Guy Benson
TownhallFri, 08 Jun 2018 13:27 UTC
The
Washington Post has
published a statement written by Dr. Charles Krauthammer, a public intellectual and titan of conservative thought whose absence from the national conversation over the last ten months has been felt deeply by his readers and Fox News viewers. One of the questions I regularly field as I travel across the country is, "do you know when Charles is coming back?" Despite hearing occasional whispers or updates around Fox's DC bureau, my answer to that question has always been honest; it's gone something like,
I don't know, but I'm praying he recovers and returns soon. Aside from
one optimistic missive late last year, Krauthammer himself has remained silent on his status as he's fought through some daunting health challenges in private. Until today. This is nothing short of heartbreaking:
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.
In August of last year, I underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in my abdomen. That operation was thought to have been a success, but it caused a cascade of secondary complications - which I have been fighting in hospital ever since. It was a long and hard fight with many setbacks, but I was steadily, if slowly, overcoming each obstacle along the way and gradually making my way back to health. However, 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.
I wish to thank my doctors and caregivers, whose efforts have been magnificent. My dear friends, who have given me a lifetime of memories and whose support has sustained me through these difficult months. And all of my partners at The Washington Post, Fox News, and Crown Publishing.
Lastly, I thank my colleagues, my readers, and my viewers, who have made my career possible and given consequence to my life's work. I believe that the pursuit of truth and right ideas through honest debate and rigorous argument is a noble undertaking. I am grateful to have played a small role in the conversations that have helped guide this extraordinary nation's destiny.
I leave this life with no regrets. It was a wonderful life - full and complete with the great loves and great endeavors that make it worth living. I am sad to leave, but I leave with the knowledge that I lived the life that I intended.
The man is a giant. He's an exceptional writer and thinker whose contributions to our political discourse were unfailingly even-tempered, always deeply-informed and uniquely incisive, and often drew on his sharp, understated wit. His
smash bestseller,
Things That Matter, is a must-read anthology of his work that will stand the test of time. His weekly columns were required reading for some of the most influential politicians and commentators in the country. His permanent seat on
Special Report's nightly panel has never been adequately filled -- and likely never will be -- in his absense. This is exactly right:
It's too soon so say 'Rest in Peace' to the great Dr. K. May he and his family be in your prayers as they process this awful prognosis and search for peace. And may he have the chance to read and appreciate the outpouring of love, respect and admiration he's engendered among so many before he passes away. Heartsick, I'll leave you with perhaps my
all-time favorite Krauthammer essay, frivolous as it may seem.
Comment: We do not wish to minimize anybody's suffering with cancer, but to call Krauthammer an "exceptional writer and thinker", a "titan of conservative thought" and a "giant" is to hold his mind on a grossly higher regard than deserved. During NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia, Krauthammer published on the NYT the
following:
"Finally they are hitting targets - power plants, fuel depots, bridges, airports, television transmitters - that may indeed kill the enemy and civilians nearby.
Cheering for civilian deaths - seriously?
He has also
called Vladimir Putin "a killer" without evidence (he wouldn't be the first nor the last).
Krauthammer also cheered the American invasion of Iraq from the very start and
blamed the blood-bath on the Iraqis themselves:
America comes and liberates them from the tyrant who kept everyone living in fear, and the ancient animosities and more recent resentments begin to play themselves out to deadly effect.
Much of their killing -- the murder of innocent Shiites in their mosques and markets -- is bereft of politics.
Iraqis were given their freedom, and yet many have chosen civil war. Among all these religious prejudices, ancient wounds, social resentments and tribal antagonisms, who gets the blame for the rivers of blood? You can always count on some to find the blame in America.
Of all the accounts of the current situation, this is by far the most stupid. And the most pernicious ... We gave them a civil war? Why? Because we failed to prevent it? Do the police in America have on their hands the blood of the 16,000 murders they failed to prevent last year?
Except that the neocons in the US - included Charles Krauthammer for his part in selling the crime - do have the blood of a million Iraqis on their hands.
He is also an unconditional supporter of Israel. From
Wikipedia:
Krauthammer strongly opposed the Oslo accords and asserted that Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasir Arafat would use the foothold it gave him in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to continue the war against Israel that he had ostensibly renounced in the Israel-Palestine Liberation Organization letters of recognition. In a July 2006 essay in Time, Krauthammer asserted that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was fundamentally defined by the Palestinians' unwillingness to accept compromise.[38]
During the 2006 Lebanon War, Krauthammer wrote a column, "Let Israel Win the War": "What other country, when attacked in an unprovoked aggression across a recognized international frontier, is then put on a countdown clock by the world, given a limited time window in which to fight back, regardless of whether it has restored its own security?"[39] He later criticized Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert's conduct, arguing that Olmert "has provided unsteady and uncertain leadership. Foolishly relying on air power alone, he denied his generals the ground offensive they wanted, only to reverse himself later."[40]
Krauthammer supports a two-state solution to the conflict. Unlike many conservatives, he supported Israel's Gaza withdrawal as a step toward rationalizing the frontiers between Israel and a future Palestinian state. He believes a security barrier between the two states' final borders will be an important element of any lasting peace.[41]
When Richard Goldstone retracted the claim in the UN report on the 2008 Gaza war that Israel intentionally killed Palestinian civilians,[42] including children, Krauthammer strongly criticized Goldstone, saying that "this weasel-y excuse-laden retraction is too little and too late" and called "the original report a blood libel ranking with the libels of the 19th century in which Jews were accused of ritually slaughtering children in order to use the blood in rituals." Krauthammer thought that Goldstone "should spend the rest of his life undoing the damage and changing and retracting that report."[43]
So think what you may about his illness, the intellectual world will not lose much without his ideas if he checks out in the near future.
Comment: We do not wish to minimize anybody's suffering with cancer, but to call Krauthammer an "exceptional writer and thinker", a "titan of conservative thought" and a "giant" is to hold his mind on a grossly higher regard than deserved. During NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia, Krauthammer published on the NYT the following: Cheering for civilian deaths - seriously?
He has also called Vladimir Putin "a killer" without evidence (he wouldn't be the first nor the last).
Krauthammer also cheered the American invasion of Iraq from the very start and blamed the blood-bath on the Iraqis themselves: Except that the neocons in the US - included Charles Krauthammer for his part in selling the crime - do have the blood of a million Iraqis on their hands.
He is also an unconditional supporter of Israel. From Wikipedia: So think what you may about his illness, the intellectual world will not lose much without his ideas if he checks out in the near future.