A life of consequence has past
Charles Krauthammer, a longtime Fox News
contributor, Pulitzer Prize winner, Harvard-trained psychiatrist and
best-selling author who came to be known as the dean of conservative
commentators, has died. He was 68.
His death had been expected after he
wrote a heartbreaking letter to colleagues, friends and viewers on June 8
that said in part “I have been uncharacteristically silent these past
ten months. I had thought that silence would soon be coming to an end,
but I’m afraid I must tell you now that fate has decided on a different
course for me…
““Recent tests have revealed that the cancer has
returned. There was no sign of it as recently as a month ago, which
means it is aggressive and spreading rapidly. My doctors tell me their
best estimate is that I have only a few weeks left to live. This is the
final verdict. My fight is over.”
In recent years, Krauthammer was best known for his
nightly appearance as a panelist on Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret
Baier” and as a commentator on various Fox news shows.
But Krauthammer was arguably a Renaissance man,
achieving mastery in such disparate fields as psychiatry,
speech-writing, print journalism and television. He won the Edwin Dunlop
Prize for excellence in psychiatric research and clinical medicine.
Journalism honors included the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for his
Washington Post columns in 1987 and the National Magazine Award for his
work at The New Republic in 1984. His book, “Things That Matter: Three
Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics,” instantly became a New York
Times bestseller, remaining in the number one slot for 10 weeks, and on
the coveted list for nearly 40.
Krauthammer delivered his views in a mild-mannered yet
steady and almost philosophical style, befitting his background in
psychiatry and detailed analysis of human behavior. Borrowing from that
background, Krauthammer said in 1990, after the fall of the Berlin Wall,
that the post-Cold War world had gone from bipolar to “unipolar,” with
the United States as the sole superpower. He also coined the term “The
Reagan Doctrine,” among others.
Krauthammer harbored no compunction about calling out
those in power, whether they were Democrats or Republicans or
conservatives.
During the Democratic National Convention, he assailed lack of substance in the build-up to nominating Hillary Clinton.
“As for the chaos abroad, the Democrats are in
see-no-evil denial. The first night in Philadelphia, there were 61
speeches. Not one mentioned the Islamic State or even terrorism.”
“In this crazy election year, there are no
straight-line projections,” he noted, adding presciently, “As Clinton
leaves Philadelphia, her lifelong drive for the ultimate prize is
perilously close to a coin flip.”
At the same time, Krauthammer was quick to express disagreement with President Donald Trump in no uncertain terms.
He denounced Trump’s handling of the violence that
erupted at Charlottesville, Va. protests over the planned removal of a
Robert E. Lee statue, saying that most Americans were "utterly revolted
by right-wing white supremacist neo-Nazi groups.” Krauthammer said that
Trump’s failure to strongly denounce the supremacist group, and to say
that both sides in the protest shared blame, “was a moral disgrace.”
The man who wore many hats, figuratively, throughout
his life -- excelling at just about everything he tried, even when he
was still a rookie -- easily took himself in new directions when
curiosity or instinct struck.
Krauthammer’s intellectual heft belied an ability to be candid and witty about his quirks.
"Everything I've gotten good at I quit the next day to
go on to do something else," he quipped in a 1984 interview with The
Washington Post.
Krauthammer embraced a strong personal constitution
that kept him determined and resilient, even in the face of
extraordinary physical limitations.
He spent most of his life confined to a wheelchair, the
result of a snap decision -- when he was 22 years old and a first-year
student at Harvard – to go for a quick swim with a friend before a
planned game of tennis.
“We go for a swim, we take a few dives and I hit my
head on the bottom of the pool,” he said in a Fox News special in 2013
that looked at his life. “The amazing thing is there was not even a cut
on my head. It just hit at precisely the angle where all the force was
transmitted to one spot…the cervical vertebrae which severed the spinal
cord.”
Unable to move, and at a time when his studies happened
to focus on the spinal cord, Krauthammer instantly knew the
consequences of the accident would be severe.
“There were two books on the side of the pool when they
picked up my effects,” he recalled. “One was ‘The Anatomy of the Spinal
Cord’ and the other one [was] ‘Man’s Fate’ by Andre Malraux.”
A lifelong opponent of being stereotyped in any fashion, Krauthammer was not going to let being in a wheelchair define him.
"I don't like when they make a big thing about it," he
told the Washington Post. "And the worst thing is when they tell me how
courageous I am. That drives me to distraction."
"That was the one thing that bothered me very early
on," Krauthammer said. "The first week, I thought, the terrible thing is
that people are going to judge me now by a different standard. If I can
just muddle through life, they'll say it was a great achievement, given
this.”
"I thought that would be the worst, that would be the
greatest defeat in my life -- if I allowed that. I decided if I could
make people judge me by the old standard, that would be a triumph and
that's what I try to do. It seemed to me the only way to live.”
As soon as he could after the accident, Krauthammer
forged ahead with his studies, finishing medical school and going on to
do a three-year residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he
wrote about a condition he called “secondary mania,” which gained wide
acclaim.
Then Krauthammer realized his heart was not really in
health care, and after going to Washington D.C. and making some
connections, he ended up as a speech writer for Democrat Walter Mondale
during Jimmy Carter’s re-election campaign.
Later, as a writer for The New Republic, Krauthammer,
then a self-styled Democrat, exhibited the kind of willingness to
criticize political leaders regardless of their party.
"I'm very unhappy with the Democratic foreign policy,"
he told the Post. "And I'm very unhappy with Republican domestic
policy."
"If I have to choose between Republican foreign policy
and Democratic foreign policy I would choose the Republican. That's not
to say there's a lot in it I don't find wrong, but they have done
certain good things in foreign policy."
About a decade ago, Krauthammer joined Fox News,
drawing praise from conservatives, moderates, and liberals for his
thoughtful and meticulously framed remarks.
New York Times columnist David Brooks called him “the most important conservative columnist.”
When his book became a fixture on the New York Times
bestseller list, Newsweek observed: “To those who are trying to make
sense of the rise of the conservative movement, Krauthammer’s success is
a triumph for temperate, smart conservatism.”
Krauthammer politely downplayed the accolades.
“I don’t know if I have influence,” he was quoted as
saying in Michellbard.com. “I know there are people who read me and
people who make decisions who read what I write and they may be
affected…my role is to challenge them, but people don’t come up to me on
the street and say ‘I used to be a liberal until I read you.’”
“My goal is to write something parents will clip and send to their kids in college.”
Charles Krauthammer was born in New York in 1950, and grew up in Montreal, steeped in the Jewish faith.
His father, Shulim Krauthammer, was Austro-Hungarian and his mother, Thea, was born in Belgium. His parents met in Cuba.
Before going to Harvard Medical School, Krauthammer attended McGill University, and Oxford, where he met his wife, Robyn.
They had a son, Daniel. Both his wife and son survive him.
Despite his busy professional life, Krauthammer enjoyed baseball and chess, and made his family a priority.
He often spoke of growing up in a happy, tight-knit family, and spoke proudly of his wife and son.
