Best New Yorker Comment
The Comment section offers thoughtful analysis and opinion on current events, culture, and ideas. These pieces provide perspective on the issues shaping our world.
91 picks · 1930–2026
Top authors: David Remnick (11), Hendrik Hertzberg (8), Jonathan Schell (6)
The Knicks have made the N.B.A. Finals again and, as another home team instructs the city, “Ya gotta believe.”
The outbreaks of hantavirus and Ebola expose the shortsightedness of America’s retreat, under the Trump Administration, from its role as a global-health leader.
Their electoral prospects are finally improving, but opportunities can quickly give way to divisions. Does the Party have a plan?
It wasn’t the first time that Trump had debased someone who serves him. It wasn’t even the first time that Vance had had to downplay a blasphemy-themed A.I. image.
Even with Kristi Noem gone, the Administration’s immigration agenda shows no signs of flagging—in fact, it is leading toward a new humanitarian and legal crisis.
President Trump has both called for Iranians to rise up and oust the ruthless theocracy and said that he’s fully prepared to deal with a new religious leader.
The fight over the 2028 primary calendar is one of several proxies for a broader battle about the future of the Party—and the search for the best nominee.
Michael Luo on career prosecutors, military officials, and why those serving in the Administration need to consider the example of the incarceration of Japanese Americans during the Second World War.
Jonathan Blitzer on Pete Hegseth’s boat strikes, a potential war crime, and how the call for Nicolás Maduro’s ouster is wrapped up in Trump’s most dangerous proclivities, including his disregard for laws constraining his power.
Benjamin Wallace-Wells on how Trump’s rant about diversity initiatives after the horrific plane crash in the Potomac were of a piece with his Administration’s messy attempt to freeze federal programs.
David Remnick on the ex-President’s defeat of Kamala Harris, and how Democrats must regroup to protect liberal democracy and civil liberties.
A rapid end to burning fossil fuel would arrest the heating that has caused extreme damage in recent weeks; and that rapid end is possible, Bill McKibben writes.
Jia Tolentino writes about the overturning of Roe v. Wade after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization, the future for abortion rights, and the importance of reproductive justice.
During a time when the country has been starkly divided on matters ranging from the pandemic to the Presidency, the Court has largely avoided partisanship, Jeannie Suk Gersen writes.
Racist policies are bad for business, as the state’s own history can attest, Jelani Cobb writes.
Biden’s challenge was that the President lies in a manner that is so unanchored to reality that it becomes disorienting for anyone watching, Amy Davidson Sorkin writes.
The Washington Post journalist has been in a Tehran prison for nearly a year, without being publicly charged. Why?
The Supreme Court’s embrace of gay rights last week had an almost serene majesty. Yet the decision had its roots in something prosaic and largely …
Republican economics and a payroll-tax holiday
Comment about rising gas prices and John McCain’s changing campaign strategy. Late last month, Sen. John McCain went up with a new TV ad, “Pump,” …
Comment about the conservative shift of the Supreme Court. As George W. Bush staggers toward the end of his second term, he can point to one major project …
Hendrik Hertzberg on what the President calls his opposition party.
Comment about the death of Pope John Paul II… Tells about Karol Wojtyla becoming Pope in 1978. According to the Pope’s biographer, George Weigel, his …
Signed comment about the Sammy Sosa scandal... Sosa, downcast and repentant, has finished serving his seven-day suspension from baseball for corking his …
Signed comment about the conclusion of formal hostilities in the Second Persian Gulf War... It would also require a constricted conscience to declare the …
Signed comment about the Bush administration’s dismal environmental record... Many of the mountains of West Virginia have no tops. These were "removed," …
Signed comment about the evolving Canadian national character and the unusual outcome of the recent Winter Olympics judging scandal... The Canadian pairs …
Signed comment about Mayor Giuliani’s recent attempt to capture a third term, or, failing that, extend his reign by three months...
Signed comment about coverage of the Rep. Gary Condit scandal & CBS News’s reluctance to join the media circus it has become... A curious feature of the …
Signed comment about traffic jams, overcrowding, and summer vacations... Writer comments that "Congestion is the expected condition of everything." …
Signed comment about Gov. George W. Bush's Inaugural Address. . . . It was by far the best Inaugural Address in forty years; indeed, it was better than…
Signed comment about the ongoing legal battle over the Presidential election. . . Two realities loomed like beasts in the mist: that George W. Bush will …
Signed comment about Seymour Hersh’s Annals of War in the current issue... [T]he Persian Gulf War, in which, a decade ago, the United States and its …
Signed comment about celebrity and memory... As with sex before its revolution, celebrity has many to exploit it but few to defend it. Tells about the …
Adam Gopnik on critiques about the portrayal of violence in American popular culture, in the wake of the Columbine massacre.
Signed comment about life in New York City. The writer claims that New York City raises more questions than it answers for those that choose to live here.…
Signed comment about summer. The American ideal of summer is unreal. The truth is that summer is a muggy climate and an overworked population. And, …
Signed comment about Rupert Murdoch's cancellation of a book by Christopher Patten on Hong Kong... A few weeks ago, Murdoch temporarily departed from …
Signed Comment about the amusement value, civil rights implications, and potential financial repercussions from the Giuliani administration’s new …
Signed comment about a protest against coed dorms at Yale University... As college students gather in the opening weeks of a new semester, there is, we …
Roger Angell’s 1997 Comment on a B-52 bomber pilot, an affair, and sexism in the Air Force.
Signed comment about Europe... Suppose the world were an animal curled up into a ball, like a threatened armadillo, and you wanted to blow its brains out: …
Signed comment about musical influences... Something odd occurs toward the end of "Odelay," a new album by the young artist known simply as Beck. As …
Signed comment on Bosnia. ...The Dayton Peace Agreement, which ended the fighting [in Bosnia] last November, was the product of vigorous American …
Signed Comment about Mayor Marion Barry's ineffective rule of Washington, D.C. & Sen. Robert Dole's resignation from the Senate in order to pursue …
Signed comment about the insanity defense... "Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes," Nick Carraway observes in "The Great Gatsby," …
Signed Comment about endings. Toward the end of "Northanger Abbey," Jane Austen makes a characteristically sly joke. The book's readers can tell that a…
Signed Comment about budgetary rhetoric by the Republican Party. "We're sick and tired of having a 5% increase described as a cut," said John Kasich, …
Comment about the New York Public Library on its 100th anniversary. "In "Democratic Vistas" and "Specimen Days" Walt Whitman continued in prose the rolling…
Comment about the bombing in Oklahoma City and about depictions of violence in the media. "Terror Strikes the Heartland," read one headline, echoing a note…
Signed Comment about the aftermath of the confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas. Three years ago, the Senate Judiciary Committee with its televised …
Adam Gopnik on how the search for what it all means became the search for what the coverage of it all means.
From 1994: In making a sexual-harassment charge against the President, Jones herself will be subjected to intense scrutiny.
Comment about regulating cigarettes & smoking. Last month Dr. David A. Kessler, the commissioner of the Food & Drug Administration, told Congress he …
Comment about Shaw v. Reno, a Supreme Court case about the 12th congressional district of North Carolina and a related trial. A great national experiment …
Comment about a debate over whether sex criminals should be permitted to undergo castration. The argument began in 1992, when Steve Allen Butler, a …
Comment about President Clinton's health care plan and about his State of the Union Address. Even conservatives have acknowledged that there has to be …
Comment about the evolution of democracy in Russia, and the recent failed coup there... When Andrei Sakharov died, on December 14, 1989, the movement for …
Comment about televising Supreme Court sessions. There are only so many ways to study the 8 Republicans and one Democrat who constitute the U.S. Supreme …
Comment about the nineties. There is an unavoidably pallid, anodyne quality to the triumphs of political pragmatism, something that's reflected even in…
Comment on George Steinbrenner's desire to move the Yankees out of the Bronx. New Yorkers still mourn the departure of the Dodgers, in 1957, and wear …
Comment on the U.S. government's arbitrary denial of security clearances to prospective government employees who are gay. President Clinton has agreed …
Hendrik Hertzberg explores the similarities between Bill Clinton’s Inaugural Address and John F. Kennedy’s.
Comment about the Democratic Convention's lack of spontaneity, its silliness, its polictical oration, its simple-mindedness, but finally its spirit of …
Robert Gottlieb on saying goodbye to “Marlene”; in Paris and Berlin, she was a symbol as well as a legend.
With the publication of the Colonel’s memoirs and his nineteen-city tour to promote it, the Iran-Contra affair began its inevitable transformation from tragedy into farce into “product,” Mark Danner wrote, in 1991.
Comment about the Senate Judiciary hearings on Clarence Thomas and their effects on the American psyche. Thomas, the federal judge nominated by President …
On the day of abundance, the author takes a moment to confess that life is good.
This disaster and the other accidents and crises are in fact something more than warnings. They are all that is given to us to know of the end of the world. In a way, they are the end of the world.
A friend of ours who knew Dylan Thomas went to Westminster Abbey for the "unveiling and dedication of a memorial" to the poet on March 1st -- the day on …
When the Radio City Music Hall Corp. announced its plans recently to close down the Music Hall & mentioned that proposals have been made to replace it with…
It has often been said that without Judge Sirica's courage & independence the essential story of Watergate would never have been told. But it can also …
Norman Mailer, Henry Ford, and others react to the “un-Presidential” tone of the Watergate tapes.
A 1973 Comment on the Saturday Night Massacre and Nixon's handling of the Watergate crisis.
A 1973 Comment on Nixon’s firing of the Watergate prosecutor, Archibald Cox.
Jonathan Schell’s 1973 Comment on the Watergate affair and the Nixon Administration's suppression of “actual facts.”
Jonathan Schell on the Watergate case and the need to reaffirm American democracy.
The moon, it turns out, is a great place for men. One sixth gravity must be a lot of fun, and when Armstrong and Aldrin went into their bouncy little …
Paul Brodeur and James Stevenson describe the atmosphere at St. Patrick’s Cathedral during the wake for Robert F. Kennedy, the U.S. senator from New York and the leading Democratic Presidential candidate who was assassinated on June 5, 1968.
Donald Malcolm, E. B. White, and Lillian Ross pay tribute to President John F. Kennedy in the aftermath of his death.
Calvin Trillin writes that President John F. Kennedy’s nationally televised Report to the American People on Civil Rights, from June 11, 1963, was the first time since Brown v. Board of Education, nine years prior, that a President publicly reminded the country of its moral commitment to equality.
Maeve Brennan reports on an eventful first day back in New York City.
John Updike on the discovery that many popular TV game shows were rigged.
E. B. White’s 1951 obituary of The New Yorker editor, Harold Ross: “He wanted the magazine to be good, to be funny, and to be fair.”
Sometimes our affection for N.Y. becomes dulled by familiarity. No building seems high, no subway miraculous no avenue enchanted - al, all commonplace. …
In 1947, New York City’s health commissioner, Dr. Israel Weinstein, denied the “crackpot” rumors about the smallpox vaccination, which rolled out to more than six million New Yorkers over the course of a month.
Wolcott Gibbs writes about the New Yorker office during wartime, a week before Thanksgiving, in 1943. “There is, in fact, so much to be thankful for.”
Comment on how people in N. Y. felt during the first days of war. There was some indignation, too; some things we were ashamed of: an heiress anxious to …
As a nation we fall in love with “the girl in the book and after we’re married, act surprised and alarmed when complications set in.”