Author: Mona Charen

Nine years ago, aboard a National Review cruise, I debated immigration policy with my colleagues and the cruisers. It was a good discussion that touched all the familiar bases. Are there really jobs Americans won’t do? Are big business and big agriculture enmeshed in a corrupt bargain with liberal Democrats whereby business gets cheap labor […]

Among a very long list of harms inflicted upon the United States by Barack Obama and his party, perhaps the worst was Caesarism. Obama relished the worship of millions in 2008. From his star turn at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, he was treated not as a political candidate, but as a savior. Progressives fell […]

When a heavily armed man emerged from the bathroom of a European train and began what was clearly intended as a massacre of innocent, unsuspecting civilians, six men ranging in age from 22 to 62 sprang into action. A banker and a middle-aged academic, both French, were first on the scene. The sound of gunfire […]

Let’s assume, for fun, that Donald Trump’s supporters are thinking with their brains, not their viscera. If so, they will want to know that the issue he has lassoed for self-aggrandizement has been utterly demagogued. Trump is playing them for chumps. A young woman was murdered by an illegal alien in a so-called “sanctuary city.” […]

For decades, I believed that displaying grisly photographs of aborted babies was the wrong way to make the pro-life case. Disturbing images, I thought, would only repel viewers, not persuade them. I now think I was wrong. There are many ways to make an argument. The Center for Medical Progress has demonstrated that a 2 […]

“Seven Jewish Lawmakers Could Tilt the Scales on Iran Deal,” headlines The Times of Israel. The members — Sen. Charles Schumer, Rep. Steven Israel, Rep. Eliot Engel, Rep. Adam Schiff, Rep. Nita Lowey, Sen. Ben Cardin and Rep. Ted Deutch — are all Democrats. They must choose between loyalty to their party’s president and concern […]

I was elected to end wars, not start them. — Barack Obama The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it. — George Orwell A question has hung in the air since Barack Obama first moved into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and began his “fundamental transformation” of this country: Did he intend harm, or […]

President Obama seems on the verge of the most abject diplomatic capitulation in American history — to Iran, our bitterest enemy — and Republicans are arguing about Donald Trump? The prospect of a deal with Iran is dumbfounding and infuriating, as the U.S. held all the cards in the protracted negotiations and yet executed serial […]

The four dissenters in Obergefell v. Hodges lucidly expressed the profound offense against constitutional law and representative democracy the ruling represents. In short, five lawyers, accountable to no one, chose to legislate on a profoundly consequential matter that the people were just beginning to address through democratic means. As Chief Justice Roberts wrote: “Who do […]

Here’s what the former president of the United States had to say when he eulogized his mentor, an Arkansas senator: “We come to celebrate and give thanks for the remarkable life of J. William Fulbright, a life that changed our country and our world forever and for the better. … In the work he did, […]

They’re coming for our money. OK, that’s nothing new, but this time, the Obama administration is coming for our $10 bills — the notes graced by the image of Alexander Hamilton. True to the identity politics of the Democratic Party, the Obama Treasury Department has announced that some worthy female will replace Hamilton on the […]

Hillary Clinton had one of the worst campaign rollouts in living memory. Her low-key (to the point of inaudibility) announcement video came in the midst of a months-long period of deeply damaging stories about her mania for secrecy (the private email server), which she indulged even at the expense of the law and national security, […]

Many political debates in the upcoming presidential race will play out this way: The Democrat will offer “X for all,” and the Republican will respond, “Do you have any idea how much that’s going to cost?” That’s the way nearly all political debates are engaged — usually to the disadvantage of Republicans (and the public […]

What to make of President Obama’s interpretation of the Iranian leadership? Challenged by The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg to account for the seeming inconsistency of relying on the rationality of a regime that holds a profoundly anti-Semitic worldview, the president denied that the “venomous anti-Semitism” (his words) of the mullahs is a barrier to rational decision […]

Carly Fiorina is articulate, thoughtful and accomplished. For those who keep track of such things, she was the first woman to lead a Fortune 50 business, and she ran a credible, if unsuccessful, campaign for a U.S. senate seat from California. In the early going of the race for the Republican presidential nomination, she is […]

Like cult members awaking to find their leader swigging gin and squirreling money into a Swiss bank account, liberals are rubbing their eyes in disbelief at President Obama’s behavior. The figure they worshiped so fervently and for so long is now revealed to be a “sexist” — at least according to National Organization for Women […]

In January, Robert F. McDonnell, 71st governor of Virginia, was sentenced to two years in prison followed by two years of supervised release after his conviction on 11 counts of public corruption. He, and especially his wife, behaved badly. But it’s worth taking a closer look at what was considered criminal in McDonnell’s case, because, […]

We learned this week that the Secret Service dawdled for an entire year before fixing a broken security system at the home of former President George H. W. Bush. The Secret Service itself is looking pretty broken these days. A few weeks ago, two drunken agents returning from a party drove right through an active […]

Two relatively recent photos of Barack Obama with foreign leaders reveal much about his deep-dyed leftism. The first features President Obama and democratically elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of one of America’s most loyal friends. Obama looks strained. His face is stiff, and his eyes are veiled. The second is a snap of Obama […]

Who controls the past controls the future. — George Orwell, “1984” The candidates who are announcing for president will be cheered to know that the Democratic Party has been hemorrhaging popularity the way the housing market lost value in 2008. In 2009, 62 percent of Americans had a favorable view of the party. In January, […]

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. — George Washington Until almost literally the day before yesterday, it was universally acknowledged that religious faith and expression were bedrock American freedoms — enshrined in the Constitution, protected in law and honored in custom. But now, because […]

Starbucks is hoping to lead a national conversation about race. According to a video released by founder Howard Schultz, Starbucks baristas are encouraged to scrawl “race together” on coffee cups before placing them in the hands of customers. This hollow bit of moral exhibitionism is supposed to encourage “compassion,” “honesty,” “empathy” and “love.” Does Starbucks […]

“Traitors!” screamed the headline of the New York Daily News. “Beneath the dignity of the institution I revere,” huffed Vice President Joe Biden. “Dangerous and irresponsible,” opined The Washington Post’s David Ignatius. President Obama offered that it was “ironic” that the senators were on the same side as supposed “hardliners” in Iran. The occasion for […]

It has become conventional wisdom that Republicans are blessed with a talented crowd of potential candidates this cycle. Fine. But here’s my case for why only one of them is likely to win the general election. Forget the triumphalism that followed 2014. It will do the GOP exactly as much good in 2016 as its […]

Gov. Scott Walker has leapt to the top of polls in Iowa. As day follows night, he has moved to the center of the liberal press’s crosshairs. This is the world we inhabit: When a Democrat is perceived as popular, the press discovers layers of humor and elan we never suspected. When a Republican is […]

President Obama’s scolding of Western civilization at the National Prayer Breakfast (“Lest we get on our high horse…”) may go down in history as the emblematic moment of his presidency. It was atrociously ill timed and characteristically sophomoric. My colleague Jay Nordlinger observed that Obama sounded just like the students in the 1980s who, when […]

“Cui bono?” Who benefits? It was the question ancient Romans asked when hoping to cut through a fog of possible causes for a problem. As of this morning, U.S. Marines were evacuating Sanaa, the capital of Yemen. We’ve seen this movie before: the bonfires of documents, the hammer blows to equipment, the disabling of weapons, […]

Let me see if I understand this: Chris Kyle was not a hero, but Brian Williams was? What do we make of Williams’ attempt to snatch some vicarious honor? The response to “American Sniper” should not surprise us. Bill Maher called Chris Kyle a “psychopath patriot.” It’s more than likely that Maher thinks all patriots […]

Barack Obama’s sixth State of the Union address was an homage to France. The president might not have intended it as such — he mentioned the nation only glancingly when denouncing terror attacks in Pakistan and Paris. Yet France was at the heart of the president’s address. France has everything that Obama finds wanting in […]

By savagely attacking and murdering writers and cartoonists as well as Jewish shoppers, French Islamists clarified something that many in the West have deceived themselves about: that the war we are engaged in is a war of ideas. Islamists have once again reminded us that freedom itself is their target. This discomfits the left. They […]