Author: Jonah Goldberg

For most of 2012, President Obama has been running in the Democratic primary. I know that seems odd given that he’s essentially running unopposed. Though don’t tell that to West Virginia Democrats, who cast nearly half of their votes for Keith Judd, an inmate currently serving time in a Texarkana, Texas, prison. Judd received 41 […]

“If Mitt Romney can be pushed around, intimidated, coerced, co-opted by a conservative radio talk show host in Middle America, then how is he going to stand up to the Chinese? How is he going to stand up to Putin?” So asked Bryan Fischer, a radio host with the American Family Association, after claiming credit […]

“They do that because they were born that way.” If you say that about homosexuals, you are tolerant and realistic. If you say it about blacks, you are racist (unless you’re black yourself). If you say it about women, you may or may not be sexist, depending on who is manning (er, womanning) the feminist […]

Washington is full of nerds. I know. I speak nerd, not fluently mind you, at least not anymore. But I certainly know more than a few phrases memorized from a Berlitz nerd-to-English phrase book. I can talk Dungeons & Dragons (both D&D and AD&D). I know about the Golden Age of Comics (as in comic […]

With the Supreme Court taking up Arizona’s “show me your papers” immigration law, we’re once again thrust into a useful debate over the role of the government and the obligations of the citizen — and non-citizen. Rather than come at it from the usual angle, I thought I’d try something different. If there were one […]

Jon Corzine left Goldman Sachs with a net worth far exceeding even that of Mitt Romney today. Many accounts of his tenure at Goldman suggest he “failed up” the corporate ladder. Pushed out of Goldman in a power struggle (sparked in part by his support for a government bailout of Long-Term Capital Management), he nonetheless […]

It’s going to be bait and switch for as far as the eye can see. That’s how it looks now that the smoke has cleared after the recent “Mommy War” skirmish over Democratic operative Hilary Rosen’s comment that mother of five Ann Romney had “never worked a day in her life.” There’s no need to […]

“The choice in this election is between an economy that produces a growing middle class and that gives people a chance to get ahead and their kids a chance to get ahead, and an economy that continues down the road we are on, where a fewer and fewer number of people do very well and […]

President Obama’s re-election largely hinges on his ability to play young voters for suckers — again — and whether Mitt Romney will let him. In 2008, Obama won the youth vote by better than a 2-1 margin, 66 percent to 32 percent. Even more impressive, he actually expanded the share of young voters going to […]

In his Wisconsin victory speech last Tuesday, Mitt Romney said, “Washington has to become an ally of business, not the opposition of business.” This to me is a more worrisome statement than his communications advisor’s gaffe about Etch A Sketches or Romney’s shout-out to NASCAR team owners. Over the last few years, the country has […]

In his speech before the Newspapers Association of America/American Society of News Editors Wednesday, likely GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney accused the president of changing positions to get re-elected. For instance, Romney charged that, “As president,” Obama “delayed the development of our oil and coal and natural gas. Now, as candidate Obama, he says he […]

It looks as if it’s going to be Mitt Romney after all. With Paul Ryan, Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush endorsing the former Massachusetts governor last week, there aren’t any white knights left to play the role of GOP savior. But that news hasn’t reached his competitors yet. Psychoanalyzing the remaining contenders for why they […]

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg likes the Indian Healthcare Improvement Act and other ingredients of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka “ObamaCare.” Why, she asked toward the end of three days of hearings, shouldn’t the court keep the good stuff in ObamaCare and just dump the unconstitutional bits? The court, she explained, […]

“White Hispanic.” That’s how the New York Times, Reuters and other media outlets have opted to describe George Zimmerman, a man who would simply be Hispanic if he hadn’t shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. The term, rarely if ever used before this tragedy, is necessary in telling the Martin story in a more comfortable […]

There’s a great old “Fawlty Towers” scene (if you’re unfamiliar with the 1970s British sitcom, hie thyself to YouTube!) in which Basil Fawlty (John Cleese), an innkeeper, welcomes some German patrons. He gives explicit orders to everyone: “Don’t mention the war!” He then proceeds to mention the uncomfortable subject of World War II over and […]

The bleating about broken government and partisanship continues. “Why can’t those boobs in Washington agree on anything?” We’re constantly told that the way to fix the country is to dethrone the left and right and empower the middle. Americans Elect, No Labels, the Gangs of Six and Fourteen, conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans: Handing things […]

Warning: What you are about to read is a deeply cynical view of the 2012 election. If you’re looking for puppies and rainbows, check back with me another time. Many conservatives feel like this is the most important election in our lifetimes because we desperately need to reverse the damage done by the Obama administration […]

As gasoline prices climb, President Obama’s poll numbers plummet. In February, a Washington Post/ABC poll had Obama up 6 points against Mitt Romney. Monday’s poll has him down 2. According to the polls, gas prices are a huge part of the story, particularly given how the last 30 days or so have not exactly been […]

There’s a great scene in the movie “The Right Stuff” where the original Mercury astronauts are checking out the capsule for their first trips to space. They’re horrified to discover that the German scientists in charge of the program see the astronauts as nothing more than living props. There is no window, the scientists explain. […]

In 1984, Mario Cuomo pioneered the argument that one may be “personally opposed” to abortion, while supporting abortion rights. Ever since, this convenient locution has become a staple for countless Democratic politicians, particularly Catholic ones. It is Vice President Joe Biden’s view and was Senator John Kerry’s stance when he ran for president in 2004. […]

Andrew Breitbart’s heart was too big to fail, but it did anyway. If you don’t know who Breitbart was, you haven’t been paying attention. A conservative activist, entrepreneur, author, muckraker, media pioneer and performance artist of sorts, in his heart he was a radical. His friends saw him as a fearless truth-teller and provocateur. (The […]

There’s no disputing that Republicans are surly these days. With the exception of South Carolina, turnout among GOP voters has been tepid. Hordes of commentators, me included, have argued at length that this apathetic grumpiness reflects a deep dissatisfaction with the Republican field. Worse, many Republicans recognize that their cantankerousness over their choices makes things […]

“If we could just take a little bit from each of them.” I’ve lost track of how many people I have heard say some version of this in the last couple of months. The “each of them” refers to the final four combatants for the Republican nomination. You could take Newt Gingrich’s verbal dexterity, encyclopedic […]

“My rival in this race,” President Obama announced early in 2007, “is not other candidates. It’s cynicism.” It’s now clear that what he meant by this was other people’s cynicism — not his own. As you may recall, Obama came into office a very inexperienced politician, spouting a lot of hopeful and idealistic rhetoric. He […]

“It’s not about contraception,” thundered GOP presidential contender Rick Santorum. “It’s about economic liberty. It’s about freedom of speech. It’s about freedom of religion. It’s about government control of your lives. And it’s got to stop!” He was talking, of course, about the Obama administration’s recent decisions first to force large religious employers to pay […]

If you’re not with us, you’re against us. President Bush popularized this expression after 9/11 to describe his foreign policy doctrine: Countries couldn’t support or indulge terrorists and be our friends at the same time. But his detractors quickly turned it into a fairly paranoid vision of domestic political life, as if Bush had been […]

The governments in Russia and China very much want to uphold the principle that every now and then the state must crush people who want freedom. That is why they worked together to veto a fairly toothless United Nations resolution condemning the regime in Syria and calling for President Bashar Assad, the lipless murderer who […]

Years ago a friend told me a story from her days living in South America. The movie “Wayne’s World” had come out, and she went to see it. She spoke English, but it was interesting to read the Spanish subtitles. For instance, early in the film, Wayne says: “Shyeah, and monkeys might fly out of […]

Jesse Jackson is right. In response to the face-off in Arizona between President Obama and Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer last week, Jackson said, “Even George Wallace did not put his finger in Dr. King’s face.” And it’s true; he didn’t. Similarly, not even Josef Stalin wrote two autobiographies the way Obama has. And even Genghis […]

President Obama’s State of the Union address was disgusting. The president began with a moving tribute to the armed forces and their accomplishments. But as he has done many times now, he celebrated martial virtues not to rally support for the military, but to cover himself in glory — he killed Osama bin Laden! — […]