional entry and advanced studies through its undergraduate and graduate programs designed for both traditional and non-traditional students.

Its nationally-ranked degree programs in aviation, including an online MBA for aviation professionals, are well complemented by innovative programs in computer science and information technology (gaming, simulation and robotics), aeronautical and mechanical engineering, sport management, the social and behavioral sciences, and business and management.

The College partners with businesses in the areas in which its graduates may seek careers to develop new programs to best meet the current and future needs of employers.