Author: Mona Charen

You needn’t be clairvoyant to deduce what the Democratic Party wants to run on in 2016. It really doesn’t matter whether their nominee is Hillary Clinton or someone else. Democrats won’t be campaigning on the thriving economy under President Barack Obama, global stability under American leadership, the successful routing of al-Qaida or Obamacare. No, the […]

“The heartlessness and nativist pandering that have broken America’s immigration system must give way to providing proper food, clothing, shelter and medical care to the Central American children streaming into the country,” so pronounced the editors of the New York Daily News. Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. echoed the theme in his “Bordering on […]

Two University of Miami football players have been arrested and dismissed from the university after being criminally charged with sexual battery on a 17-year-old girl. According to ESPN, the two admitted to buying drinks for the girl and then bringing her back to a dorm room where they engaged in nonconsensual sex acts with her. […]

Could the flood of underage, would-be immigrants over the southern border be “Obama’s Katrina” as Susan Page of USA Today warned? No, it’s worse. Even the most virulent George W. Bush denigrator would not suggest that the former president actually created the hurricane. This president, by contrast, bears a heavy responsibility for creating the deluge […]

On July 4, I plan to celebrate this nation’s birth with something approaching devotion. I will so despite the fact that each day’s news brings fresh reasons to worry about the future. I could list the things that worry me, but you know what they are. They probably worry you, too, but the Fourth of […]

The major media’s account of the Supreme Court’s decision in the Hobby Lobby case was typical of the way the case has been misreported from the start. The New York Times headline read, “Supreme Court Rejects Contraceptives Mandate for Some Corporations.” Politico led with “SCOTUS sides with Hobby Lobby on birth control.” Others were similar. […]

An estimated 50,000 Iranian exiles and supporters from Europe and North America are here to remind the world that no cooperation with the brutal, expansionist regime in Tehran can possibly advance Western interests. This annual gathering of MeK (People’s Mujahedin of Iran), an Iranian resistance group, was already scheduled. But it might have been called […]

Among Republicans, the debate over America’s proper world role is vigorous. Sen. Rand Paul blames the current disarray in Iraq on George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. “Were they right in their predictions? Were there weapons of mass destruction there? Was the war won in 2005, when many of those people said it was won?” […]

A few questions for President Barack Obama. At your press conference, you said, “It is in our national security interest not to see an all-out civil war in Iraq.” If that is the case, why did you withdraw all U.S. forces from Iraq in 2011? Were you motivated by something other than U.S. national interests? […]

President Barack Obama has flouted the law again and again — unilaterally rewriting the health law at least 18 times since passage; changing immigration law by executive fiat (after having explained that to do so would be beyond the scope of his constitutional authority); dictating that union claims should trump creditors in the General Motors […]

Have you seen the “Ready for Hillary” bumper stickers? I’ve seen one already and wondered about the implied insult to the current occupant of the White House. You’re “Ready for Hillary” when the greatest statesman of our age isn’t even halfway through his second term? Are you ready because Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of […]

Considering how easy it would be for the Iranian regime to get everything it wants from the current administration, it’s a little startling to see the “supreme leader” brazenly poking his finger into the president’s eye. President Barack Obama’s fond hopes — nurtured since before his first inauguration — to forge a new, better relationship […]

Though President Barack Obama’s first term was characterized by anemic economic growth, decreasing household income, prolonged joblessness, an unpopular health law, foreign policy blunders and bitter partisanship, the electorate seemed stubbornly unwilling to lay any of it at his feet. As late as July 2013, 35 percent of Americans assigned George W. Bush a “high […]

Speaking to graduates at West Point (New York), President Barack Obama tooted on his toy horn, “al-Qaida’s leadership on the border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan has been decimated.” Even that slender boast — just on the border regions? — is now vitiated. The five Taliban terrorists released from Guantanamo Bay in exchange for Sgt. […]

Here’s a not-so-bold prediction: After the press loses interest in the Veterans Affairs scandal, after the investigations have been completed and one or two officials have resigned, nothing will change. Is this cynicism? Not really. It comes down to one’s view of how much government can achieve by bureaucratic, top-down management. The progressive project has […]

This story has a very troubling start, but a pretty satisfying conclusion — if it really is the conclusion. Among the contemptible episodes of student/faculty heckler’s vetoes at commencement ceremonies this year (Condoleezza Rice, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Christine Lagarde and others have been disinvited from leading universities following ignorant and aggressively intolerant protests), one of […]

Is the election of a pro-business, pro-American, growth-oriented prime minister in the world’s largest democracy good news or bad news for the world’s oldest democracy? We in that oldest democracy are currently governed by the Democrats, a party that has more in common with the defeated Congress party in India than with the victorious Bharatiya […]

There’s a debate among economists about why a college degree is worth so much. That the credential is valuable is not in doubt. According to the Pew Research Center, college graduates earn about $17,500 more annually than high school grads. Why? The “human capital” school believes that students learn valuable skills in college that employers […]

It’s a cliche to say that Washington, D.C., is “out of touch” with voters, but there’s something to it. Arguably, in 2012, the Republican Party seemed focused on a subject — debt — that wasn’t a high priority for average Americans. Sincere Republicans (including this columnist) believe it should be. Nations that cannot pay their […]

“Two, four, six, eight. Stop the violence. Stop the rape,” so chanted a group of Ohio University students calling themselves “f—rapeculture” at a protest a couple of years ago. Rape culture activists have become a fixture on campuses throughout the country, and now, 55 colleges — including Harvard, Princeton and Berkeley — are under federal […]

The headline looks like a hoax– saturated fat does not cause heart disease — but it’s real. This news is more than just another example of changing health guidelines; it’s a cautionary tale about trusting the scientific consensus. For more than 50 years, the best scientific minds in America assured us that saturated fat was […]

The Ben Rhodes memo revealing the duplicity of this administration on the subject of Benghazi reminds us about the character of those involved. That President Barack Obama could lie so evenly and so passionately (remember the second presidential debate?) is not perhaps surprising at this stage. But let’s not forget what it took for Hillary […]

Remember poverty? It was once a chief preoccupation of the Democratic Party. Lyndon Johnson made war on it. An entire ecosystem of federal, state and local programs has been created over the course of the past half-century to combat it, costing taxpayers more than $1 trillion annually. Yet the Democratic Party seems to have forgotten […]

Sonia Sotomayor is a wonderful role model. Truly. Through hard work, brains and rare self-discipline at an early age, she was able to overcome poverty and family dysfunction to become what she is today. She was diagnosed at the age of 7 with Type 1 diabetes, and because her father was an alcoholic and her […]

Just because your opponent is hurling baseless or even ridiculous charges does not mean that you are free to disregard them. You may think it’s absurd to argue that you are engaged in a “war on women.” But contempt for the accusation is not enough. Some strategists suggest (they have for years) the key for […]

The Republican Party is roiling with internal conflicts, say the analysts. The tea party is confronting the establishment. The noninterventionists are at war (forgive the expression) with the interventionists. The libertarians would like the party to endorse same-sex marriage. Fair enough. These conflicts will play out during the primaries in 2016, and we’ll discover whether […]

There’s an MRCTV video circulating on the Internet that features a man with a microphone asking college students in Washington, D.C., to name just one member of the United States Senate. At least half a dozen are stumped. When he asks how many senators each state has, the same crew is equally flummoxed. One hundred […]

The screeching polarization of American political and cultural life in recent years is exacting a toll. Debate has been debased. Contempt and hatred for those with opposing views is now the norm. While some on the right have criticized their own side — think of Rick Perry and Jeb Bush challenging immigration opponents, or conservative […]

In the aftermath of the mass shootings in Aurora, Colo.; Newtown, Conn.; Tucson, Ariz.; Virginia Tech; the Washington Navy Yard; and sadly, other locales, conventional wisdom held that the epidemic of mass shootings was a problem of gun control. I wrote columns attempting to draw attention to the mental health system in America that so […]

“The conservative minds of the Heritage Foundation have found a way for Republicans to shrink the gender gap: They need to persuade more women to get their MRS degrees.” So wrote the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank about a panel that featured Mollie Hemingway, Karin Agness and yours truly. It was so nice of Milbank to […]