The best and funniest comedians always follow this maxim: "don't punch DOWN".

P.J. O'Rourke, the right wing "comic" writer who ruined the National Lampoon in the Seventies, and whose death was just announced today- overwhelmingly went against that maxim, in the Lampooon and everything he subjected us all to afterwards- he punched down, again and again and again- aiming his "jokes" at people of color, women, LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, and whichever minority religious community he was paid to belittle on any given week. It's why, after a few short years, his material lost any semblance of comedy, and helped create the right-wing ragesprache mislabeled as "conservative comedy" to this day.

It's thanks to P.J. O'Rourke that forty-five years work of conservatives think "Hillary killed Vince Foster" was not only not a libel but a punchline.