Charles Krauthammer could have forged a stellar career in medicine after graduating from Harvard Medical School. He became a psychiatrist.
Then he went into public service, joining the Carter administration and serving as a policy adviser and speechwriter for Vice President Walter Mondale.
Eventually, Dr. Krauthammer gravitated rightward. He became a columnist, a pundit — and a sharp one at that.
Fox News Channel came along and hired Krauthammer as a contributor to the network, where he burnished his conservative commentary skills and where he became a stalwart of the network’s array of commentators.
Today, this brilliant essayist and pundit has announced that his doctors have given him only “weeks to live.” Krauthammer’s cancer has returned. The prognosis is as grim as it gets.
Allow me this moment to express my profound sadness at what is likely to transpire.
Back when I was working for a living as editorial page editor of the Amarillo Globe-News, Krauthammer emerged as one of my favorite columnists, whose work we published regularly.
He is a brilliant essayist. He writes with precision and is concise in stating whatever view he wants to project.
Did I agree with him? No, but that’s not the point. One need not agree with someone to appreciate and admire his or her work. I admire Krauthammer’s brilliant mind and appreciate the courage with which he speaks. He speaks without outward rancor. He doesn’t “scream” his rhetoric while presenting his view of how the world should turn.
Here is Krauthammer’s note announcing his prognosis, published in the Washington Post, where he worked as a columnist since 1984.
This news saddens me terribly.
***
You are welcome to take a look at something I wrote in October 2009 about Charles Krauthammer. My thoughts about were as strong then as they are today.
https://highplainsblogger.com/2009/10/a-word-or-two-dispelling-a-rumor/
The man can turn a phrase.