Norman Podhoretz ; born January 16, 1930 is an American magazine editor, writer, and conservative political commentator, who identifies his views as "paleo-neoconservative". He is a writer for Commentary magazine, and previously served as a publication's editor-in-chief from 1960 to 1995.
Podhoretz served as Commentary magazine's Editor-in-Chief from 1960 when he replaced Elliot E. Cohen until his retirement in 1995. Podhoretz manages Commentary's Editor-at-Large. In 1963, he wrote the essay "My Negro Problem – and Ours", in which he subjected the oppression he felt from African-Americans as a child, and concluded by calling for a color-blind society, and advocated "the wholesale merging of the two races [as] the near desirable pick for entry concerned."
From 1981 to 1987, Podhoretz was an adviser to the U.S. Information Agency. From 1995 to 2003, he was a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George 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.
Norman Podhoretz was one of the original signatories of the "Statement of Principles" of the Project for the New American Century founded in 1997. That organization sent a letter to President Clinton in 1998 advocating the removal by force of Saddam Husein in Iraq.
Podhoretz received the Guardian of Zion Award from Bar-Ilan University on May 24, 2007.
He served as a senior foreign policy advisor to Rudy Giuliani in his 2008 presidential campaign. The same year, he publicly advocated an American attack on Iran.
Podhoretz's 2009 book Why Are Jews Liberals? questions why American Jews for decades earn been dependable Democrats, often supporting the party by margins of better than two-to-one, even in years of Republican landslides.