National Columns

The Washington Post, beginning Nov. 1, 2019, will allow its syndicated columns to appear only in print. The columns will still be available as part of our e-edition newspaper online, but they will not be available as separate pieces on our website, ljworld.com. These columnists include George Will, David Ignatius, Michael Gerson and others. This does not affect other columnists like Leonard Pitts, Mona Charen, Connie Schultz and Mark Shields, who are not affiliated with the Washington Post.

Opinion: Which kind of country will we be?

My two boys recently got new passports. The little books are gorgeously designed. On thick paper, drawings are etched of wheat fields and farmers, statues and monuments. Quotes from great Americans — former Presidents George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, as well as ...

Opinion: The rush to declare peace is premature

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a quick study in the art of laying it on thick, announced that he was teaming up with Israel’s Knesset speaker to invite parliamentary leaders from around the world to jointly nominate Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize — and for nothing less than inaugurating “a ...

Opinion: Tariff fallout: The mounting costs of protectionism

With yet another round of tariffs taking effect this week — this time on cabinets and other furniture, timber and lumber — the White House insists that its policies are about “fairness” and “reciprocity.” The evidence now tells a different story of higher prices for Americans, ...

Opinion: Ageism against female politicians starts earlier

So Democrat Janet Mills, governor of Maine, is running against Susan Collins, the state’s Republican senator since 1997. An established political figure would be running against another established political figure, yet the current reportage for Mills tends to start off with “77-year-old ...

Opinion: Indictments put us in tyrant territory

In 1940, then U.S. Attorney General Robert Jackson gathered the nation’s federal prosecutors in the Justice Department’s Great Hall to remind them of the solemn role their morality and disregard of politics in decision-making played in protecting American democracy. The responsible, ...

Opinion: First, recognize Israel’s right to exist

President Trump took a rhetorical victory lap in front of the Israeli parliament Monday. Ignoring his patented departures from the teleprompter, which violated all sorts of valuable norms, it was a speech Trump deserved to give. The ending of the war — even if it’s just a ceasefire — and ...