HE HAD IT EASY, BEING CONSERVATIVE:

He started writing in the alt-weekly world. His big break came when he took over National Lampoon. From there he became one of the best magazine writers of the '80s.

P.J. was most famous for being a funnyman, but early on he did all kinds of writing. He reported. He did longform. He wrote books. And this is a big part of why writers admired him so much: P.J. could hit to all fields with power. And while he became a star, with the kind of career that most of us only dream of, he came up the hard way. He did not emerge fully formed from William Shawn's head like Athena. He worked for it.

Let me put it this way: If you're a writer and you look at Joan Didion, you see an untouchable prodigy, someone who might as well be from another planet.

But when you looked at P.J. O'Rourke you saw a craftsman and you thought to yourself, "If I work hard enough and hit the ball cleanly, on every at bat, every day, for a few decades . . . well, then maybe I could be like P.J."

So that's one reason we loved him.

Another is that he was a professional's professional.

Here's a secret of the trade: The better a writer is, the easier he is to edit.

Bad writers will haggle with editors over every comma. The best writers (a) need very little editing and (b) are perfectly open to edits because they see and appreciate when a phrase or a thought has been improved.

P.J. was a joy to edit. Collegial, professional. The kind of writer who makes you a better writer once you get to look under the hood at his process. The kind of writer with whom it is a privilege to work.

I suspect that the biggest reason P.J. was beloved by his peers and colleagues was his openness and kindness.

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