He is the editor of Commentary magazine, a columnist for the New York Post, the author of several books on politics, and a former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan and worked in the administration of George H. W. Bush.
He co-founded the White House Writers Group, a public-relations firm in Washington, D.C.[2] Podhoretz was a consultant for the popular television series The West Wing, including the controversial episode "Gaza" in season five, first broadcast on May 12, 2004.
[3] Podhoretz has contributed to a number of conservative publications, including National Review and the Weekly Standard, where he was a movie critic and was the magazine's deputy editor.
He has also appeared on television, including Fox News, CNN's Reliable Sources, MSNBC, and The McLaughlin Group (in the chair usually occupied by conservative Tony Blankley).
[citation needed] At The Weekly Standard, one staff member said, Podhoretz's "arrogance and egotism had a psychological effect people can't quite believe."
Glenn Garvin, the Central American bureau chief of the Miami Herald, once said that at the Times, Podhoretz "constantly complained that his brilliance wasn't appreciated.
We did have a plan—the problem is that the plan didn't work... We thought a political process inside Iraq would make a military push toward victory against a tripartite foe—Saddamist remnants, foreign terrorists and anti-American Shiites—unnecessary...
"[8] In disagreement with several writers at National Review and conservatives in general, Podhoretz has aggressively favored a more open immigration policy for the United States.
[11] On March 30, 2006, Podhoretz was criticized by various bloggers[12][13] for posting the following comment on National Review Online approximately three hours after hostage Jill Carroll's release from her captors: "It's wonderful that she's free, but after watching someone who was a hostage for three months say on television she was well-treated because she wasn't beaten or killed—while being dressed in the garb of a modest Muslim woman rather than the non-Muslim woman she actually is—I expect there will be some Stockholm syndrome talk in the coming days.
Weird, especially in light of Jill Carroll's statement today, which was an effort to address and quiet precisely the kind of talk I predicted would take place.
"[16] In response to assertions by National Review writer John Derbyshire that the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre should have been more forceful in defending themselves, Podhoretz wrote: "The notion that a human being or group of human beings holding no weapon whatever should somehow 'fight back' against someone calmly executing other people right in front of their eyes is ludicrous beyond belief, irrational beyond bounds, and tasteless beyond the limits of reason.
[22] Jonathan Chait has criticized Podhoretz's use of social media, accusing him of "spew[ing] forth abuse upon various adversaries, especially by lobbing spurious charges of antisemitism.
In 2002, he married Ayala Rae Cohen, a former co-producer for Saturday Night Live, who works for International Creative Management (ICM Partners).