Author: Mona Charen

President Barack Obama spoke about income inequality in a recent address but failed to mention one of the most significant contributors to rising inequality in America: the marriage gap. Jobs are changing, international competition has driven down wages, top executives are pulling down enormous salaries, but it is cultural patterns — specifically personal decisions about […]

If President Barack Obama has entertained an economic insight that wasn’t fashionable in 1933, I haven’t heard about it. It’s doubtless he’s for recycling glass and plastic, but he’s even more wedded to recycling ideas that were fresh and interesting during the New Deal era but have since been discredited. All of this was clear […]

We conservatives are always on about the “unintended consequences” of government programs, but we didn’t expect the Obama administration and congressional Democrats to provide such a vivid object lesson. If the tipsy, teetering debut of Obamacare invites a new skepticism about the capacity of government to run things, it will be the most welcome unintended […]

Ninety percent of the American opinion elite will fall for the old “historic breakthrough” conceit every time. The appeal of getting enemies in a room together, where they will shed their animosity and “reason together,” is so profound that nothing as tiresome as experience can diminish its allure. Don’t talk to Secretary of State John […]

Remember President Barack Obama’s mother? Though the airwaves currently echo with his vow “If you like your plan . . .” I keep remembering Obama’s account of his mother being denied coverage by her insurance company as she lay dying of cancer. The moving and infuriating story was a staple on the 2008 campaign trail. […]

The talking heads love presidential analogies. Is Obamacare’s rollout Obama’s Hurricane Katrina or his Iraq? Is Obama’s false promise that you could keep your health care plan like George H. W. Bush’s “read my lips” pledge, or is it like Bill Clinton’s “I did not have sexual relations with that woman”? Iran-Contra anyone? These comparisons […]

The World Economic Forum has issued its annual report on the gender gap worldwide, and it has received respectful notice from the usual places (PBS, CNN, The Washington Post). But any report that places the United States below Cuba, the Philippines and South Africa deserves a little skepticism. In fact, the WEF places the U.S. […]

The 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s murder is being marked, not primarily by retrospectives on his life and accomplishments, and not by reflections on the myth versus the reality of his presidency, but instead by one of the features of our media age that is poisonous to our cultural health — a macabre focus […]

The most alarming message for Democrats from Tuesday’s elections was the near obliteration of Terry McAuliffe’s lead over Ken Cuccinelli in Virginia. An October poll, conducted a week after the government reopened, had placed him 11 points ahead. On Election Day, Cuccinelli lost by only 2.5 points. McAuliffe’s precipitous tumble was caused entirely by Obamacare. […]

The question many on the left are asking as they witness the Obama administration flail in response to HealthCare.gov’s debut disaster is: How could this happen? Obama is so brilliant, so capable and so wise. How could he bungle his signature initiative? He isn’t, but even if he were, it wouldn’t make a particle of […]

When New York City’s strikingly successful police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, arrived to address students at Brown University, he was harassed, booed and heckled for 30 long minutes. “Racism is not for debate,” they shouted. A university official pleaded with the goons, er, students to permit Kelly to speak, reminding them that they would be free […]

The spectacularly dreadful debut of Obamacare represents the greatest political opportunity for conservatism and the Republican Party in two generations. Big government stands rebuked. It has overreached, overpromised, and, embarrassingly, failed to deliver. Even if the website’s gremlins are banished, and even if Obamacare purrs along like a BMW from now on, voters will be […]

Slate magazine deserves credit for publishing a series of articles about polyamory. The first, “Why I’m Still In The Polyamory Closet,” by the pseudonymous “Michael Carey,” elicited angry letters because Carey compared polyamorists with homosexuals. Polyamory (the desire — need? — for multiple sexual partners) is a choice, the letter writers protested, whereas homosexuality is […]

The constipated debut of Obamacare has reduced the president of the United States to the status of TV pitchman. “Act now” to get this great product, he exhorted listeners on Monday, offering testimonials from one of the rare successful purchasers, promising limitless benefits and low prices, and even an 800 number. His operators are standing […]

It’s clear to all but the most blinkered that the “Defund Now!” strategy for blocking the implementation of Obamacare has been worse than a failure. Obamacare will be funded, but the fight has exacerbated the already low standing of the Republican Party. Obama’s approval rating has ticked up during the shutdown, while Republicans are now […]

Republicans and conservatives are clearly in the mood for a fight. That martial spirit is part of what has brought us to the standoff in Washington. It’s odd then, that the battle for the governor’s mansion in Virginia, which pits a solid conservative attorney general against a Democratic moneyman and back-scratching liberal Clinton pal, should […]

Cannon to the right of them, Cannon to the left of them … Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell Rode the Six Hundred –The Charge of the Light Brigade — Alfred, Lord Tennyson Almost exactly 159 years ago, a British light cavalry brigade rode directly into Russian guns at the battle […]

You can tell who the keepers of American culture are by, among other things, the anniversaries they mark. We’re currently being invited to revel in memories of the “iconic” tennis match between Bobby Riggs and Billie Jean King, the so-called “Battle of the Sexes”. Robin Roberts of ABC News recalled King’s “stunning triumph”. ESPN explained […]

After every mass shooting, I write a variant of the same column. Perhaps I’ll republish this one when the next attack happens. The increase in mass shootings over the course of the past several decades is not imaginary. In 2000, The New York Times analyzed 100 mass shootings between 1949 and 1999 and found that […]

Mitt Romney’s iPod playlist featured Johnny Cash, Frankie Valli, the Beach Boys and the Soggy Bottom Boys. Barack Obama’s iPod had, the president assured his fans, something for everyone — “Stevie Wonder, James Brown. I’ve got Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan,” Obama said. “And then I’ve got everything from Jay-Z to Eminem to the Fugees, to […]