Veteran Rolling Stone and Atlantic Monthly columnist P.J. O'Rourke has a keen wit and a leonine prose method, prowling sleekly around his subjects and batting them around with a playful paw before pouncing and slashing. The conservative humorist draws blood frequently in The CEO Of The Sofa. Writing about the U.N., he notes, "One widely posted warning reads SMOKING DISCOURAGED… and that says it all about the United Nations, its power and might." The U.N., he adds, is suited only for "an invasion from Mars." Ridiculing the concept of midnight basketball, O'Rourke snarls, "No doubt the Swiss and the Japanese owe their low crime rates to keeping their kids awake until all hours, shooting hoops." And, speculating on the reasoning of men who hand out cigars to celebrate a birth, O'Rourke channels Freud: "I made a baby. Here is an object symbolizing how the deed was done. Let me know if your wife needs a baby, too." That's amusing stuff, pithy and cocky. The CEO Of The Sofa collects a year's worth of O'Rourke's reportage and observations, from political grumblings to rants about technology to comparisons between new parenthood and corporate culture. The book ranges far, and isn't concerned with connecting O'Rourke's thoughts into any kind of unified ideology, beyond his general wish that people would smarten up, abandon pretension, and leave him alone. About all he seems to value is his own ability to riff on current events, which puts him in a league with comedian-commentators like Bill Maher and Dennis Miller, who make a good living by smugly savaging cherished institutions. They're all clever, and O'Rourke is good for a snarky laugh, but their jokes require at least a momentary assumption of the mantle of bitterness, which over time can try the soul. The blast-away style leaves little room for compassion, sympathy, or sweetness—it has a place, but is petty by design. Undervaluing O'Rourke's skill would be a mistake, but overvaluing him is equally foolish, because finding something to pick on takes damnably little effort.