Charles Krauthammer has died from terminal cancer - Apparently only has a few weeks left to live

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...as-weeks-to-live-in-heartbreaking-letter.html

Charles Krauthammer, the beloved and brilliant Fox News Channel personality who gave up a pioneering career in psychiatry to become a Pulitzer Prize-winning political analyst, on Friday revealed the heartbreaking news that he is in the final stages of a losing battle with cancer.

The 68-year-old’s incisive takes on politics of the day have been missing from Fox News Channel’s “Special Report” for nearly a year as he battled an abdominal tumor and subsequent complications, but colleagues and viewers alike had held out hope that he would return to the evening show he helped establish as must-viewing. But in an eloquent, yet unblinking letter to co-workers, friends and Fox News Channel viewers, Krauthammer disclosed that he has just weeks to live.

“I have been uncharacteristically silent these past ten months,” the letter began. “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.”

Krauthammer, who graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1975 despite a first-year diving accident that left him a quadriplegic, explained that he had a malignant tumor removed from his abdomen last August. Although a series of setbacks left him in the hospital in the ensuing months, he believed until recently that he was on the road to recovery.

“However, recent tests have revealed that the cancer has returned,” Krauthammer wrote. “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.”

Rupert Murdoch, executive chairman of Fox News and its parent company, 21st Century Fox, said Krauthammer has been a giant of journalism and a key part of the channel's success.

"Charles has been a profound source of personal and intellectual inspiration for all of us at Fox News," Murdoch said. "His always principled stand on the most important issues of our time has been a guiding star in an often turbulent world, a world that has too many superficial thinkers vulnerable to the ebb and flow of fashion, and a world that, unfortunately, has only one Charles Krauthammer.

"His words, his ideas, his dignity and his integrity will resonate within our society and within me for many, many years to come," Murdoch added.

Fox News viewers will undoubtedly miss Krauthammer’s formidable intellect and ability to analyze politics and politicians with a cerebral wit and keen charm. As the dean of “The Fox News All Stars,” the panel of pundits who break down headlines and events nightly on Fox News Channel’s top-rated “Special Report,” Krauthammer could be counted on to make viewers think, question and even chuckle.

Krauthammer was on his way to greatness in the medical field when he veered first into policy, and then into journalism. After medical school, he became chief psychiatry resident at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he studied depression and published ground-breaking findings in top medical journals. But in 1978, he took a job in the Carter administration directing planning in psychiatric research and later served as a speech writer for Vice President Walter Mondale.

It was in the nation’s capital that Krauthammer trained his mind and talents on political analysis and began penning columns for The New Republic, Time magazine and finally the Washington Post. In 1985, he won journalism’s top prize for his weekly political commentary. In his sobering farewell, Krauthammer said he is “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,” Krauthammer wrote. “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.”
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I think they've kind of known at the network for a while that his time was coming.

I remember over a year ago Fox was airing a long biopic about him and that was the first time I've ever heard anyone from that channel speak openly about his being paralyzed.
 
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The Shadow said:
Didn't know he was paralyzed. Impressive that he didn't let his disability define him.
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He apparently did his last year of med school flat on his back in the hospital with the textbooks on a platform over his face and a helper to turn the pages. Rather remarkable. Even more so that after a career on camera in the media it was so rarely apparent, unless you specifically knew to look for it. Most viewers never realized he was paralyzed. Which was remarkable.

I didn’t always agree with him. He tended to be a little too Neo Con Warhawk for my tastes. But he could put forth a great argument. A great discussion. A well honed mind.
 
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76LD910 said:
I think they've kind of known at the network for a while that his time was coming.

I remember over a year ago Fox was airing a long biopic about him and that was the first time I've ever heard anyone from that channel speak openly about his being paralyzed.
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Yeah I saw a thing today where the reporters were saying that they knew he was fighting cancer 10 months back or so and up until a few weeks back thought he was beating it.
 
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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.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...tor-and-pulitzer-prize-winner-dead-at-68.html

press f to pay respects.

a titan in world politics for his talk of the cold war and his 2003 iraq strategy and he also discovered a form of mania. this finding being published in the archives of general psychiatry

also what do you hit an angry german with?
a krauthammer.

RIP in peace man.
 
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Truly the end of an era. Now most of the remaining cohort of highly educated and intellectual conservative commentators are Cato Institute toadies or Koch Brothers shills.
 
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