menu_open Columnists
Michael Brendan Dougherty

Michael Brendan Dougherty

National Review

We use cookies to provide some features and experiences in QOSHE

More information  .  Close

De Gaulle Cinema

Having read Julian Jackson’s absolutely astonishing biography of Charles de Gaulle, I was excited to know that two feature-length films based on the...

previous day 2

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

After Libertarianism

Daniel McCarthy has written a provocative column in the new issue of The Spectator, arguing that libertarianism has "disappeared" from our...

previous day 8

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Irish Identity and Palestine

It now seems like every week there is a big controversy in Ireland related to the Palestinian cause. Ed Sheeran got into hot water with the Irish...

wednesday 7

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

AI Doom as the New Climate Catastrophe

Oren Cass has a very smart essay on how to respond to the AI doom scenarios with what we’ve learned from the environmental catastrophists: The...

wednesday 4

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

The Next Vibe Shift

When Trump was reelected, there was a lot of talk about “the vibe shift.” It was basically a phrase meaning the end of the woke era and the start...

wednesday 3

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Late-Period Periodicals

The magazine and newspaper industry was chomped to pieces by the internet and chewed up in the great financial crisis. The survivors of the larger...

wednesday 4

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Saying No More en Français

In his U.S. House race, former Maine Governor Paul LePage throws a little French into a campaign ad. It might be the first time we’ve seen French...

wednesday 5

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Can Consumer-Focused AI Save Us from Doom?

I've found the two-week freak-out about AI unenlightening for the most part. The vast majority of the people prophesying imminent doom know very...

21.09.2026 5

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

The Fight for Open-Source AI

David Sacks, the influential investor and technologist who was until recently Donald Trump's AI and crypto czar, has emphasized that the...

16.09.2026 10

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Knuckle Down

I recommend this very sweet piece in the Wall Street Journal about one father’s attempt to teach the knuckleball. While my son Ben worked hard on...

16.09.2026 7

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Hitchens on Scruton

Dan Hitchens at First Things has penned a remarkable reported essay on Roger Scruton’s life and formation. Don Jr. Will Regret It Russia’s...

16.09.2026 7

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

More Bad Polling for Tech

Obviously the world of politics has been colonized by the debates about AI because the leading AI companies have C-suites that have shifted from...

16.09.2026 10

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

The End of the World Isn’t Upon Us

Again, I recommend that people who are being made fearful by employees of the leading AI labs, Anthropic and OpenAI, should read Cal Newport. There is...

16.09.2026 9

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Software Already Kills People

Can we cabin AI to prevent it from killing us by excluding it from sensitive systems like nuclear weapons, the grid, or wet labs? Ramesh asks. I think...

15.09.2026 9

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

When Labor Is Dear

It’s a bit of a dog-bites-man story, but the Wall Street Journal has a piece about the push in warehouses to bring more robots in. “Labor costs...

09.09.2026 6

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

More Reading on the Gipper

I really appreciate Jonah Goldberg's response to my column today on the many Ronald Reagans and many JD Vances that people love and hate in turn....

09.09.2026 6

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

The Sangfroid of Cal

Another AI company employee, this time from Anthropic, has publicly announced a career change along with the conviction that the frontier model AI...

09.09.2026 7

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

The Terms on Offer

After a new round of shuttle diplomacy, Russia has made a new offer to Ukraine. It’s obviously worse than what was reportedly on offer in Istanbul...

09.09.2026 9

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Man Oh Man

Fintan O'Toole, Irish Times grandee and occasional contributor to New York–based periodicals, has submitted his way of commemorating the 9/11...

09.09.2026 7

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

The Thinning of Rarefied Air

Ed West’s excellent Substack had a very distressing essay about the broad, almost universal decline of reading. He talked about how distressing it...

09.09.2026 6

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Barzun on the Heaps

Back in the 1950s, Jacques Barzun wrote an essay, “Swift, or the Capacity for Reason,” that continues to astonish me. When in our weariness we...

02.09.2026 10

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

God Is In the Details

A few readers quibbled with my column today, pointing out that some the facts of the case I mentioned in Maine, if known, might have made readers feel...

02.09.2026 9

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

The Progressive Problem with Men

Conor Fitzgerald is now one of the most underrated observers of the scene today, and I highly recommend his essays at The Fitzstack. My favorite from...

02.09.2026 10

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Nationalism Properly Understood

My former colleague Jonah Goldberg writes a nice column on “One Thingism” — and the way that anti-Israel sentiment is now used as moral cover...

02.09.2026 10

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Sympathy for Michelle Obama

Okay, at the risk of turning in my right-wing-conspiracy card, I found this clip of Michelle Obama endearing and entertaining, and funny, not a...

02.09.2026 10

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Andy Burnham Meets the Standard of Misconstrual

U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham was asked (I think) about what his agenda was while visiting Northern Ireland. He was asked about a "border...

28.08.2026 10

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

The Other Side

I was harsh today on America’s approach under Trump to Canada in these trade negotiations, but it is worth hearing the other side. Michael Taube,...

26.08.2026 30

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

A Troubling Listen

The series covering the Troubles on the podcast The Rest Is History is really quite good. The hosts, Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland, have a knack...

26.08.2026 10

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

My Burrito, Your Burrito

I went on vacation as the debates about the common good were blending into a mole sauce and became a debate about burritos, but I had a thought on it...

26.08.2026 20

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

The Meaning of Air-Conditioning in France

Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s National Rally party, a descendant of the National Front, has been a political renovator. Her party, like other...

25.08.2026 10

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

The Depleting Platoons

Jim Geraghty writes about the declining number of births to Americans last year and the knock-on effects of this. He alludes to an issue that has...

24.08.2026 10

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Gravesides and Vacations

Normally around this time of year, I write a casual column about the joys of summer. I was asked for one specifically by The Spectator for their diary...

24.08.2026 10

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

China’s Industrial Food Revolution

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of The Telegraph dedicates his most recent column to the latest Chinese long-term plan, which envisions China acting to begin...

19.08.2026 10

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Zelensky’s First Serious Political Challenger

Mykhailo Fedorov, the popular former defense minister who was dismissed from his position last month, has released a video calling for wartime...

19.08.2026 10

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Sailing Away from Deterring China

The USS George Washington is leaving its mission near Japan to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln which has been deployed to the Middle East and whose...

19.08.2026 10

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Common Misrepresentation

In yet another post (of several) trying to end the debate about the common good simply by reasserting that the people who are credited with...

04.08.2026 20

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

What Do You Want to Liberate Me From?

Okay, last and final word on this. To further illustrate that the common good, like liberty or democracy or due process or equality, is  another...

02.08.2026 20

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Common Problems

I’m heading for some time off. But I think I have a little more to contribute before I fall silent. To recap: Dan expressed his doubt that “the...

02.08.2026 20

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

How Do Words Work? A Reply on the Common Good

I confess I had to read Dan’s post “What Exactly Is ‘the Common Good’?” twice before I could believe he wrote it. Was he really suggesting...

31.07.2026 20

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Political Theater at Its Most Satisfying

Here's the full segment with Senator Hawley GOING OFF on Fauci and it's well worth the watch. Send this to EVERYONE you know....

29.07.2026 20

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Devine on Fauci

I know it was before his cowardly appearance before the Senate this morning, but this Miranda Devine column on Dr. Fauci and his diaries is...

29.07.2026 10

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Our Iran Policy Is Completely Adrift at This Point

Bombing or no-bombing, MOU or no MOU: We have a war that our people and our allies don’t want to support. Five months into it, after we were told...

29.07.2026 10

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Mamdani’s Main Opponent

The New York Times writes about our former colleague, now leader of the Manhattan Institute, Reihan Salam: Reihan Salam has a lot in common with the...

29.07.2026 10

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Listen to the Roar

It’s been really fun to watch clips of this Sunday’s All-Ireland Gaelic football championship go viral across social media. The more I watch of...

28.07.2026 20

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Oh Good, Bombing Iran Some More?

Earlier this week, Jim took a dim view of potential talks with the Iranians. The Iranian regime demonstrated, clearly and frequently, that any...

24.07.2026 10

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Speaking of Revolutionaries

The Washington Free Beacon has a cracker of a book review, in which Ronald Radosh reads the searching memoir of Zayd Ayers Dohrn. You’ll remember...

22.07.2026 20

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Daniel Ortega Casts Off All Disguise

For those who know, rigged elections do happen in the Americas. They’ve been happening for years in Nicaragua, ever since the Sandinistas brought...

22.07.2026 20

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

When Elites Fail

Ross Douthat has a thoughtful review of Richard Hanania’s book, which is another brief against “populism” but from Hanania’s odd angle....

22.07.2026 30

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Zelensky’s Consolidated Rule

Over at The Spectator, Owen Matthews has a sobering dispatch about this week’s big news in Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelensky has sacked his...

22.07.2026 20

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty

Twenty Years Not Enough?

Former Vice President Mike Pence says the lesson of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars is the U.S. was only willing to fight "to a point" rather...

21.07.2026 20

National Review

Michael Brendan Dougherty