Charles Krauthammer

Krauthammer was born on March 13, 1950, in the New York City borough{{cite news |last=Bernstein |first=Adam |date=2018-06-21 |title=Charles Krauthammer, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and intellectual provocateur, dies at 68 |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/charles-krauthammer-pulitzer-prize-winning-columnist-and-intellectual-provocateur-dies-at-68/2018/06/21/b71ee41a-759e-11e8-b4b7-308400242c2e_story.html |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=2018-06-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180622063517/https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/charles-krauthammer-pulitzer-prize-winning-columnist-and-intellectual-provocateur-dies-at-68/2018/06/21/b71ee41a-759e-11e8-b4b7-308400242c2e_story.html |archive-date=June 22, 2018 |url-status=live }} of Manhattan.[http://www.c-span.org/video/?186409-1/qa-charles-krauthammer Interview] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180614083227/https://www.c-span.org/video/?186409-1%2Fqa-charles-krauthammer |date=June 14, 2018 }} with Brian Lamb on C-SPAN, May 1, 2005. His father, Shulim Krauthammer (November 23, 1904 – June 1987),{{citation needed|date=August 2018}} was from Bolekhiv, Ukraine (then the Austro-Hungarian Empire), and later became a naturalized citizen of France.{{cite web|url=http://agadd.home.net.pl/metrykalia/300/sygn.%202539/pages/1_300_0_0_2539_0110.htm|title=Birth record of Shulim Krauthammer|access-date=June 29, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612142312/http://agadd.home.net.pl/metrykalia/300/sygn.%202539/pages/1_300_0_0_2539_0110.htm|archive-date=June 12, 2018|url-status=live}} His mother, Thea (née Horowitz; July 28, 1921 – February 14, 2019{{Cite web |title=Thea Krauthammer |url=https://www.charleskrauthammer.com/theakrauthammer |access-date=2023-04-25 |website=Charles Krauthammer |language=en}}), was from Antwerp, Belgium.{{cite web|url=http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/247833|title=Fox News contributor Charles Krauthammer passes away|website=Israel National News|date=June 22, 2018 |access-date=June 29, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180624150413/http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/247833|archive-date=June 24, 2018|url-status=live}}{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/21/obituaries/charles-krauthammer-prominent-conservative-voice-dies-at-68.html|title=Charles Krauthammer, Prominent Conservative Voice, Dies at 68|website=The New York Times |date=June 21, 2018 |access-date=June 29, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180624073826/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/21/obituaries/charles-krauthammer-prominent-conservative-voice-dies-at-68.html|archive-date=June 24, 2018|url-status=live|last1=Roberts |first1=Sam }} The Krauthammer family was a French-speaking household. When he was 5, the Krauthammers moved to Montreal. Through the school year, they resided in Montreal and spent the summers in Long Beach, New York.{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/26/AR2006012601471.html|last=Krauthammer|first=Charles|title=Marcel, My Brother|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=January 27, 2006|access-date=December 24, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151225112334/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/26/AR2006012601471.html|archive-date=December 25, 2015|url-status=live}}[http://syndication.washingtonpost.com/charles-krauthammer Charles Krauthammer bio] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029202413/http://syndication.washingtonpost.com/charles-krauthammer |date=October 29, 2013}} from The Washington Post Writers Group. Retrieved October 26, 2013. Both of his parents were Orthodox Jews, and he graduated from Herzliah High School.{{cite web|url=http://conversationswithbillkristol.org/video/charles-krauthammer/?start=4910&end=5050 |title=Charles Krauthammer on Conversations with Bill Kristol |publisher=Conversationswithbillkristol.org |access-date=June 21, 2018}}

Krauthammer attended McGill University in Montreal, graduating in 1970 with first-class honours in economics and political science.{{cite book|author1=Elizabeth A. Brennan|author2=Elizabeth C. Clarage|title=Who's who of Pulitzer Prize Winners|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=63nvmt4HqTEC&q=mcgill+first+class+honors+krauthammer&pg=PA63|year = 1999|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-1-57356-111-2|page=63|access-date=November 16, 2014}} At that time, McGill University was a hotbed of radical sentiment, something that Krauthammer said influenced his dislike of political extremism. "I became very acutely aware of the dangers, the hypocrisies, and sort of the extremism of the political extremes. And it cleansed me very early in my political evolution of any romanticism." He later said: "I detested the extreme Left and extreme Right, and found myself somewhere in the middle."{{cite web |url=http://conversationswithbillkristol.org/video/charles-krauthammer/?start=3277&end=4000 |title=Charles Krauthammer on Conversations with Bill Kristol |publisher=Conversationswithbillkristol.org |access-date=May 27, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160602225021/http://conversationswithbillkristol.org/video/charles-krauthammer/?start=3277&end=4000 |archive-date=June 2, 2016 |url-status=live }} The following year, after graduating from McGill, he studied as a Commonwealth Scholar in politics at Balliol College, Oxford, before returning to the United States to attend medical school at Harvard.{{Citation needed|date=June 2018}}

A diving accident during his first year of medical school left Krauthammer paralyzed from the waist down.{{Cite web|url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-teases-critic-for-being-paralyzed|title=Trump Teases Critic for Being Paralyzed|date=2015|website=Daily Beast|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180505164546/https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-teases-critic-for-being-paralyzed|archive-date=5 May 2018|url-status=live|access-date=22 June 2018}} He remained with his Harvard Medical School class during his hospitalization, graduating in 1975. He credited Hermann Lisco, associate dean of students, for making it happen.{{Cite news |last=Krauthammer |first=Charles |date=2000-08-25 |title=A Man for All Seasons |language=en-US |newspaper=Washington Post |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2000/08/25/a-man-for-all-seasons/0a6a940c-8733-4aa3-a40b-107181972f9e/ |access-date=2023-03-11 |issn=0190-8286}}

From 1975 through 1978, Krauthammer was a resident in psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, serving as chief resident his final year. During his time as chief resident, he noted a variant of manic depression (bipolar disorder) that he identified and named secondary mania. He published his findings in the Archives of General Psychiatry.{{cite journal |last1=Krauthammer |first1=C. |last2=Klerman |first2=G. L. |year=1978 |title=Secondary mania: manic syndromes associated with antecedent physical illness or drugs |url=http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/35/11/1333 |journal=Archives of General Psychiatry |volume=35 |issue=11 |pages=1333–1339 |doi=10.1001/archpsyc.1978.01770350059005 |pmid=757997 |access-date=February 18, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110511095924/http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/35/11/1333 |archive-date=May 11, 2011 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }} He also co-authored a path-finding study on the epidemiology of mania.C. Krauthammer and G. L. Klerman. "The Epidemiology of Mania", in Manic Illness, ed. B. Shopsin, New York: Raven Press, 1979.

In 1978, Krauthammer relocated to Washington, D.C., to direct planning in psychiatric research under the Carter administration. He began contributing articles about politics to The New Republic and, in 1980, served as a speechwriter to Vice President Walter Mondale. He contributed to the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. In 1984, he was board certified in psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.{{cite web|last=Wood|first=Tom|date=Nov 21, 2008|title=The College Backgrounds of America's Leading Newspaper Opinion Columnists|url=http://www.nas.org/polArticles.cfm?doctype_code=Article&doc_id=429|publisher=National Association of Scholars|access-date=September 27, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100706154803/http://www.nas.org/polArticles.cfm?doctype_code=Article&doc_id=429|archive-date=July 6, 2010|url-status=dead}}

File:Reagan Contact Sheet C33978 (cropped).jpg in 1986]]

In 1979, Krauthammer joined The New Republic as both a writer and editor. In 1983, he began writing essays for Time magazine, including one on the Reagan Doctrine, which first brought him national acclaim as a writer.{{cite web|author=Barber, Lionel|title=Views of the world|url=http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/e583ffce-e641-11da-a36e-0000779e2340.html|work=Financial Times|date=May 20, 2006|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090629184502/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/e583ffce-e641-11da-a36e-0000779e2340.html|archive-date=June 29, 2009}} Krauthammer began writing regular editorials for The Washington Post in 1985 and became a nationally syndicated columnist. Krauthammer coined and developed the term Reagan Doctrine in 1985, and he defined the U.S. role as sole superpower in his essay "The Unipolar Moment", published shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.{{cite journal |last=Krauthammer |first=Charles |author-link=Charles Krauthammer |year=1991 |title=The Unipolar Moment |url=https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/1991-02-01/unipolar-moment |url-access=subscription |journal=Foreign Affairs |volume=70 |issue=1 |location=New York |publisher=Council on Foreign Relations |pages=23–33 |doi=10.2307/20044692 |access-date=June 22, 2018 |jstor=20044692 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180622140206/https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/1991-02-01/unipolar-moment |archive-date=June 22, 2018 |url-status=live }}

In 1990, Krauthammer became a panelist for the weekly PBS political roundtable Inside Washington, remaining with the show until it ceased production in December 2013. Krauthammer also appeared on Fox News Channel as a contributor for many years.{{Citation needed|date=June 2018}}

Krauthammer's 2004 speech "Democratic Realism", which was delivered to the American Enterprise Institute when Krauthammer won the Irving Kristol Award, set out a framework for tackling the post-9/11 world, focusing on the promotion of democracy in the Middle East.{{cite magazine |last1=Menand |first1=Louis |author-link1=Louis Menand |title=Breaking Away |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/03/27/breaking-away-2 |access-date=June 26, 2018 |magazine=The New Yorker |volume=82 |issue=6 |date=March 27, 2006 |page=82 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180626135419/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/03/27/breaking-away-2 |archive-date=June 26, 2018 |url-status=live }}

In 2013, Krauthammer published Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics. An immediate bestseller, the book remained on The New York Times bestseller list for 38 weeks and spent 10 weeks in a row at number one.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/overview.html|title=The New York Times Best Sellers|work=The New York Times |access-date=June 29, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160515164718/http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/overview.html|archive-date=May 15, 2016|url-status=live}}

His son Daniel is responsible for the final edits on a book that was posthumously released, The Point of It All: A Lifetime of Great Loves and Endeavors, that was published in December 2018.

In 1974, Krauthammer married his wife, Robyn, a lawyer who stopped practicing law in order to focus on her work as an artist. They had one child, Daniel Krauthammer.{{cite web|url=http://www.c-span.org/video/?186409-1/qa-charles-krauthammer|work=C-SPAN|title=Q&A with Charles Krauthammer|date=April 22, 2005|access-date=November 16, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141108233418/http://www.c-span.org/video/?186409-1%2Fqa-charles-krauthammer|archive-date=November 8, 2014|url-status=live}} Charles Krauthammer's brother, Marcel, died in 2006.

Krauthammer was Jewish, raised largely in the Orthodox tradition, but in his adult life he variously described himself as "not religious" and "a Jewish Shinto" who engaged in "ancestor worship". At the same time, while he considered himself a skeptic regarding religious fanaticism and those claiming to hold certainty of any particular theological dogma, he was also quite scornful of atheism, once being quoted as saying that of all the belief systems he was aware of, "the only one I know is NOT true is atheism." His beliefs were sometimes described as a version of the "ceremonial Deism" exhibited by some of the U.S. Founding Fathers, particularly Thomas Jefferson. He was also influenced by his study of Maimonides at McGill University with Rabbi David Hartman, the head of Jerusalem's Shalom Hartman Institute and professor of philosophy at McGill during Krauthammer's student days.{{cite news|url=http://www.jpost.com/Features/In-Thespotlight/The-unfashionable-Charles-Krauthammer|date=October 6, 2009|newspaper=The Jerusalem Post|title=The unfashionable Charles Krauthammer|access-date=April 20, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029220744/http://www.jpost.com/Features/In-Thespotlight/The-unfashionable-Charles-Krauthammer|archive-date=October 29, 2013|url-status=live}}

Krauthammer was a member of both the Chess Journalists of America{{cite web|url=http://www.postwritersgroup.com/krauthammer.htm |title=The Washington Post News Media Services |publisher=Postwritersgroup.com |access-date=March 9, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101218150624/http://postwritersgroup.com/krauthammer.htm |archive-date=December 18, 2010 }} and the Council on Foreign Relations.{{cite web|url=http://www.cfr.org/about/membership/roster.html?letter=K|title=Membership Roster – Council on Foreign Relations|publisher=cfr.org|access-date=March 9, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130212083159/http://www.cfr.org/about/membership/roster.html?letter=K|archive-date=February 12, 2013|url-status=live}} He was co-founder of Pro Musica Hebraica, a not-for-profit organization devoted to presenting Jewish classical music, much of it lost or forgotten, in a concert hall setting.{{cite web|url=http://promusicahebraica.org/about-pro-musica-hebraica/our-team/charles-krauthammer/|title=Charles Krauthammer, Pro Musica Hebraica|publisher=Promusicahebraica.org|access-date=March 9, 2013}}

Krauthammer was a big baseball fan.{{cite web | url=https://www.espn.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=kurkjian_tim&id=5420098 | title=Kurkjian: A sad goodbye to newspaper box scores | date=August 14, 2010 }} He enjoyed chess to a point that he gave it up later in life, fearing he was addicted.

In the final presidential election of his life, that of 2016, he refused to support either candidate and declared his intention to cast a write-in vote after giving extensive explanations for why he could support neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump.

In August 2017, Krauthammer had a cancerous tumor removed from his abdomen. The surgery was thought to have been successful; however, on June 8, 2018, Krauthammer announced that his cancer had returned and that doctors had given him only weeks to live.{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-note-to-readers/2018/06/08/3512010c-6b24-11e8-bea7-c8eb28bc52b1_story.html|title=Opinion {{!}} A note to readers|last=Krauthammer|first=Charles|date=June 8, 2018|newspaper=The Washington Post|access-date=June 8, 2018|language=en-US|issn=0190-8286|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180608161228/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-note-to-readers/2018/06/08/3512010c-6b24-11e8-bea7-c8eb28bc52b1_story.html|archive-date=June 8, 2018|url-status=live}} On June 21, he died of small intestine cancer in an Atlanta, Georgia{{cite news |last1=Roberts |first1=Sam |title=Charles Krauthammer, Prominent Conservative Voice, Dies at 68 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/21/obituaries/charles-krauthammer-prominent-conservative-voice-dies-at-68.html |access-date=22 June 2018 |work=The New York Times |date=June 21, 2018 |language=en |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180622032555/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/21/obituaries/charles-krauthammer-prominent-conservative-voice-dies-at-68.html |archive-date=June 22, 2018 |url-status=live }} hospital. He was 68. Krauthammer was survived by his wife and son. Mitch McConnell,{{Cite news |date=2018-06-21 |title=Conservative U.S. commentator Charles Krauthammer dies |language=en |work=Reuters |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-people-charleskrauthammer-idUSKBN1JH3G1 |access-date=2022-05-08}} Chris Wallace,{{Cite web |last=Hayes |first=Christal |title=Charles Krauthammer, influential conservative commentator, dies at 68 after battle with cancer |url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/06/21/charles-krauthammer-conservative-commentator-dies-cancer/687697002/ |access-date=2022-05-08 |website=USA TODAY |language=en-US}} David Nakamura, Megyn Kelly,{{Cite web |date=2018-06-21 |title=Colleagues Pay Tribute to Charles Krauthammer: 'Your Legacy Will Live On Here' |url=https://www.mediaite.com/online/colleagues-pay-tribute-to-charles-krauthammer-your-legacy-will-live-on-here/ |access-date=2022-05-08 |website=Mediaite |language=en}} John Roberts, Bret Baier, Mike Pence, and others paid tribute to him.{{Cite web |last=Johnson |first=Ted |date=2018-06-21 |title=Charles Krauthammer, Columnist and Fox News Commentator, Dies at 68 |url=https://variety.com/2018/tv/news/charles-krauthammer-dead-dies-fox-news-1202854048/ |access-date=2022-05-08 |website=Variety |language=en-US}}

Krauthammer was a supporter of abortion legalization (although he believed Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided) and opposed to euthanasia.[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/10/AR2007051001806.html "Giuliani's Abortion 'Gaffe'"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171005203016/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/10/AR2007051001806.html |date=October 5, 2017 }} by Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, May 11, 2007.[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/15/AR2005091502141.html "Roe v. Roberts"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170225143601/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/15/AR2005091502141.html |date=February 25, 2017 }} by Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, September 16, 2005.[http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer110899.asp "Federalism's New Friends"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070816044817/http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer110899.asp |date=August 16, 2007 }} by Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, November 8, 1999.

Krauthammer was appointed to President George W. Bush's Council on Bioethics in 2002. He supported relaxing the Bush administration's limits on federal funding of discarded human embryonic stem cell research.[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/04/AR2005080401825.html "Cell Lines, Moral Lines; Research Should Expand—With a Key Limit"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170817075237/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/04/AR2005080401825.html |date=August 17, 2017 }} by Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, Friday, August 5, 2005. Krauthammer supported embryonic stem cell research using embryos discarded by fertility clinics with restrictions in its applications.[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/11/AR2007011101571.html "Stem Cell Miracle?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171224200506/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/11/AR2007011101571.html |date=December 24, 2017 }} by Charles Krauthammer The Washington Post, January 12, 2007.[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/04/AR2005080401825.html "Cell Lines, Moral Lines"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170817075237/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/04/AR2005080401825.html |date=August 17, 2017 }} by Charles Krauthammer The Washington Post, August 5, 2005.[https://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A63060-2002May9 "Research Cloning? No."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180811142036/https://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A63060-2002May9 |date=August 11, 2018 }} by Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, May 10, 2002. However, he opposed human cloning.Krauthammer: "The Great Stem Cell Hoax" by Charles Krauthammer, The Weekly Standard, August 13, 2001. He warned that scientists were beginning to develop the power of "creating a class of superhumans". A fellow member of the council, Janet D. Rowley, insists that Krauthammer's vision was still an issue far in the future and not a topic to be discussed at the present time.[https://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/18/politics/18ETHI.html "Bush's Advisers on Ethics Discuss Human Cloning"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160818191341/http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/18/politics/18ETHI.html |date=August 18, 2016 }} by Sheryl Gay Stolberg, The New York Times, January 18, 2002.

In March 2009, Krauthammer was invited to the signing of an executive order by President Barack Obama at the White House but declined to attend because of his fears about the cloning of human embryos and the creation of normal human embryos solely for purposes of research. He also contrasted the "moral seriousness" of Bush's stem cell address of August 9, 2001, with that of Obama's address on stem cells.[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/12/AR2009031202764.html "Obama's 'Science' Fiction"] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120919133734/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/12/AR2009031202764.html |date=September 19, 2012 }} by Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, March 13, 2009.

Krauthammer was critical of the idea of living wills and the current state of end-of-life counseling and feared that Obamacare would just worsen the situation:

{{blockquote|When my father was dying, my mother and brother and I had to decide how much treatment to pursue. What was a better way to ascertain my father's wishes: What he checked off on a form one fine summer's day years before being stricken; or what we, who had known him intimately for decades, thought he would want? The answer is obvious.{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/20/AR2009082003035.html?nav=rss_opinion/columns|author=Krauthammer, Charles|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=August 21, 2009|access-date=August 21, 2009|title=The Truth About Death Counseling|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121108164828/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/20/AR2009082003035.html?nav=rss_opinion%2Fcolumns|archive-date=November 8, 2012|url-status=live}}}}

Krauthammer was a longtime advocate of radically higher energy taxes to induce conservation."The Oil-Bust Panic" by Charles Krauthammer, The New Republic, February 21, 1983.[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/10/AR2005111001502.html "Pump Some Seriousness Into Energy Policy"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171006062058/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/10/AR2005111001502.html |date=October 6, 2017 }} by Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, November 11, 2005.[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/25/AR2007012501547.html "Energy Independence?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170810112154/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/25/AR2007012501547.html |date=August 10, 2017 }} by Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, January 26, 2007.[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/28/AR2007062801793.html "The Tax-Free Lunch"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171006012556/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/28/AR2007062801793.html |date=October 6, 2017 }} by Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, June 29, 2007.

Krauthammer wrote in The Washington Post on February 20, 2014, "I'm not a global warming believer. I'm not a global warming denier." Objecting to declaring global warming settled science, he contended that much that is believed to be settled turns out not to be so.{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-the-myth-of-settled-science/2014/02/20/c1f8d994-9a75-11e3-b931-0204122c514b_story.html|title=The myth of 'settled science'|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=February 20, 2014|access-date=February 24, 2014|author=Krauthammer, Charles|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140224182611/http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-the-myth-of-settled-science/2014/02/20/c1f8d994-9a75-11e3-b931-0204122c514b_story.html|archive-date=February 24, 2014|url-status=live}}

Krauthammer first gained attention in 1985 when he first used the phrase "Reagan Doctrine" in his Time magazine column.[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,964873,00.html The Reagan Doctrine] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080209154146/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,964873,00.html |date=February 9, 2008 }} by Charles Krauthammer, Time magazine, April 1, 1985. The phrase was a reference to the American foreign policy of supporting anti-communist insurgencies around the globe (most notably Nicaragua, Angola, and Afghanistan) as a response to the Brezhnev Doctrine and reflected a U.S. foreign policy that went beyond containment of the Soviet Union to rollback of recent Soviet influence in the Third World. The policy, which was strongly supported by Heritage Foundation foreign policy analysts and other conservatives, was ultimately embraced by Reagan's senior national security and foreign policy officials. Krauthammer's description of it as the "Reagan Doctrine" has since endured.{{Citation needed|date=June 2018}}

In "The Poverty of Realism" (New Republic, February 17, 1986), he asserted:

{{blockquote|that the end of American foreign policy is not just the security of the United States, but what John F. Kennedy called "the success of liberty." That means, first, defending the community of democratic nations (the repository of the liberal idea) and second, encouraging the establishment of new liberal policies at the frontier, most especially in the Third World.}}

The foreign policy, he argued, should be both "universal in aspiration" and "prudent in application", thus combining American idealism and realism. Over the next 20 years these ideas developed into what is now called "democratic realism".{{Citation needed|date=June 2018}}

In 1990, at the end the Cold War, Krauthammer wrote several articles entitled "The Unipolar Moment". Krauthammer used the term "unipolarity" to describe the world structure that was emerging with the fall of the Soviet Union, with world power residing in the "serenely dominant" Western alliance led by the United States.{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1990/07/20/the-unipolar-moment/62867add-2fe9-493f-a0c9-4bfba1ec23bd/ |newspaper=The Washington Post |title=The Unipolar Moment |date=July 20, 1990 |last = Krauthammer|first = Charles}}{{Cite news |url=https://thediplomat.com/2016/04/china-russia-and-the-unipolar-moment/ |title=China, Russia, and the Long 'Unipolar Moment' |work=The Diplomat}} Krauthammer predicted that the bipolar world of the Cold War would give way not to a multipolar world in which the U.S. was one of many centers of power, but a unipolar world dominated by the United States with a power gap between the most powerful state and the second most powerful state that would exceed any other in history. He also suggested that American hegemony would inevitably exist for only a historical "moment" lasting at most three or four decades.{{Citation needed|date=June 2018}}

Hegemony gave the United States the capacity and responsibility to act unilaterally if necessary, Krauthammer argued. Throughout the 1990s, however, he was circumspect about how that power ought to be used. He split from his neoconservative colleagues who were arguing for an interventionist policy of "American greatness". Krauthammer wrote that in the absence of a global existential threat, the United States should stay out of "teacup wars" in failed states, and instead adopt a "dry powder" foreign policy of nonintervention and readiness.[http://www.aei.org/books/bookID.755,filter.all/book_detail.asp Democratic Realism] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070830053137/http://www.aei.org/books/bookID.755,filter.all/book_detail.asp |date=August 30, 2007 }} by Charles Krauthammer, American Enterprise Institute, February 2004.

Krauthammer opposed purely "humanitarian intervention" (with the exception of overt genocide). While he supported the 1991 Gulf War on the grounds of both humanitarianism and strategic necessity (preventing Saddam Hussein from gaining control of the Persian Gulf and its resources), he opposed American intervention in the Yugoslav Wars on the grounds that America should not be committing the lives of its soldiers to purely humanitarian missions in which there is no American national interest at stake.[http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer040300.asp The Path to Putin] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070815192422/http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer040300.asp |date=August 15, 2007 }} by Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, April 3, 2000.

Krauthammer's major 2004 monograph on foreign policy, "Democratic Realism: An American Foreign Policy for a Unipolar World", was critical both of the neoconservative Bush doctrine for being too expansive and utopian, and of foreign policy "realism" for being too narrow and immoral; instead, he proposed an alternative he called "Democratic Realism".

In a 2005 speech later published in Commentary magazine, Krauthammer called neoconservatism "a governing ideology whose time has come." He noted that the original "fathers of neoconservatism" were "former liberals or leftists". More recently, they have been joined by "realists, newly mugged by reality" such as Condoleezza Rice, Richard Cheney, and George W. Bush, who "have given weight to neoconservatism, making it more diverse and, given the newcomers' past experience, more mature".{{Citation needed|date=June 2018}}

In a 2008 column entitled "Charlie Gibson's Gaffe", Krauthammer elaborated on the changing meanings of the Bush Doctrine in light of Gibson's questioning of Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin regarding what exactly the Bush Doctrine was, which resulted in criticism of Palin's response. Krauthammer states that the phrase originally referred to "the unilateralism that characterized the pre-9/11 first year of the Bush administration," but elaborates, "There is no single meaning of the Bush doctrine. In fact, there have been four distinct meanings, each one succeeding another over the eight years of this administration."[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/12/AR2008091202457.html "Charlie Gibson's Gaffe"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110213095318/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/12/AR2008091202457.html |date=February 13, 2011 }} By Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, September 13, 2008.

Krauthammer has been described as "predictably tak[ing] Israel's side and devot[ing] a significant amount of his... writing to defending steadfast U.S. support for Israel".{{cite book | last1=Mearsheimer | first1=J.J. | last2=Walt | first2=S.M. | title=The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy | publisher=Penguin Books Limited | year=2008 | isbn=978-0-14-192066-5 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2iUdyQs_NhYC | access-date=2023-01-05 | quote=But a journalist or scholar who predictably takes Israel's side and devotes a significant amount of his or her writing to defending steadfast U.S. support for Israel — such as the Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer...}} Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described his relationship with Krauthammer as "like brothers".[https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/charles-krauthammer-lauded-by-netanyahu-we-were-as-brothers-560635 Charles Krauthammer lauded by Netanyahu, 'we were as brothers'], Jerusalem Post, June 22, 2018

Krauthammer strongly opposed the Oslo accords and said that Palestine 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 wrote that the Israeli–Palestinian conflict was fundamentally defined by the Palestinians' unwillingness to accept compromise.{{cite magazine|last = Krauthammer|first = Charles|title = Remember What Happened Here|magazine = Time|volume = 168|issue = 2|date = July 10, 2006|page = 76|url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1209965,00.html|access-date = September 6, 2009|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090430102107/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1209965,00.html|archive-date = April 30, 2009|url-status = dead}}

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?"[http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/07/lost_moral_bearings.html "Let Israel Win the War"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071218201134/http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/07/lost_moral_bearings.html |date=December 18, 2007 }} by Charles Krauthammer, www.realclearpolitics.com, July 28, 2006. 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."{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/03/AR2006080301258.html|newspaper=The Washington Post|title=Israel's Lost Moment|first=Charles|last=Krauthammer|date=August 4, 2006|access-date=April 28, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110515192949/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/03/AR2006080301258.html|archive-date=May 15, 2011|url-status=live}}

Krauthammer supported 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 believed a security barrier between the two states' final borders will be an important element of any lasting peace.Chester, Alexander (April 19, 2004; updated August 12, 2009) {{cite web |url=http://www.yucommentator.com/2.2830/yeshiva-students-attend-wexner-memorial-lecture-krauthammer-draws-tremendous-crowd-1.300214 |title=Yeshiva Students Attend Wexner Memorial Lecture, Krauthammer Draws Tremendous Crowd |access-date=October 27, 2013 |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091206182736/http://www.yucommentator.com/2.2830/yeshiva-students-attend-wexner-memorial-lecture-krauthammer-draws-tremendous-crowd-1.300214 |archive-date=December 6, 2009 }}. The Commentator. at web.archive.org.. Retrieved October 26, 2013.

When Richard Goldstone retracted the claim {{frac|1|1|2}} years after the issuance of the UN report on the 2008 Gaza war that Israel intentionally killed Palestinian civilians,{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/world/middleeast/03goldstone.html|title=Richard Goldstone Regrets Saying Israel Purposely Killed Gazans|newspaper=The New York Times|date=April 2, 2011|first1=Ethan|last1=Bronner|first2=Isabel|last2=Kershner|access-date=August 25, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170619125658/http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/03/world/middleeast/03goldstone.html|archive-date=June 19, 2017|url-status=live}} 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".{{cite news|url=https://www.jewishpress.com/news/obituaries/conservative-commentator-charles-krauthammer-dead-at-68/2018/06/22/|title=Conservative Commentator Charles Krauthammer Dead at 68|work=The Jewish Press|date=June 22, 2018|access-date=October 28, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191028221150/https://www.jewishpress.com/news/obituaries/conservative-commentator-charles-krauthammer-dead-at-68/2018/06/22/|archive-date=October 28, 2019|url-status=live}}

Krauthammer laid out the underlying principle of strategic necessity restraining democratic idealism in his controversial 2004 Kristol Award Lecture: "We will support democracy everywhere, but we will commit blood and treasure only in places where there is a strategic necessity—meaning, places central to the larger war against the existential enemy, the enemy that poses a global mortal threat to freedom."

The 9/11 attacks, Krauthammer wrote, made clear the new existential threat and the necessity for a new interventionism. On September 12, 2001, he wrote that, if the suspicion that bin Laden was behind the attack proved correct, the United States had no choice but to go to war in Afghanistan.[http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer091201.asp "This Is Not a Crime, This is War"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930182731/http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer091201.asp |date=September 30, 2007 }} by Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, September 12, 2001. He supported the Second Iraq War on the "realist" grounds of the strategic threat the Saddam regime posed to the region as UN sanctions were eroding and of his alleged weapons of mass destruction and on the "idealist" grounds that a self-sustaining democracy in Iraq would be a first step toward changing the poisonous political culture of tyranny, intolerance, and religious fanaticism in the Arab world that had incubated the anti-American extremism from which 9/11 emerged.{{Citation needed|date=June 2018}}

In October 2002, he presented what he believed were the primary arguments for and against the war, writing, "Hawks favor war on the grounds that Saddam Hussein is reckless, tyrannical, and instinctively aggressive, and that if he comes into possession of nuclear weapons in addition to the weapons of mass destruction he already has, he is likely to use them or share them with terrorists. The threat of mass death on a scale never before seen residing in the hands of an unstable madman is intolerable—and must be preempted. Doves oppose war on the grounds that the risks exceed the gains. War with Iraq could be very costly, possibly degenerating into urban warfare."

He continued: "I happen to believe that the preemption school is correct, that the risks of allowing Saddam Hussein to acquire his weapons will only grow with time. Nonetheless, I can both understand and respect those few Democrats who make the principled argument against war with Iraq on the grounds of deterrence, believing that safety lies in reliance on a proven (if perilous) balance of terror rather than the risky innovation of forcible disarmament by preemption."[http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer100702.asp "What Good Is Delay?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070215095047/http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer100702.asp |date=February 15, 2007 }} by Charles Krauthammer, Jewish World Review, October 7, 2002.

On the eve of the invasion, Krauthammer wrote, "Reformation and reconstruction of an alien culture are a daunting task. Risky and, yes, arrogant."{{cite magazine|last = Krauthammer|first = Charles|title = Coming Ashore|magazine = Time|volume = 161|issue = 7|date = February 17, 2003|page = 37|url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1004236-1,00.html|access-date = September 6, 2009|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120108054911/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1004236-1,00.html|archive-date = January 8, 2012|url-status = dead}} In February 2003, Krauthammer cautioned that "it may yet fail. But we cannot afford not to try. There is not a single, remotely plausible, alternative strategy for attacking the monster behind 9/11. It's not Osama bin Laden; it is the cauldron of political oppression, religious intolerance, and social ruin in the Arab-Islamic world—oppression transmuted and deflected by regimes with no legitimacy into virulent, murderous anti-Americanism." Krauthammer in 2003 wrote that the reconstruction of Iraq would provide many benefits for the Iraqi people, once the political and economic infrastructure destroyed by Saddam was restored: "With its oil, its urbanized middle class, its educated population, its essential modernity, Iraq has a future. In two decades Saddam Hussein reduced its GDP by 75 percent. Once its political and industrial infrastructures are reestablished, Iraq's potential for rebound, indeed for explosive growth, is unlimited."{{cite news|url=http://www.townhall.com/columnists/CharlesKrauthammer/2003/09/19/democrats_and_nation_building|title=Democrats and Nation-Building|first=Charles|last=Krauthammer|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=September 19, 2003|access-date=July 20, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080919232458/http://townhall.com/columnists/CharlesKrauthammer/2003/09/19/democrats_and_nation_building|archive-date=September 19, 2008|url-status=live}}

On April 22, 2003, Krauthammer predicted that he would have a "credibility problem" if weapons of mass destruction were not found in Iraq within the next five months.{{cite news |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/2003/10/26/bush-faces-credibility-showdown/ |title=Bush faces credibility showdown |last1=Chapman |first1=Steve |date=October 26, 2003 |website=Chicago Tribune |publisher=Chicago Tribune Company, LLC |access-date=April 22, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150508154950/http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2003-10-26/news/0310260545_1_saddam-hussein-weapons-mardi-gras |archive-date=May 8, 2015 |url-status=live }}

In a speech to the Foreign Policy Association in Philadelphia, he argued that the beginnings of democratization in the Arab world had been met in 2006 with a "fierce counterattack" by radical Islamist forces in Lebanon, Palestine, and especially Iraq, which witnessed a major intensification in sectarian warfare.[http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/12/past_the_apogee_america_under.html Past the Apogee] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161206040924/http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/12/past_the_apogee_america_under.html |date=December 6, 2016 }} by Charles Krauthammer, Foreign Policy Research Institute, December 2006. In late 2006 and 2007, he was one of the few commentators to support the troop surge in Iraq.[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/14/AR2006121401367.html "In Baker's Blunder, a Chance for Bush"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170302063553/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/14/AR2006121401367.html |date=March 2, 2017 }} by Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, December 5, 2006.[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/12/AR2007041201823.html "The Surge: First Fruits"] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120915073854/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/12/AR2007041201823.html |date=September 15, 2012 }} by Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, April 13, 2007.

In 2009, Krauthammer argued that the use of torture against enemy combatants was impermissible except in two contexts: (a) when "[an] innocent's life is at stake," "[the] bad guy you have captured possesses information that could save this life, [and he] refuses to divulge"; and (b) when torture may lead to "the extraction of information from a high-value enemy in possession of high-value information likely to save lives".{{Cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/30/AR2009043003108.html |title=Archived copy |newspaper=The Washington Post |access-date=January 27, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181216065350/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/30/AR2009043003108.html |archive-date=December 16, 2018 |url-status=live }}{{Cite news|url=https://www.vox.com/2018/6/21/17490816/charles-krauthammer-dies-obituary|title=Charles Krauthammer was the anti-Breitbart conservative writer|work=Vox|access-date=2018-06-22|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180622220315/https://www.vox.com/2018/6/21/17490816/charles-krauthammer-dies-obituary|archive-date=June 22, 2018|url-status=live}}"Charles Krauthammer." Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2014. Biography In Context. Accessed 22 June 2018.{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tv/charles-krauthammer-prominent-conservative-voice-has-died/2018/06/21/e7c0a332-75b3-11e8-bda1-18e53a448a14_story.html|title=Charles Krauthammer, conservative columnist and pundit, dies|last=Italie {{!}} AP|first=Hillel|date=2018-06-22|newspaper=The Washington Post|access-date=2018-06-22|language=en-US|issn=0190-8286|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180622064709/https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/tv/charles-krauthammer-prominent-conservative-voice-has-died/2018/06/21/e7c0a332-75b3-11e8-bda1-18e53a448a14_story.html|archive-date=June 22, 2018|url-status=dead}}

Meg Greenfield, editorial page editor for The Washington Post who edited Krauthammer's columns for 15 years, called his weekly column "independent and hard to peg politically. It's a very tough column. There's no 'trendy' in it. You never know what is going to happen next." Hendrik Hertzberg, also a former colleague of Krauthammer while they worked at The New Republic in the 1980s, said that when the two first met in 1978, Krauthammer was "70 percent Mondale liberal, 30 percent 'Scoop Jackson Democrat', that is, hard-line on Israel and relations with the Soviet Union"; in the mid-1980s, he was still "50–50: fairly liberal on economic and social questions but a full-bore foreign-policy neoconservative". Hertzberg in 2009 called Krauthammer a "pretty solid 90–10 Republican".{{cite magazine |url=https://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/hendrikhertzberg/2009/03/krauthammer-the.html |title=Krauthammer Then and Now |access-date=March 18, 2009 |last=Herzberg |first=Hendrik |author-link=Hendrik Herzberg |date=March 2, 2009 |magazine=The New Yorker |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090309003854/http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/hendrikhertzberg/2009/03/krauthammer-the.html |archive-date=March 9, 2009 |url-status=live }} Krauthammer was described by some as having been a conservative.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/30/magazine/30liberal.html|title=The Rehabilitation of the Cold-War Liberal|last=Beinart|first=Peter|date=April 30, 2006|work=The New York Times|access-date=August 31, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110512095735/http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/30/magazine/30liberal.html|archive-date=May 12, 2011|url-status=live}}{{cite news|last = Bill|first = Steigerwald|title = So, what is a 'neocon'?|publisher = Pittsburgh Tribune|date = May 29, 2004|url = http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_196286.html|access-date = April 8, 2009|url-status = dead|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090215135620/http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_196286.html|archive-date = February 15, 2009}}

A few days before the 2012 United States presidential election, Krauthammer predicted it would be "very close" with Republican candidate Mitt Romney winning the "popular [vote] by, I think, about half a point, Electoral College probably a very narrow margin".{{cite web|url=http://video.foxnews.com/v/1943688188001|title=Hannity (segment)|work=FNC Video|publisher=Foxnews.com|date=November 3, 2012|access-date=May 7, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130511081333/http://video.foxnews.com/v/1943688188001/|archive-date=May 11, 2013|url-status=live}} Although admitting his incorrect prediction, Krauthammer maintained, "Obama won but had no mandate. He won by going very small, very negative."{{cite web|url=http://nation.foxnews.com/2012-presidential-election/2012/11/07/krauthammer-obama-won-has-no-mandate|title=Krauthammer: Obama Won, But Has No Mandate | 2012 Presidential Election | Fox Nation|publisher=Nation.foxnews.com|date=November 7, 2012|access-date=March 9, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130328033724/http://nation.foxnews.com/2012-presidential-election/2012/11/07/krauthammer-obama-won-has-no-mandate|archive-date=March 28, 2013|url-status=dead}}

Before the 2016 United States presidential election, Krauthammer stated that "I will not vote for Hillary Clinton, but, as I've explained in my columns, I could never vote for Donald Trump".{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/my-vote-explained/2016/10/20/b61442a4-96f2-11e6-bc79-af1cd3d2984b_story.html|title=My vote, explained|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=October 20, 2016|access-date=March 26, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161021123942/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/my-vote-explained/2016/10/20/b61442a4-96f2-11e6-bc79-af1cd3d2984b_story.html|archive-date=October 21, 2016|url-status=live}}

In July 2017 following the release by Donald Trump Jr. of the email chain about the Trump Tower meeting on June 9, 2016, Krauthammer opined that even bungled collusion is still collusion.{{cite web|url=https://money.cnn.com/2017/07/14/media/charles-krauthammer-donald-trump-jr-collusion/index.html|title=Krauthammer calls it 'collusion'|work=CNN Money|date=July 14, 2017|access-date=March 26, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180410121745/https://money.cnn.com/2017/07/14/media/charles-krauthammer-donald-trump-jr-collusion/index.html|archive-date=April 10, 2018|url-status=live}}{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bungled-collusion-is-still-collusion/2017/07/13/68c7f72a-67f3-11e7-8eb5-cbccc2e7bfbf_story.html|title=Bungled collusion is still collusion|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=July 13, 2017|access-date=March 26, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180609123510/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bungled-collusion-is-still-collusion/2017/07/13/68c7f72a-67f3-11e7-8eb5-cbccc2e7bfbf_story.html|archive-date=June 9, 2018|url-status=live}}

Krauthammer received a rigorous Jewish education. He attended a school where half the day was devoted to secular studies and half the day was devoted to religious education conducted in Hebrew. By the time he graduated from high school at the age of 16, Krauthammer was able to write philosophical essays in Hebrew. His father demanded that he learn Talmud; in addition to his school's required Talmud studies, Krauthammer took extra Talmud classes three days a week. This was not enough for his father who hired a rabbi to provide private instruction on the Talmud three nights a week.

Krauthammer's attachment to Judaism was strengthened through his study of Maimonides at McGill University under Rabbi David Hartman. Krauthammer said, "I had discovered the world, and was going to leave all of this [Judaism] behind, because I was too sophisticated for it. And then in my third year I took Hartman's course in Maimonides, and I'm thinking this is pretty serious stuff. It stands up to the Greeks, stands up to the philosophers of the age, and it gave me sort of a renewed commitment to and respect for my own tradition, which I already knew, but was ready to throw away. And I didn't throw it away as a result of that encounter."

Krauthammer stated that "atheism is the least plausible of all theologies. I mean, there are a lot of wild ones out there, but the one that clearly runs so contrary to what is possible, is atheism".{{cite web|last=Burk|first=Denny|title=The Theology of Charles Krauthammer|date=October 31, 2013 |url=http://www.dennyburk.com/the-theology-of-charles-krauthammer-via-rjmoeller-dennisprager/|access-date=January 13, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140115010421/http://www.dennyburk.com/the-theology-of-charles-krauthammer-via-rjmoeller-dennisprager/|archive-date=January 15, 2014|url-status=live}}

Krauthammer opposed the Park51 project in Manhattan for "reasons of common decency and respect for the sacred. No commercial tower over Gettysburg, no convent at Auschwitz, and no mosque at Ground Zero. Build it anywhere but there."{{cite web|title=Build the mosque anywhere but Ground Zero|author=Krauthammer, Charles|date=August 12, 2010|url=http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/08/13/2010-08-13_build_it_anywhere_but_here.html#ixzz11h3ylplN|work=New York Daily News|access-date=October 7, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100819024759/http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/08/13/2010-08-13_build_it_anywhere_but_here.html#ixzz11h3ylplN|archive-date=August 19, 2010|url-status=live}}

Krauthammer was critical of intelligent design, "a self-enclosed, tautological 'theory' whose only holding is that when there are gaps in some area of scientific knowledge — in this case, evolution — they are to be filled by God. It is a 'theory' that admits that evolution and natural selection explain such things as the development of drug resistance in bacteria and other such evolutionary changes within species, but that every once in a while God steps into this world of constant and accumulating change and says, 'I think I'll make me a lemur today.' A 'theory' that violates the most basic requirement of anything pretending to be science — that it be empirically disprovable." Of Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, he wrote: "Dover distinguished itself this Election Day by throwing out all eight members of its school board who tried to impose 'intelligent design' — today's tarted-up version of creationism — on the biology curriculum." Of the Kansas evolution hearings, he wrote: "In order to justify the farce that intelligent design is science, Kansas had to corrupt the very definition of science, dropping the phrase 'natural explanations for what we observe in the world around us,' thus unmistakably implying — by fiat of definition, no less — that the supernatural is an integral part of science. This is an insult both to religion and to science." He concluded:

How ridiculous to make evolution the enemy of God. What could be more elegant, more simple, more brilliant, more economical, more creative, indeed more divine than a planet with millions of life forms, distinct and yet interactive, all ultimately derived from accumulated variations in a single double-stranded molecule, pliable and fecund enough to give us mollusks and mice, Newton and Einstein? Even if it did give us the Kansas State Board of Education, too.[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/17/AR2005111701304.html "Phony Theory, False Conflict"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171017021813/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/17/AR2005111701304.html |date=October 17, 2017 }} by Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, November 18, 2005.

Krauthammer criticized President George W. Bush's 2005 nomination of Harriet Miers to succeed Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. He called the nomination of Miers a "mistake" on several occasions. He noted her lack of constitutional experience as the main obstacle to her nomination.{{Citation needed|date=June 2018}}

On October 21, 2005, Krauthammer published "Miers: The Only Exit Strategy",[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/20/AR2005102001635.html "Miers: The Only Exit Strategy"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171010170345/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/20/AR2005102001635.html |date=October 10, 2017 }} by Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, October 12, 2006. in which he explained that all of Miers's relevant constitutional writings are protected by both attorney–client privilege and executive privilege, which presented a unique face-saving solution to the mistake: "Miers withdraws out of respect for both the Senate and the executive's prerogatives."{{cite web|url=http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-10_21_05_CK.html|title=Commentary – An Exit Strategy for the Miers Debacle by Charles Krauthammer|publisher=RealClearPolitics|date=October 21, 2005|access-date=March 10, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100109012735/http://realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-10_21_05_CK.html|archive-date=January 9, 2010|url-status=live}} Six days later, Miers withdrew, employing that argument:

{{blockquote|As I stated in my acceptance remarks in the Oval Office, the strength and independence of our three branches of government are critical to the continued success of this great Nation. Repeatedly in the course of the process of confirmation for nominees for other positions, I have steadfastly maintained that the independence of the Executive Branch be preserved and its confidential documents and information not be released to further a confirmation process. I feel compelled to adhere to this position, especially related to my own nomination. Protection of the prerogatives of the Executive Branch and continued pursuit of my confirmation are in tension. I have decided that seeking my confirmation should yield.[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/27/AR2005102700680.html "Text of Miers's Letter to President Bush"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161014182308/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/27/AR2005102700680.html |date=October 14, 2016 }} White House.}}

The same day, NPR noted, "Krauthammer's scenario played out almost exactly as he wrote."[https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4978311 "Conservative Columnist's Miers Plan Played Out"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180310201443/https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4978311 |date=March 10, 2018 }} NPR. Columnist E. J. Dionne wrote that the White House was following Krauthammer's strategy "almost to the letter".[http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-10_28_05_EJD.html "Conservatives Will Regret the Miers Withdrawal"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080516122048/http://realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-10_28_05_EJD.html |date=May 16, 2008 }} E.J. Dionne. A few weeks later, The New York Times reported that Krauthammer's "exit strategy" was "exactly what happened" and that Krauthammer "had no prior inkling from the administration that they were taking that route; he was later given credit for giving the Bush administration a plan."{{cite news |last=Kornblut |first=Anne E. |author-link=Anne Kornblut |date=December 11, 2005 |title=He Says Yes to Legalized Torture |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/weekinreview/11kornblut.html |url-access=limited |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=August 16, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130101072820/http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/weekinreview/11kornblut.html |archive-date=January 1, 2013 |url-status=live }}

Krauthammer was an opponent of capital punishment,{{cite news| title=Silent Executions| author= Charles Krauthammer| work= The Washington Post| date= June 14, 1985| url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1985/06/14/silent-executions/87ea1206-18a5-43df-864d-64d7ed4e3f65/}}"The Court is Just Doing its Job" by Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, June 30, 1989. writing: "there is no convincing evidence that the death penalty deters. Murder rates in states with the death penalty are just as high as in neighboring states without it. In states where the death penalty has been introduced, murder rates do not, on average, go down. And in states where the death penalty has been abolished, murder rates do not go up. When something as barbaric as cold-blooded execution by the state makes no appreciable contribution to public safety, it deserves abolition."{{cite news| author=Charles Krauthammer| title=Without the Noose, Without the Gag| work=The Washington Post| date= April 23, 1992| url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1992/04/24/without-the-noose-without-the-gag/e6701626-cf2f-45f0-ba97-a1ee5ef52bcc/}}[https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/11/AR2006051101949.html "Sparing Moussaoui for the wrong reasons"] {{Webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120918124338/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/11/AR2006051101949.html |date=September 18, 2012 }} by Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, May 12, 2006.

In 2017, Krauthammer argued in favor of a border wall at the Mexico–United States border.{{Cite web|last=Schwartz|first=Ian|date=2017-06-19|title=Krauthammer Gives Prager U Commentary: Build The Wall|url=https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/06/19/krauthammer_gives_prager_u_commentary_build_the_wall.html|access-date=2021-06-21|website=RealClearPolitics}}

• Cutting Edges: Making Sense of the Eighties, Random House (1988) {{ISBN|978-0394548012}}, {{ISBN|0394548019}}
• Democratic Realism: An American Foreign Policy for a Unipolar World (2004 [https://www.aei.org/publication/democratic-realism/ speech])
• Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics, Crown Forum (2013) {{ISBN|978-1770496538}}, {{ISBN|177049653X}}
• The Point of It All: A Lifetime of Great Loves and Endeavors (with Daniel Krauthammer), Crown Forum (2018) {{ISBN|978-1984825483}}, {{ISBN|1984825488}}{{cite web |url=https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/point-it-all |title=Franceis P. Sempa in The New York Journal of Books |date=2018-12-04 |access-date=2012-12-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181215223918/https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book-review/point-it-all |archive-date=December 15, 2018 |url-status=live }}

Krauthammer's New Republic essays won him the "National Magazine Award for Essays and Criticism". The weekly column he began writing for The Washington Post in 1985 won him the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1987.{{cite web|url=http://www.pulitzer.org/awards/1987|title=The Pulitzer Prizes 1987 Winners and Finalists|publisher=The Pulitzer Prizes|access-date=July 9, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120616153851/http://www.pulitzer.org/awards/1987|archive-date=June 16, 2012|url-status=live}} On June 14, 1993, he was awarded the Honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from McGill University.{{cite web|url=https://www.mcgill.ca/senate/files/senate/honorary_degree_recipients_alpha_list_updated_nov._2016.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170317144411/https://www.mcgill.ca/senate/files/senate/honorary_degree_recipients_alpha_list_updated_nov._2016.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=March 17, 2017|date=March 17, 2017|access-date=June 29, 2018}}

In 1999, Krauthammer received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement. His acceptance speech at the 1999 Summit in Washington, D.C., is included in his book, The Point of It All: A Lifetime of Great Loves and Endeavors, published after his death.{{cite web|title= Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement |website=www.achievement.org|publisher=American Academy of Achievement|url= https://achievement.org/our-history/golden-plate-awards/}}

In 2006, the Financial Times named Krauthammer the most influential commentator in America, stating that "Krauthammer has influenced US foreign policy for more than two decades."

In 2009, Politico columnist Ben Smith wrote that Krauthammer had "emerged in the Age of Obama as a central conservative voice, the kind of leader of the opposition that economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman represented for the left during the Bush years: a coherent, sophisticated and implacable critic of the new president."{{cite web |last=Doherty |first=Brian |url=http://www.politico.com/story/2009/05/obamas-biggest-critic-krauthammer-022743#ixzz3p7wpQFC7 |title=Obama's biggest critic: Krauthammer |date=May 20, 2009 |publisher=Politico |access-date=May 27, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160716100925/http://www.politico.com/story/2009/05/obamas-biggest-critic-krauthammer-022743#ixzz3p7wpQFC7 |archive-date=July 16, 2016 |url-status=live }} In 2010, The New York Times columnist David Brooks said Krauthammer was "the most important conservative columnist."{{cite web|url=http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22743.html|title=Barack Obama's biggest critic: Charles Krauthammer|date=May 20, 2009 |publisher=politico.com|access-date=March 10, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100209071806/http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22743.html|archive-date=February 9, 2010|url-status=live}} In 2011, former congressman and MSNBC host Joe Scarborough called him "without a doubt the most powerful force in American conservatism. He has [been] for two, three, four years."{{cite web|url=http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/is-gop-extremism-is-the-problem-with-us-politics/690t33p?from=|title=Is GOP extremism is the problem with US politics?|publisher=MSNBC|access-date=August 8, 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131006011821/http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/is-gop-extremism-is-the-problem-with-us-politics/690t33p?from=|archive-date=October 6, 2013|url-status=dead|df=mdy-all}}

In a December 2010, press conference, former president Bill Clinton – a Democrat – called Krauthammer "a brilliant man".{{cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/10/AR2010121007172.html|title=Bill Clinton takes the White House stage, again|last=Balz, Dan|date=December 11, 2010|newspaper=The Washington Post|access-date=December 11, 2010}} Krauthammer responded, tongue-in-cheek, that "my career is done" and "I'm toast."{{cite web|url=http://www.mediaite.com/tv/charles-krauthammer-responds-to-clintons-brilliant-praise-im-toast/|title=Charles Krauthammer Responds To Clinton's "Brilliant" Praise: "I'm Toast"|publisher=mediaite.com|date=December 11, 2010|access-date=March 9, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121011051054/http://www.mediaite.com/tv/charles-krauthammer-responds-to-clintons-brilliant-praise-im-toast/|archive-date=October 11, 2012|url-status=live}} Krauthammer also received the William F. Buckley Award for Media Excellence in 2013.{{cite news|title=FOX News Media Awards Students With Inaugural Dr. Charles Krauthammer Memorial Scholarship|url=https://www.bloomberg.com/press-releases/2020-04-27/fox-news-media-awards-students-with-inaugural-dr-charles-krauthammer-memorial-scholarship|work=Bloomberg|access-date=September 9, 2022|date=April 27, 2020}}

Krauthammer's other awards included the People for the American Way's First Amendment Award, the Champion Media Award for Economic Understanding from Amos Tuck School of Business Administration,{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/whoswhoofpulitze00bren/page/63|title=Who's who of Pulitzer Prize winners|last=A.|first=Brennan, Elizabeth|date=1999|publisher=Oryx Press|others=Clarage, Elizabeth C.|isbn=1573561118|location=Phoenix, Ariz.|pages=[https://archive.org/details/whoswhoofpulitze00bren/page/63 63]|oclc=40126493|url-access=registration}} the first annual Bradley Prize, the 2002 "Mightier Pen" award from the Center for Security Policy,{{cite web |title=2002 Mightier Pen Award: Charles Krauthammer |url=https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2002/09/05/2002-mightier-pen-award-charles-krauthammer/ |publisher=Center for Security Policy |access-date=June 26, 2018 |date=September 5, 2002 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180626054638/https://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/2002/09/05/2002-mightier-pen-award-charles-krauthammer/ |archive-date=June 26, 2018 |url-status=live }}{{cite journal |last1=Cox |first1=Christopher |author-link1=Christopher Cox |publisher=107th Congress, 2nd session |volume=148 |number=130 |journal=Congressional Record |date=October 7, 2002 |location=Washington |pages=e1769–e1770 |url=https://www.congress.gov/crec/2002/10/07/CREC-2002-10-07-pt1-PgE1769-6.pdf |access-date=June 26, 2018 |department=Extensions of Remarks |title=Tribute to Dr. Charles Krauthammer |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190412120822/https://www.congress.gov/crec/2002/10/07/CREC-2002-10-07-pt1-PgE1769-6.pdf |archive-date=April 12, 2019 |url-status=live }} the 2004 Irving Kristol Award,{{cite web |title=Charles Krauthammer to Receive 2004 Irving Kristol Award |url=http://www.aei.org/publication/charles-krauthammer-to-receive-2004-irving-kristol-award/ |website=AEI Newsletter |publisher=American Enterprise Institute |access-date=June 26, 2018 |date=November 1, 2003}} and the 2009 Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism,{{cite web|url=http://www.postwritersgroup.com/krauthammer.htm |title=The Washington Post Writers Group |publisher=Postwritersgroup.com |date=March 24, 2005 |access-date=March 10, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101218150624/http://postwritersgroup.com/krauthammer.htm |archive-date=December 18, 2010 }} an annual award given by the Eric Breindel Foundation.

{{reflist|30em}}

{{Wikiquote}}

• [https://washingtonpost.com/people/charles-krauthammer Column archives] in The Washington Post
• [http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer.archives.asp Column archives] at Jewish World Review
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20131029202413/http://syndication.washingtonpost.com/charles-krauthammer Biography] at The Washington Post Writers Group website
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20150522011156/https://www.aei.org/publication/democratic-realism "Democratic Realism: An American Foreign Policy for a Unipolar World"] – 2004 Speech
• [http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/12/past_the_apogee_america_under.html Past the Apogee: America Under Pressure] – 2006 Speech
• {{IMDb name|1727528}}
• {{C-SPAN|238}}
• [http://www.c-span.org/video/?186409-1/qa-charles-krauthammer Interview with Charles Krauthammer] on C-SPAN Q&A, April 22, 2005
• {{Find a Grave|190772708}}

{{PulitzerPrize Commentary 1976–2000}}

{{Neoconservatism}}

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