36 Quotes By John Podhoretz


The problem is that borrowing money to pay back more borrowed money that will oblige you in the future to borrow even more money doesn't sound kosher. Because it isn't.
John Podhoretz on money

Robots have a rich and storied history in movies.
John Podhoretz on movies

What people adore about superhero movies is the signal quality of the Christopher Nolan films - their complete lack of irony when it comes to the portrayal of heroism and the need for heroes to confront evil.
John Podhoretz on movies

Here's a very good rule of thumb in politics: losing begets losing.
John Podhoretz on politics

This has always been the way of presidential politics. The president rises above the fray while his surrogates go on the attack. They throw the spears and fling the mud he sits upon the throne.
John Podhoretz on politics

Political folk talk a lot these days about 'messaging' - a neologism designed to describe the way in which parties and politicians consciously characterize their efforts. It is only intended to be positive - i.e., 'Our messaging is designed to show we care.'
John Podhoretz on positive

Making recess appointments when the Senate isn't in recess is neither rational nor moderate. It's a raw misuse of executive power by a president whose love of government is his most vulnerable spot with the electorate.
John Podhoretz on power

The attack on ObamaCare was that Congress does not have the power under the Commerce Clause to force a private citizen into a private contractual relationship. If such a thing is permitted to stand, the anti-ObamaCare forces argue, there will be no limit to Congress's power in the future.
John Podhoretz on power

The classic rule of thumb is that if you are an intellectual ideological magazine, you do better in opposition than you do if your views are reflected by people in power.
John Podhoretz on power

You want a culture where citizens are free to express themselves and so live in the openness necessary to the functioning of a successful economy? Israel has a free press, much of it openly hostile to the parties in power.
John Podhoretz on power

The attack on ObamaCare was that Congress does not have the power under the Commerce Clause to force a private citizen into a private contractual relationship. If such a thing is permitted to stand, the anti-ObamaCare forces argue, there will be no limit to Congress's power in the future.
John Podhoretz on relationship

But like a born actor who only really wants to direct, Gingrich has always been unsatisfied with what he's brilliant at. He can't still his hunger to deliver grand pronouncements on life, liberalism, conservatism, religion and whatever else swims into his consciousness.
John Podhoretz on religion

You'd think experienced political professionals would know better than to place their trust in exit polls, notoriously inaccurate surveys that had John Kerry winning the 2004 election by five points when he actually lost by three.
John Podhoretz on trust

The United States established itself as a trustworthy new nation in its first two decades after the Revolutionary War by paying its debts, even when many in the country believed it had no obligation to do so. Alexander Hamilton, the founder of this newspaper, insisted on it.
John Podhoretz on war

The idea that the rest of the world was somehow being held hostage by the Arab-Israeli conflict once had a minimal basis in reality. In the first 20 years of Israel's existence, every Arab country was in an active state of war with the Jewish state.
John Podhoretz on war

Hurtling the Pentagon into an unprecedented budgetary meltdown is horrifically irresponsible. Obama doesn't care. This is war - not against the Taliban, but war against the GOP. He has Republicans on the ropes, and that's a victory he savors and desires - unlike Afghanistan, where he seems only to want to turn tail.
John Podhoretz on war