Mona Charen

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33 weeks 2 days

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Books I've Written

BIOGRAPHY

Mona Charen is a syndicated columnist and political analyst living in the Washington, D.C., area.

She received her undergraduate degree at Barnard College, Columbia University, with honors. Ms. Charen also holds a degree in law from George Washington University.

Ms. Charen began her career at National Review magazine, where she served as editorial assistant. On her first tax return at the age of 22, Ms. Charen listed her occupation as "pundit," explaining later, "You have to think big."

In 1984, Ms. Charen joined the White House staff, serving first as Nancy Reagan's speechwriter and later as associate director of the Office of Public Liaison. In the latter post, she lectured widely on the administration's Central America policy. Later in her White House career, she worked in the Public Affairs office helping to craft the president's overall communications strategy.

In 1986, Ms. Charen left the White House to join the presidential quest of then-Congressman Jack Kemp as a speechwriter.

Ms. Charen launched her syndicated column in 1987, and it has become one of the fastest-growing columns in the industry. It is featured in more than 200 papers, including the Boston Globe, Baltimore Sun, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and The Washington Times. She spent six years as a regular commentator on CNN's "Capital Gang" and "Capital Gang Sunday," and has served as a judge of the Pulitzer Prizes. She is the author of two best sellers: "Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got it Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First (2003)," and "Do-Gooders: How Liberals Harm Those They Claim to Help -- and the Rest of Us (2005)."

Ms. Charen is a frequent guest on television and radio public affairs programs and is married with three children.

COMMENTARIES

How About a Trial for Osama bin Laden, Too?

By Mona Charen | 11/20/09

Attorney General Eric Holder adopted a tough guy pose when he announced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others will be tried in federal court for the most heinous terror attack on Americans in history. "After eight years of delay," he intoned, "those allegedly responsible for the attacks of September 11 will finally face justice. It is past time to finally act." Where to begin? The claim that the Bush administration was... read more »

1 Comment | Related Topics »National |

American Citizens, Let Alone Their Presidents, Do Not Bow to Kings

By Mona Charen | 11/17/09

President Obama, who nearly prostrated himself before the king of Saudi Arabia last April, has once again bowed low to a monarch -- this time to the emperor of Japan. What to make of this obsequious body language? After the presidential frame went perpendicular before the Saudi royal, the White House at first denied that the president had bowed. He was merely leaning over, Robert Gibbs explained, because the president was "taller than the... read more »

8 Comments | Related Topics »National |

Obama's Feared Anti-Muslim Backlash a Devastating Myth

By Mona Charen | 11/10/09

"U.S. Homeland Security officials are working with groups around the United States to head off any possible anti-Muslim backlash following the shootings at Fort Hood in Texas." The Department of Homeland Security is in good company in its confusion. Gen. George Casey, the Army's top general, also worried that "this increased speculation could cause a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers. And I've asked our Army leaders to... read more »

8 Comments | Related Topics »Travis County (TX) | Denton County (TX) | National |

Iranian Opposition Movement Message to Obama is Loud and Clear

By Mona Charen | 11/06/09

President Obama likes to preen himself on his supposed moral superiority to his predecessor. He announced the closing of Guantanamo in his first week on the job (though 10 months on, it remains open) to advertise the new administration's disdain for George Bush's war-fighting tactics. And at every opportunity since, he has stressed that his policies -- on taxes, on the Middle East, on health care, on "man-caused disasters," and on... read more »

2 Comments | Related Topics »National |

Health Care Overhaul IV: This Time, It's Personal

By Mona Charen | 11/03/09

I labeled it "Health Care Overhaul IV" for convenience. In fact, a new 2,000-page behemoth seems to emerge more than once a week from the maw of Congress, so it's becoming impossible to keep track. Until now, my reasons for opposing this fright mask were entirely dispassionate and flowed from 1) common sense (how are they going to provide more care for less money, and can we afford another huge entitlement when existing ones are... read more »

2 Comments | Related Topics »National |

Israel's Deadliest Foe to Strike This Week

By Mona Charen | 11/01/09

The war over the war in Gaza is heating up. Next week, the United Nations General Assembly will consider the tendentious Goldstone Report, the highest profile exercise in blaming the victim in the U.N.'s tawdry history. Simultaneously, lawyers in Britain, the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, and Norway are drawing up criminal indictments against IDF officers who participated in the Gaza operation. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that a number... read more »

2 Comments | Related Topics »National |

Nothing Democrats Tell Us Makes Any Sense

By Mona Charen | 10/27/09

You've seen those commercials in which an airline pilot, or surgeon, or nuclear engineer is giving expert advice only to acknowledge eventually to his nonplussed listeners that while he is not actually a fill-in-the-blank, he did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. Do you ever get the feeling that we are getting Holiday Inn Express government? Does anything they say make basic economic sense? President Obama and the Democratic Party... read more »

2 Comments | Related Topics »National |

Shriver's "A Woman's Nation" Misses the Mark

By Mona Charen | 10/25/09

Maria Shriver's new report, "A Woman's Nation Changes Everything," has received a full dress media rollout. We are invited to examine the changes in women's lives over the past several decades and to deplore, as usual, the obstacles to full equality that women supposedly face. Published in cooperation with the Center for American Progress, "A Woman's Nation" claims to be reckoning with the new era but arguably fails to... read more »

2 Comments | Related Topics »National |

Obama Has Betrayed the Cause of Human Rights Around the Globe

By Mona Charen | 10/20/09

The world thinks better of the United States, we are told, because Barack Obama is in the White House. Maybe the world is wrong. It's fanciful, of course, to speak of what "the world" thinks about anything. It's safe to say that among Norwegian prize givers and Canadian avant-garde filmmakers, Obama is extremely popular. And certainly among bien pensant Americans, the advent of Obama is viewed as the moral pinnacle of American... read more »

4 Comments | Related Topics »National |

Tide of Public Opinion Turning Sharply Against Democrats

By Mona Charen | 10/16/09

"There is a tide in the affairs of men" -- Shakespeare Yes, but undertows, too. As Obama, Pelosi, and Reid rush to transform America into a European-style social democratic state, they must be nervous; they must feel the sand sliding under their feet. The 2010 elections are just over the horizon and the omens are not encouraging for them. Thomas Jefferson warned that... read more »