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: Trump looks a little like Stalin

It was already one of the most clownish (if sinister) moments in the Trump administration — the Department of Justice actually brought criminal charges against former Olympic canoeist David Hearn for sabotaging the president’s big, beautiful reflecting pool. It then dropped them for legal ...

Opinion: Obsessed with yesterday, unprepared for tomorrow

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” The Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner wrote those words in 1951. Yet, they could be a commentary on the political scene 75 years later. No issue matters more to President Donald Trump than the results of the 2020 election. ...

Opinion: Are moderate Democrats taking back control?

You couldn’t find a wackier candidate than Francesca Hong, the Democratic Socialist vying to become the governor of Wisconsin. She wanted to defund police and abolish ICE, topping it all off with a call to end Thanksgiving. “Saturday Night Live” couldn’t have made her up. Hong lost ...

Opinion: GOP isn’t best party for conservatives

I often get asked for my advice on how to vote. I’m the first to concede these requests come from a very niche slice of the electorate — that tiny remnant of people who know who I am, value my opinion and share my exasperation with both parties. I am going to answer the question. But first ...

Opinion: Biden was a president with morals

“Don’t it always seem to go,” Joni Mitchell wrote decades ago, “that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone?” Last week’s Senate passage of legislation authorizing new sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s Russia was much-ballyhooed, but much ado about little: The most ...

Opinion: Time for Dems’ big tent to get bigger

Here we go again. We’re approaching another presidential campaign year, and once again I am reminded of what the great sage Will Rogers said back in 1933: “I am not a member of any organized political party,” he said. “I am a Democrat.” Yes, I know that Rogers quote is old ...