Norman Podhoretz | |
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 Podhoretz in 1986 | |
| Born | (1930-01-16)January 16, 1930 (age 95) New York City, U.S. |
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| Education | Columbia University (BA) Jewish Theological Seminary of America (BA) Clare College, Cambridge (BA,MA) |
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Norman Podhoretz (/pɒdˈhɔːrɪts/; born January 16, 1930) is an American magazine editor, writer, and conservative political commentator, who identifies his views as "paleo-neoconservative", but only "because (he's) been one for so long".[1] He is a writer forCommentary magazine, and previously served as the publication's editor-in-chief from 1960 to 1995.[2][3]
Podhoretz was a member of the executive committee of the Writers and Artists for Peace in the Middle East, a pro-Israel group.[4]
The son of Julius and Helen (Woliner) Podhoretz,[5]Jewish immigrants[6] from the Central European region ofGalicia (then part of Poland, now Ukraine),[7] Podhoretz was born and raised inBrownsville, Brooklyn. Podhoretz's family was leftist, with his elder sister joining a socialist youth movement. He skipped two grades and attended the prestigiousBoys High School in the borough'sBedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, ultimately graduating third in his class in 1946; his classmates included the prominent AssyriologistWilliam W. Hallo and advertising executiveCarl Spielvogel. Following his admission toHarvard University andNew York University with partial tuition scholarships, Podhoretz ultimately elected to attendColumbia University when he was granted a full Pulitzer Scholarship.[8]
In 1950, Podhoretz received hisBA degree inEnglish literature from Columbia, where he was mentored byLionel Trilling. He concurrently earned a second bachelor's degree inHebrew literature from the nearbyJewish Theological Seminary of America; although Podhoretz never intended to enter the rabbinate, his father (who only attended synagogue on theHigh Holidays) wanted to ensure that his son was nonetheless conversant in "the intellectual tradition of his people",[8] as "a nonobservant New World Jew who ... treasured the Hebraic tradition".[9]
After being awarded theKellett Fellowship from Columbia and aFulbright Scholarship, he later received a second B.A. in literature withfirst-class honors and anOxbridge MA fromClare College, Cambridge, where he briefly pursued doctoral studies after rejecting a graduate fellowship from Harvard. He also served in theUnited States Army from 1953 to 1955 as a draftee assigned to theArmy Security Agency.[10]
Podhoretz served asCommentary magazine's Editor-in-Chief from 1960 (when he replacedElliot E. Cohen) until his retirement in 1995. Podhoretz remainsCommentary's Editor-at-Large. In 1963, he wrote the essay "My Negro Problem—And Ours", in which he described the oppression he felt from African-Americans as a child, and concluded by calling for acolor-blind society and advocating "the wholesale merging of the tworaces [as] the most desirable alternative for everyone concerned."[11]
From 1981 to 1987, Podhoretz was an adviser to theU.S. Information Agency. From 1995 to 2003, he was a senior fellow at theHudson Institute. He was awarded thePresidential Medal of Freedom byGeorge W. Bush in 2004. The award recognized Podhoretz's intellectual contributions as editor-in-chief of Commentary magazine and as a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.[12]
Norman Podhoretz was one of the original signatories of the "Statement of Principles" of theProject for the New American Century founded in 1997.[13] That organization sent a letter to President Clinton in 1998 advocating the removal by force ofSaddam Hussein in Iraq.
Podhoretz received theGuardian of Zion Award fromBar-Ilan University on May 24, 2007.
He served as a seniorforeign policy advisor toRudy Giuliani in his 2008 presidential campaign.[14] The same year, he publicly advocated an American attack on Iran.[15]
Podhoretz's 2009 bookWhy Are Jews Liberals? questions why American Jews for decades have been dependableDemocrats, often supporting the party by margins of better than two-to-one, even in years ofRepublican landslides.[16][17][18]
Podhoretz attends aConservative Jewish synagogue. The congregation emphasizes group study, serious praying, active participation by its members and religious services.[19]
Podhoretz was married to authorMidge Decter[20] from 1956 until her death in 2022,[21] and together they had two children: syndicated columnist andCommentary editor-in-chiefJohn Podhoretz and American-Israeli journalistRuthie Blum. Norman Podhoretz said in early 2019, of his large family and its relation to his political views: "[I]f [Donald Trump] doesn't win in2020, I would despair of the future. I have 13 grandchildren and 12 great grandchildren, and they are hostages to fortune. So I don't have the luxury of not caring what's going to happen after I'm gone."[1] As of 2017[update], Podhoretz lives on theUpper East Side of Manhattan.[22]
Initially a staunch liberal, Podhoretz movedCommentary to the left editorially when he took over the magazine. However, he became increasingly critical of theNew Left and gradually moved rightward as the 1960s wore on. By the 1970s, he was a leading member of the neoconservative movement.[22][23]
In the lead-up to the2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Podhoretz argued strongly for military intervention, claiming thatSaddam Hussein posed a direct threat to the United States.[24]After the9/11 attack and more than a year before the start of the War in Iraq, Podhoretz wrote in February 2002 that"There is no doubt that Saddam already possesses large stores of chemical and biological weapons, and may ... be 'on the precipice of nuclear power.' ... Some urge that we ... concentrate on easier targets first. Others contend that the longer we wait, the more dangerous Saddam will grow. Yet whether or not Iraq becomes the second front in the war against terrorism, one thing is certain: there can be no victory in this war if it ends with Saddam Hussein still in power."[25]
In 2007, Podhoretz argued that the United States should attack Iranian nuclear facilities. According toThe Sunday Times, Podhoretz believed that "Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran are merely different fronts of the same long war."[26] Podhoretz described diplomatic efforts with Iran as similar to appeasement of Nazi Germany prior to World War II. He also contended that thewar on terror is a war againstIslamofascism, and constitutes World War IV (World War III having been theCold War), and advocated the bombing of Iran to preempt Iranian acquisition ofnuclear weapons.[27] His book on that subject, entitledWorld War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism, was published by Doubleday on September 11, 2007.[28][29]
In a 2007 column, Podhoretz explicitly stated his view that Iran should be attacked: "In short, the plain and brutal truth is that if Iran is to be prevented from developing a nuclear arsenal, there is no alternative to the actual use of military force—any more than there was an alternative to force if Hitler was to be stopped in 1938."[30]
In an editorial toThe Wall Street Journal on the sixth anniversary of theSeptember 11 attacks, Podhoretz contended that the retreat fromIraq should not be similar to the retreat fromSouth Vietnam. He argued that when the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam, it sacrificed its national honor.[31]
In 1982, James Fallows wrote a review of Podhoretz's book,Why We Were in Vietnam, forThe New York Times, in which he accused Podhoretz of "changing his views" and "self-righteousness" on the subject of Vietnam, noting that in 1971 Podhoretz wrote that he would "prefer just such an American defeat to a 'Vietnamization' of the war."[32]
The longer passage from which the 1971 quote comes is as follows:
As one who has never believed that anything good would ever come for us or for the world from an unambiguous American defeat, I now find myself – and here is the main source of my own embarrassment in writing about Vietnam – unhappily moving to the side of those who would prefer just such an American defeat to a 'Vietnamization' of the war which calls for the indefinite and unlimited bombardment by American pilots in American planes of every country in that already devastated region.
In the early 1980s, Podhoretz was extremely skeptical that fundamental reform was possible in theUSSR, and sharply criticized those who argued that U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union should be one ofdétente. In his 1980 bookThe Present Danger, Podhoretz predicted that the United States was in danger of losing theCold War and falling behind the Soviet Union as a global power.[33] Later he would express anger with PresidentRonald Reagan for "not establishing sufficiently strong policies toward the Soviets."[34]
Podhoretz praised Bush, calling him "a man who knowsevil when he sees it and who has demonstrated an unfailingly courageous willingness to endure vilification and contumely in setting his face against it." He called Bush the president who was "battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other in living memory."[24][30]
In a 2010Wall Street Journal opinion piece titled "In Defense of Sarah Palin", Podhoretz wrote, "I hereby declare that I would rather be ruled by theTea Party than by theDemocratic Party, and I would rather haveSarah Palin sitting in theOval Office thanBarack Obama."[35]
Podhoretz, who initially supportedMarco Rubio in the2016 Republican primaries,[22] remarked about the primary campaign:
"I began to be bothered by the hatred that was building up against Trump from my soon to be new set of ex-friends. It really disgusted me. I just thought it had no objective correlative... They called them dishonorable, or opportunists, or cowards—and this was done by people like Bret Stephens, Bill Kristol, and various others. And I took offense at that. So that inclined me to what I then became: anti-anti-Trump. By the time he finally won the nomination, I was sliding into a pro-Trump position, which has grown stronger and more passionate as time has gone on.[1]
Podhoretz says his views however, have caused him to lose ex-friends who were anti-Trump, saying: "Well some of them have gone so far as to make me wonder whether they've lost their minds altogether."[1] Of Trump, he argues: "[T]he fact that Trump was elected is a kind of miracle. I now believe he's an unworthy vessel chosen by God to save us from the evil on the Left... His virtues are the virtues of the street kids of Brooklyn. You don't back away from a fight and you fight to win. That's one of the things that the Americans who love him, love him for—that he's willing to fight, not willing but eager to fight. And that's the main virtue and all the rest stem from, as Klingenstein says, his love of America. I mean, Trump loves America."[1]
In 1988 Podhoretz wrote, "I have recently found myself sliding toward the pro-life camp" because of the potential abuses of terminating less than perfect babies and using babies as a resource for harvesting organs. He went into write, "I predict that the line between legalized abortion and legitimation of infanticide is going to disappear."[36][37]
In his 1996Commentary magazine piece "How the Gay-Rights Movement Won", Podhoretz views homosexuality as a "self-evident" "perversion" , suggesting that it is politics and not science that keeps homosexuality off theAmerican Psychiatric Association's list of mental disorders.[38]
Podhoretz states "my heart goes out to all [gay men]... because the life they live is not as good as the life available to men who make their beds with women." He goes on to declare "I for one will go on withholding my assent from this triumphant march [of normalizing homosexuality].[38]
He concludes what is at stake "are the fundamental realities of life against the terrible distortions that have been introduced...by the gay-rights movement and its supporters."[38]
Podhoretz's wife expressed a supportive perspective in her pieceThe Boys on the Beach which includes references to their family vacations onFire Island, New York, an area with a large gay population.[39]
John Podhoretz, Norman's son and successor as Commentary Magazine editor, announced in 2012 that he, himself, is no longer an opponent of gay marriage.[40][41]
Podhoretz says that he had formerly been unthinkingly pro-immigration "because I'm the child of immigrants. And I thought it was unseemly of me to oppose what not only had saved my life, but had given me the best life I think I could possibly have had." However, his views later changed: "In 1924, immigration virtually stopped and the rationale for the new policy was to give newcomers a chance to assimilate—which may or may not have been the main reason—but it probably worked. What has changed my mind about immigration now—even legal immigration—is that our culture has weakened to the point where it's no longer attractive enough for people to want to assimilate to, and we don't insist that they do assimilate. ... That was the culture of the prewar period. You certainly wanted your children to be Americans—real Americans."[1]
