Author: Jonah Goldberg

Often in error but never in doubt, Barack Obama could walk into the Rose Garden and step on a half-dozen rakes like Foghorn Leghorn in an old Looney Tunes cartoon, and the official line would be, “He meant to do that.” And the amazing thing is that so many people believe it. “Mr. Obama is […]

“All we’ve been hearing the last three years is if you like your policy you can keep it. … I’m infuriated because I was lied to,” one woman told the Los Angeles Times, as part of a story on how some middle-class Californians have been stunned to learn the real costs of Obamacare. And that […]

Earlier this week, MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski tried to call the HealthCare.gov helpline and got an operator. That’s right: an operator! The call went through! MSNBC, the unofficial AV department of the Democratic Party, had a scoop. The network tweeted out the big news along with a link to the video: “Mika called the Obamacare hotline […]

Conservatives with long memories had to laugh at the recent New York Times front-page headline: “Fiscal Crisis Sounds the Charge in GOP’s ‘Civil War.’” That diagnosis largely hangs on the judgment of 1970s New Right direct-mail impresario Richard Viguerie, whose ears have been ringing with the thunder of Fort Sumter for a quarter-century. Within a […]

“We’ve got to get the Rockefeller Republicans out of the party,” a fellow told me in Minnesota recently. Or was it Arizona? Or Wilkes-Barre, Pa.? Actually, I think it was all three. I hear it all the time as I travel around the country speaking to conservative groups. For those of you who don’t know, […]

“Think for a moment about the term ‘Redskins,’” NBC Sports commentator Bob Costas exhorted viewers in his halftime tirade during Sunday’s Cowboys-Redskins game. “Ask yourself what the equivalent would be, if directed [at] African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, or members of any other ethnic group. When considered that way, ‘Redskins’ can’t possibly honor a heritage or […]

Last week I wrote a column accusing the president of having a vindictive streak — of deliberately trying to make the lives of average Americans worse just so he could score ideological and political points. We already knew from how he handled the budget sequester that Obama liked this approach. He ordered Cabinet secretaries not […]

For all the acrimony in Washington over Obamacare, there’s an intriguing consensus around one issue: the ratchet effect. Neither side uses the term, but both the right and left treat it as an article of faith. The term was coined by the libertarian economist Robert Higgs. In his book “Crisis and Leviathan,” Higgs describes how […]

Shutting down the government in an effort to use a budget fight to get rid of Obamacare is not the strategy I would have recommended for the GOP. And while Republicans can be blamed for starting the shutdown, it’s increasingly apparent that President Obama and the Democrats deserve the lion’s share of blame for not […]

Michelle Obama wants you to drink more water, at least one more glass a day. Frankly, I think it’s great. Sure, the science behind some of her claims is somewhere between iffy and debatable. If you’re not dehydrated, drinking more water won’t give you more energy or cure your headaches, as her office vaguely claims. […]

“It’s the law of the land.” This is rapidly becoming the preferred shorthand argument for why criticism of Obamacare is just so, so wrong. It also serves as the lead sentence of a larger claim that all attempts to overturn the Affordable Care Act are really symptoms of a kind of extremist right-wing lunacy. For […]

The only real accountability for the Benghazi scandal will have to come in 2016. Reading through the competing partisan reports and listening to the congressional testimony of various officials this week, it seems fair to say that no actual crimes were committed (though you never know what you don’t know). There were, in at least […]

Chemical weapons are evil, but you could also say they’re a curse. They have a talismanic power to bend and distort U.S. foreign policy. You can ask George W. Bush or Barack Obama. In 2003, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz gave a lengthy interview to Vanity Fair that caused a huge uproar, largely because the […]

In Washington, D.C., the city’s department of health wants to subject people seeking a tattoo or body piercing to a mandatory 24-hour waiting period before they can go through with it. That’s just one of the regulations in a 66-page proposal of new rules for the tattoo and piercing industry. Reasonable people may differ on […]

It’s no secret that the right is going through what some call a healthy debate and what others see as an identity crisis. For some, the solution to what ails conservatism requires a sudden philosophical shift leftward to win back the last Rockefeller Republicans, presumably hanging on in nursing homes like stranded Japanese fighters who […]

“The genius of you Americans,” the Arab-nationalist and one-time president of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser, once explained, “is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make us wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them which we are missing.” I’ve long taken patriotic pride in such statements […]

This week the United Kingdom, with the support of the U.S. and France, scrambled — in vain — to get the approval of the United Nations Security Council for a military strike on Syria. I can certainly understand why some see this as a legal or political necessity. International law says that nations should seek […]

Amid the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, one complaint became almost a refrain: What about economic justice? After all, the official title of the event was the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The line “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in […]

“Why do they seem so determined to also make it racial?” So asks Joy-Ann Reid, the managing editor of The Grio, a web magazine owned by NBC News whose mission is to “focus on news and events that have a unique interest and/or pronounced impact within the national African Americans audience.” The “they” in question […]

Not counting rumors that Anthony Weiner’s marriage has hit a rocky patch, it may be the worst-kept secret in politics: Joe Biden wants to be president. On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the vice president’s inner circle is swabbing the decks, battening down the hatches and hoisting the mainsails for USS Bidenpalooza 2016. […]

Maybe everyone is misreading America’s views on foreign policy? Among Republicans, there’s a big argument between the so-called isolationist wing of the party and the ostensibly interventionist wing. On the left, there’s a similar debate (though liberals are never described as isolationists no matter how isolationist they might be). Among Democrats, the dividing lines are […]

The Affordable Care Act — aka ObamaCare — is off to a very rocky start, and according to the law’s biggest defenders, the blame falls squarely at the feet of Republicans. It’s an odd claim. Republicans did not write the law. They did not support the law. And they are not in charge of implementing […]

They’re back! The isolationist poltergeists that forever haunt the Republican Party. Or so we’re told. In July, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) had a set-to over American foreign policy. Christie clumsily denounced “this strain of libertarianism that’s going through parties right now and making big headlines I think is a […]

“I think she’s one of the most fascinating women of our time and this world,” confessed Bob Greenblatt, the chairman of NBC, as part of his announcement that his network is making a miniseries about Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, with Diane Lane in the starring role. Words are funny things. For instance, G.K. […]

I never thought the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case deserved nearly the attention it got. But reasonable people can disagree about that. What strikes me as unconscionable, however, is the way the supposedly objective media have not only sensationalized a tragedy but at times appear to deliberately bend the facts to fit a desired story line. […]

“My rival in this race,” President Obama announced early in 2007, “is not other candidates. It’s cynicism.” Sadly, it’s now evident cynicism won. In a much-hyped speech at Knox College on Wednesday, Obama sought to pivot back to the economy — as the journalistic cliché goes — and shape the issue environment for the 2014 […]

In the movie “Animal House,” the Deltas are put on trial for their antics. When offered a chance to defend themselves, the best argument the fraternity’s president can come up with is, “But sir, Delta Tau Chi has a long tradition of existence to its members and to the community at large.” The line came […]

If Tom Wolfe were writing “The Bonfire of the Vanities” today, he’d need a scene in the Grand Havana Room in New York City. It’s an Olympian den fit for what Wolfe called “Masters of the Universe” — the super-rich gods of finance who today go by “the one percent.” Taking up the penthouse floor […]

President Obama wants to make government “smarter.” Who could disagree with that? After all, it’s unlikely that even the biggest fans of big government believe the way government does what it does is the very best, very smartest way imaginable. Whether you’re an anarchist, a Leninist or somewhere in between, everyone can agree that Uncle […]