Mona Charen is a syndicated columnist and political analyst living in the Washington, D.C., area. Mona Charen received her undergraduate degree at Barnard College, Columbia University, with honors. Mona Charen also holds a degree in law from George Washington University. Mona Charen began her career at National Review magazine, where Mona Charen served as editorial assistant. On her first tax return at the age of 22, Mona Charen listed her occupation as "pundit," explaining later, "You have to think big." In 1984, Mona 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, Mona Charen lectured widely on the administration's Central America policy. Later in Mona Charen's White House career, Mona Charen worked in the Public Affairs office helping to craft the president's overall communications strategy. In 1986, Mona Charen left the White House to join the presidential quest of then-Congressman Jack Kemp as a speechwriter. Mona 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. Mona Charen 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. Mona Charen 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). Mona Charen is a frequent guest on television and radio public affairs programs and is married with three children. http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen http://media.townhall.com/TownHall/icons/TH-feed-icon-128x128.gif http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen TownHall.com, Where your opinion counts. 128 Copyright (c) 2009 Townhall.com, A Salem Communications Web. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED jim.dearras@townhall.com (Jim De Arras) Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:01:00 GMT Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:01:00 GMT http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss RSS.NET: http://www.rssdotnet.com/ 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... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/11/06/are_you_with_us_or_with_them 97d6e171-5974-4cc4-83c3-13adbc4afcd0 Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:01:00 GMT 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... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/11/03/health_care_overhaul_iv_this_time,_its_personal fab6525a-7c2b-44c8-a285-8f712cda53a2 Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:01:00 GMT 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... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/10/30/fighting_the_lies_harder_than_fighting_the_war 74f85e1a-35d8-4e89-8570-2c9fe6243a07 Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:01:00 GMT 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... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/10/27/government_by_holiday_inn_express e39a8def-aab6-4639-9549-7a66f3bfafa3 Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:01:00 GMT 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,... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/10/23/maria_shriver_misses_the_point 3d1edbec-0bcf-4c5e-b562-3e19f78782b0 Fri, 23 Oct 2009 04:01:00 GMT 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... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/10/20/obamas_moral_leadership_balloon_crashes_--_no_one_inside 85313ff4-daed-4eca-b173-0cff003e9ade Tue, 20 Oct 2009 04:01:00 GMT "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... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/10/16/the_democrats'_coming_defeat 195856eb-0d3b-4408-a70f-09aaff94191f Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:01:00 GMT Picture this: It is midnight on Nov. 4, 2009. The previous day's elections in Virginia, New York's 23rd congressional district, and New Jersey have all been won by Republicans. Health reform is stalled. The latest... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/10/13/can_obama_rise_to_hardings_level fb20301c-bac9-4b86-ae63-aa5a4cd9985d Tue, 13 Oct 2009 04:01:00 GMT The air was thick with hypotheticals at the Supreme Court last week as the justices considered whether a law designed to outlaw videos depicting cruelty to animals was constitutional. Because there is no floor to... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/10/09/when_the_first_amendment_counts_most,_court_has_been_awol f62dd346-2e39-4b76-be91-ee32c8c3da38 Fri, 09 Oct 2009 04:01:00 GMT Strangely, chatter about the "death of conservatism" is circulating this fall. I say "strangely" because we are in the midst of the greatest left/liberal moment in living memory. Liberal policies are careening out of... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/10/06/and_you_say_conservatism_is_dying 535d1cfb-9dde-4825-9482-a2916e1996a8 Tue, 06 Oct 2009 04:01:00 GMT There is nothing that makes some members of the chattering class more jumpy than the idea that women may be choosing to stay at home with their children. Still evidently shaken by a 2003 New York Times piece on female... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/10/02/repeat_after_me_mothers_belong_at_work e1c1f6e4-f834-4441-811c-c02cf2e97157 Fri, 02 Oct 2009 04:01:00 GMT Well, that's one way to look at it. Writing in Haaretz, Orna Coussin praised Yom Kippur (the Jewish Day of Atonement that began Sunday night and ended Monday night) as the ultimate green holiday. Coussin is a... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/09/29/who_needs_religion d7919f92-d62a-47e6-9017-d05a0ee3ea8f Tue, 29 Sep 2009 04:01:00 GMT President Obama's speech to the United Nations has been called naive and even "post-American." It was something else, as well: the most extravagant excursion into self-worship we have yet seen in an American... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/09/25/obamas_self-worship ff952219-fa14-479b-ac17-325001cba9dc Fri, 25 Sep 2009 04:01:00 GMT Irving Kristol, who passed away last week at the age of 89, was like everyone's favorite uncle -- if the uncle were a transformative intellectual of empyrean stature. He was both a warm and approachable human being... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/09/22/irreplaceable_irving c208475a-d0d8-4d5f-a2ae-f739a84f3f01 Tue, 22 Sep 2009 04:01:00 GMT The United Nations Human Rights Council, a putrid perversion of every high ideal upon which it was founded, has issued a report calling the Israelis war criminals. The HRC has also, in obedience to the wishes of... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/09/18/un_disgraces_itself_again;_obama_helps ff8f54d4-0e55-4982-ae8b-3386c1196d20 Fri, 18 Sep 2009 04:01:00 GMT The Democrats have never seen a problem they didn't think could be fixed with a government program. And they sometimes discern crises crying out for government solutions where there are none. Remember the... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/09/15/democrats_failed_on_digital_divide,_too de222284-c35a-4c4e-b257-9b1b5a3b4ee5 Tue, 15 Sep 2009 04:01:00 GMT Let's stipulate that it was wrong of Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., to shout "You lie" during President Obama's health care speech. It was a violation of courtesy and etiquette. Wilson apologized -- which is more than the... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/09/11/obamas_trouble_with_numbers 3665ded4-3275-47d1-bacb-1e18b2d59a1d Fri, 11 Sep 2009 04:01:00 GMT Arguably violating its embed agreement, the near universal press practice since 9/11, and the expressed wishes of the family, the Associated Press went ahead and published a photograph of mortally wounded Marine Lance... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/09/08/the_aps_decision_to_exploit_a_marines_death 1a595320-4b90-4fd0-a759-90867039d532 Tue, 08 Sep 2009 23:22:32 GMT As Democratic congressmen limp back to D.C. after bruising town hall meetings, and polls show Obama and the Democrats in Congress sinking fast in public opinion polls, the political team in the West Wing has surveyed... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/09/04/what_obama_could_say_to_get_our_respect d39aae6b-46ca-475a-9748-c8e5132dc354 Fri, 04 Sep 2009 04:01:00 GMT Well, thank Heaven George W. Bush is no longer president! Gosh, all of that mixing of religion and politics darn near subverted our Constitution -- which, as all good liberals know -- enshrines the "wall of... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/09/01/good_thing_we_dont_mix_religion_and_politics_anymore fe7be122-b872-46a9-9209-f41394913c13 Tue, 01 Sep 2009 04:01:00 GMT The death of Sen. Edward Kennedy, we are being told, should strengthen our resolve to act in a bipartisan fashion. Many of the tributes, from former presidents and Republican colleagues, have stressed the late senator's... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/08/28/remembering_the_darker_side_of_teddy_kennedy 85731f08-89ca-4b07-9e14-b29480b9a768 Fri, 28 Aug 2009 04:01:00 GMT The lights are going out in Venezuela. The Chavez-controlled legislature passed an education bill on Aug. 13 that will extinguish the last glimmers of free thought in the country's classrooms. The law is such... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/08/25/obama_screws_up_latin_american_policy dfd6d607-d66b-47e8-a4b2-6123f57ae694 Tue, 25 Aug 2009 04:01:00 GMT He was certainly brave, but was he crazy? That's what I wondered when I picked up Rory Stewart's "The Places in Between," an account of the Scotsman's 2002 solo walk across Afghanistan. That's right, he walked. Many... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/08/21/can_we_succeed_in_afghanistan ceea7e5e-2f53-48a3-bf33-73f8a755d6ad Fri, 21 Aug 2009 04:08:00 GMT A comedian once said that visiting Canada was like rummaging in your attic. "You go up there and say 'Wow, there's all this neat stuff up here! There are mountains and rivers and cities." And a parliament and a... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/08/18/about_canada_-_health_care_and_more 2458f807-e305-4d79-97ad-e270a0b651f0 Tue, 18 Aug 2009 04:01:00 GMT A plucky teller foiled a robbery attempt at Key Bank in Seattle. But the story does not end happily. When a small man in a beanie cap, dark clothing, and sunglasses pushed a backpack across the counter and announced,... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/08/04/no_individual_initiative_please!_were_americans 8ba60a4f-45e6-48f6-a5f0-dfd90767b03b Tue, 04 Aug 2009 04:01:00 GMT Charles Murray, no slouch among public intellectuals, described him as the most underrated public intellectual in America today. Murray offered this assessment of George Gilder at a recent American Enterprise Institute... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/07/31/gilder_throws_down_a_gauntlet 6b61c654-0c5e-46ac-982c-e37f33434a2f Fri, 31 Jul 2009 04:00:00 GMT The last moments of President Obama's press conference last week have gotten the most attention, and some of the president's supporters have wondered whether his big-footed interference in the Cambridge professor's... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/07/28/mr_oblivious_to_evidence 6193283c-be86-47cb-bd56-7c98234690fa Tue, 28 Jul 2009 04:01:00 GMT There were so many examples of presidential mendacity on view Wednesday night that I had planned to itemize a few in this column. But since even the New York Times is challenging a number of presidential whoppers... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/07/24/gatesgate c800bcf6-e690-4d24-a7c6-befffa480bc5 Fri, 24 Jul 2009 04:01:00 GMT That is, two of my children have. This piece of heaven is called Interlochen Center for the Arts, and having just visited, I fully comprehend the ecstasy they feel. In a leveling world, Interlochen is all about two... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/07/14/ive_found_heaven__in_northern_michigan ec5329d8-91e0-4bac-bf8d-24896731eb27 Tue, 14 Jul 2009 04:00:00 GMT Obama economic adviser Laura Tyson has suggested that the U.S. should consider a new economic stimulus package because the $787 billion bill enacted in February was "a bit too small." Right. That $787 billion came... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/07/10/help_they_are_talking_about_a_new_stimulus! a3bf3d77-d9c8-4864-9f63-9e1cdaa7fa71 Fri, 10 Jul 2009 04:01:00 GMT The French Republic is not blessed or burdened with a First Amendment. So when President Nicolas Sarkozy recently suggested that France ban the wearing of the burqa in all public places, the Chamber of Deputies took it... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/07/07/could_the_us_ban_the_burqa,_too 96b9b8b2-04e3-4c9a-a0a1-04a0a4953e85 Tue, 07 Jul 2009 04:01:00 GMT One of President Obama's pretensions is the pose of objectivity. Reversing his predecessor's policy on stem cell research, he boasted of restoring "science to its rightful place." Lobbying for his health care... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/07/03/the_empirical_president 7f6125a8-3b93-4842-ac01-ff8a92960db0 Fri, 03 Jul 2009 04:01:00 GMT The news that Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was removed from his post and spirited out of the country by the Honduran military has elicited official condemnations from the governments of France, Ecuador, Chile,... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/06/30/did_someone_say_coup 0ec7dd15-b871-49e5-945a-89e31a02e897 Tue, 30 Jun 2009 04:00:00 GMT "The author is ending her marriage. Isn't it time you did the same?" So the Atlantic Monthly provocatively introduces its July/August feature "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off." It comes at a propitious moment. This... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/06/26/shame_is_deader_than_dead e680cb62-3ab7-4473-adf1-1010e41908f1 Fri, 26 Jun 2009 04:01:00 GMT It's become almost a parlor game to watch Obamaphiles spin the president's response to events in Iran. Uninfatuated observers have noticed that the president displayed a tepid and unsatisfying neutrality to events... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/06/23/the_obama_effect eff32d5f-ec60-456f-924d-2cb8f55e0db8 Tue, 23 Jun 2009 04:01:00 GMT Someone few Americans had ever heard of one week ago now stands poised to alter history. His name is Mir Hossein Mousavi and his case utterly debunks the school of historians who insist that history is made by large... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/06/19/mousavi_the_man_of_the_hour 91134bd3-16f7-4326-b1e5-c44a7f989917 Fri, 19 Jun 2009 04:01:00 GMT In 1980, after Soviet tanks rumbled into Afghanistan, President Jimmy Carter experienced an epiphany. The former Georgia governor, who in 1977 liberated the U.S. from its "inordinate fear of communism" and pecked... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/06/16/foreign_policy_as_social_work e78f4294-9891-4c07-bdcd-e3e9355ba29e Tue, 16 Jun 2009 04:01:00 GMT "This Time, We Won't Scare" boasts New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, strapping on his armor for the coming joust. The health care debate will be cheapened, he warns us, by scaremongers, just like those who... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/06/12/are_we_scaremongers b175d784-0000-4cdf-a92c-a21c0f19be4d Fri, 12 Jun 2009 04:01:00 GMT You might suppose that President Obama has his hands full running two wars, administering General Motors, "rescuing" the banking system, attempting to empower unions over management, hushing up whispers about... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/06/09/health_care_bill_is_the_ball_game f23c9059-b3d4-4723-b07d-8d66acbc484f Tue, 09 Jun 2009 04:01:00 GMT In Cairo, President Obama told (was it for the 100th time?) the story of his African father and American mother. This story has worked well for him in the American context, and he seems to believe that it will beguile... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/06/05/obama_in_cairo_diplomacy_of_wishful_thinking 61bd216d-9e28-4fb5-9c14-645b797967cb Fri, 05 Jun 2009 04:00:00 GMT The nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court has already achieved a boon for our political culture: It has helped leading liberals and Democrats to discover that being tarred as a racist on flimsy... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/06/02/its_not_fair_to_casually_call_people_racist cdb752b6-0cae-46f0-ae19-cbd73efd05fb Tue, 02 Jun 2009 04:00:00 GMT Rome -- Here the sun is shining, the quiet Tiber suggests lazily that it has seen everything there is to see in this world; the streets are thronged with tourists (including this columnist); the locals are amorous; and... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/05/27/are_we_at_peace c2df6f37-e4e3-40f6-974e-395fc63261c8 Wed, 27 May 2009 04:00:00 GMT In his book "The Enemy at Home," Dinesh D'Souza shows little patience with the leftists who reacted to 9/11 by declaring that America had it coming. And yet, his book is a variant on that theme. It was our... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/05/22/is_it_all_about_britney 3a231a7c-81df-45aa-a150-9af9003c8c58 Fri, 22 May 2009 04:01:00 GMT Who said "Iran's development of a nuclear weapon, I believe, is unacceptable and we have to mount an international effort to prevent that from happening"? It wasn't Binyamin Netanyahu. No, President Barack Obama said... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/05/19/tick,_tick,_tick c35d28e2-4ad9-4eb0-8dbf-e6b832d63ffc Tue, 19 May 2009 04:01:00 GMT The other day I chatted with a pregnant gal at the hair salon. She was about 20, sweet, pretty, and demure. Because I am always doing sociological fieldwork, I asked my hairdresser if she was married. No. But she... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/05/15/the_wrong_marriage_debate 0dc2170e-bb98-495c-9a01-d69ffb3dcc7e Fri, 15 May 2009 04:01:00 GMT In early April, Vice President Biden was asked if the administration was concerned that Israel might strike at Iran's nuclear facilities. "I don't believe Prime Minister Netanyahu would do that," Mr. Biden replied. "I... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/05/12/obamas_signal_to_israel_submit b16a6eaf-43e8-4f55-8a21-660693ef36e3 Tue, 12 May 2009 04:01:00 GMT President Obama's admirers (for a handy list simply consult the White House Correspondents Association website) go into raptures about his measured, intelligent, even balanced approach to issues. Granted, he is... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/05/08/will_obama_apologize 686d5662-b791-443f-bc75-15a197a33e46 Fri, 08 May 2009 04:00:00 GMT Jack Kemp was supposed to read this column. A dinner in his honor was scheduled for next week and I had timed the column to appear just prior. The last his friends had heard, he was improving. Now it's too... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/05/05/jack_french_kemp,_rip 4919dac2-7ce2-4f42-b736-3198741b4b38 Tue, 05 May 2009 04:01:00 GMT The Supreme Court of the United States is a redoubt of decorum in a casual Friday world. The justices still wear robes. The assembled attorneys, journalists, and interested observers still rise when the robed ones enter... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/05/01/expletive_deleted__for_now 67e87102-1875-42ca-8fa7-577ad264eeb3 Fri, 01 May 2009 04:01:00 GMT Fourteen months ago Bill Buckley collapsed and died at his desk in Stamford, Conn. The ground has still not finished shaking. How could it? Two sons -- one biological and one professional -- have now written memoirs of... http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MonaCharen/2009/04/28/under_buckleys_giant_shadow 1f28881f-61cc-4139-93ee-7433c53d2d72 Tue, 28 Apr 2009 04:00:00 GMT