John Podhoretz

John Mordecai Podhoretz (/pɒdˈhɒrɛts/; born 1961) is an American journalist and conservative political commentator. The son of writers Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter, he has been the editor of the magazine Commentary since 2009, a post previously held by his father for over thirty years. Before then, Podhoretz ran the editorial page of the New York Post, was a deputy editor of The Weekly Standard, and contributed to numerous other publications. He served as a speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan and worked in the administration of George H. W. Bush, and has authored several books on politics.

Podhoretz was born in 1961, to a Jewish family in Manhattan, New York City, the son of conservative journalists Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter. He has two older half-siblings from his mother's first marriage. He grew up on Manhattan's Upper West Side. He attended Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School and he received a bachelor's degree from the University of Chicago in 1982. In 1987, he became a five-time champion on the game show Jeopardy!

Podhoretz was a speechwriter for former U.S. Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. He was special assistant to White House Drug Czar William Bennett. He co-founded the White House Writers Group, a public-relations firm in Washington, D.C. Podhoretz was a consultant for the popular television series The West Wing, including the episode "Gaza" in season five, first broadcast on May 12, 2004.

Podhoretz has contributed to a number of conservative publications, including National Review and the Weekly Standard, where he was a movie critic and was the magazine's deputy editor. He was also a consulting editor at ReganBooks, a former imprint of HarperCollins. In 1997, Podhoretz began leading the editorial section of New York Post, and kept a regular column there afterwards. He has also appeared on television, including Fox News, CNN's Reliable Sources, MSNBC, and The McLaughlin Group (in the chair usually occupied by conservative Tony Blankley). He has also worked at Time, the Washington Times, Insight on the News, and U.S. News & World Report. Podhoretz was a contributor to The Corner, a group blog run by National Review.^{[citation needed]}

At The Weekly Standard, one staff member said, Podhoretz's "arrogance and egotism had a psychological effect people can't quite believe." At The Washington Times a colleague reported, he was "permanently frozen in juvenilia." Glenn Garvin, the Central American bureau chief of the Miami Herald, once said that at the Times, Podhoretz "constantly complained that his brilliance wasn't appreciated."

On January 1, 2009, Podhoretz became editor of Commentary, succeeding Neal Kozodoy.

Podhoretz was a staunch supporter of President George W. Bush. His 2004 book Bush Country: How George W. Bush Became the First Great Leader of the 21st Century---While Driving Liberals Insane called Bush "the first great leader of the 21st century". When some conservatives denounced Bush's immigration plan, Podhoretz wrote that Bush's "efforts on behalf of conservative causes—from faith-based policies to stem-cell research to a strict-constructionist judiciary to entitlement reform and massive tax cuts—have all fallen down the memory hole".

Podhoretz is emphatic in his defense of Israel in its conflicts with its Arab neighbors. When pundit Pat Buchanan called Israel's actions in the 2006 Lebanon War "un-Christian", Podhoretz wrote: "You want to know what anti-Semitism is? When Pat Buchanan calls Israel's military action 'un-Christian.' That's anti-Semitism."