The other looming threat to our economy—and to the dollar—comes from our fiscal deficits. They are not out of our control. There is no reason we should be structurally perpetuating the massive deficits incurred as temporary crisis measures during the financial panic of 2008. A crisis is a terrible thing to exploit when it is taken by the New Liberalism as a mandate for massive expansion of the state and of national debt—threatening the dollar, the entire economy and consequently our superpower status abroad.
There are things to be done. Resist retreat as a matter of strategy and principle. And provide the means to continue our dominant role in the world by keeping our economic house in order. And finally, we can follow the advice of Demosthenes when asked what was to be done about the decline of Athens. His reply? “I will give what I believe is the fairest and truest answer: Don’t do what you are doing now.”
The Weekly Standard, October 19, 2009
Adapted from the author’s Wriston Lecture to the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, New York, October 5, 2009.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Given that the writings in this book span three decades, I should be thanking everyone who has ever helped me, a list longer than the Boston phone book. I shall therefore be ruthlessly and ungraciously selective.
My first thanks belong to those publishers and editors who took a chance on a young unknown: Marty Peretz, who hired me to my first journalism job at The New Republic in 1981; the late Henry Grunwald, who offered me a column in Time magazine two years later; and Meg Greenfield, who invited me to write the column I still write today for the Washington Post.
“I tried to be nice to people on the way up,” said Walter Winchell, “because I knew I would see them all on the way down.” I remain grateful to this day to those colleagues who were more than welcoming to me throughout my career, and most especially when I was starting out: Mort Kondracke, Mike Kinsley and Rick Hertzberg at The New Republic; Gordon Peterson, Jim Snyder and the late Tina Gulland on Inside Washington.
For the finest psychotherapy imaginable—the opportunity to vent nightly to an audience of several million—I am indebted to Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch, the geniuses who created Fox News. And to Brit Hume and Bret Baier, the talented and gracious anchors of Fox News’ Special Report, who make everything look easy.
Special thanks to my editors at the Washington Post, Meg Greenfield and Fred Hiatt, the most admirable, fair-minded journalists one could possibly know, who have given me liberty for decades to write what I want. And to the Grahams, Katherine and Don, for their generous friendship and unwavering support.
In 28 years of writing for the Post, only once did I receive a call about something I was about to publish. Sometime in the ’90s, in a fit of linguistic provocation, I used the adjective gay as a synonym for “happy.” Meg called me the night before publication. I knew exactly why.
“So I couldn’t slip it by you, could I?” I said before she could get past “Hello.”
“Nope,” she laughed. “You’re about ten years late.”
Having no particular enthusiasm for reviving this anachronism beyond making mischief, I put up no argument. Nor were there any ever after.
There is one more joy about writing for the Post. My column is syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group. They edit my column before sending it out to now 400 newspapers. Alan Shearer and Richard Aldacushion are the best editors I’ve ever had, by about Secretariat’s margin in the Belmont. Not a week has passed in all these years that they have not improved my copy—and brightened my Thursdays.
As to my own staff, I have had too many research assistants to thank individually, but I want to particularly acknowledge the contributions of Hillel Ofek, Peter NeCastro and Mike Watson. Mike was particularly helpful in putting together this manuscript, as were my fine and discerning editors at Crown, Sean Desmond and Mary Choteborsky. Tina Constable has been wonderfully encouraging in first suggesting and then carrying through this project, as has been the indefatigable Dana Perino in promoting it. Many thanks to my longtime attorney, Bob Barnett, for his guidance and wisdom in navigating me through the thickets. And special thanks to my personal assistant, Jean Junta, who keeps the trains, my office and my life running on time. And my gratitude to those who have kept me going all these years: Dr. William Davis, Bob Kitts, Jason Smith and Nancy Paul.
I have benefited immensely, both personally and intellectually, from the friendship and fellowship of George Will, Irwin and Cita Stelzer, Bea Kristol and the late Irving Kristol. The regular Sunday brunch we shared over so many years enriched not just my thinking but my life. And I’m deeply indebted to Pete Wehner for his great generosity in reviewing the manuscript of this book and offering very perceptive suggestions.
A special thanks is due to Win and Sarah Brown for a lifetime of deepest friendship and wisest counsel. And to my parents, Thea and the late Shulim Krauthammer, for a constancy of encouragement and support that has sustained me throughout.
Finally, this book is dedicated to my son, Daniel, whose incisive, brilliant mind has kept me intellectually honest and at my keenest since he was about 10 years old. And, to my wife, Robyn, who urged me 35 years ago to follow my calling without looking back. With extraordinary intelligence, humor, grace and lovingkindness, she has co-authored my life, of which this book is but a reflection.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER is a syndicated columnist, political commentator and physician. His Washington Post column is syndicated in 400 newspapers worldwide. He appears nightly on Fox News’ flagship evening-news broadcast Special Report with Bret Baier. As for doctoring, as a retired but still board-certified psychiatrist, he is best considered a psychiatrist in remission.
Krauthammer was born in New York City but moved to Montreal when he was five, prudently bringing his parents with him. He graduated McGill University with First Class Honors in political science and economics, was a Commonwealth Scholar in politics at Balliol College, Oxford, and received his M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1975.
He served as a resident and then chief resident in psychiatry at the Massachusetts General Hospital from 1975–78. During his residency, he discovered an unusual form of manic-depressive disease (“Secondary Mania,” Archives of General Psychiatry, November 1978) that continues to be cited in medical literature.
In 1978, he quit the practice of psychiatry and came to Washington to work in the Carter administration on planning psychiatric research. During that time, he began contributing articles to The New Republic. In 1980, he served as a speechwriter for Vice President Walter Mondale.
In 1981, he joined The New Republic as a writer and an editor. Three years later, his New Republic essays won the National Magazine Award for essays and criticism. In 1983, he started writing a monthly back-page essay for Time. In 1985, he began his syndicated column for the Washington Post, which won the Pulitzer Prize two years later.
Krauthammer is a former member of the President’s Council on Bioethics. He is also cofounder, with his wife, Robyn, and chairman of Pro Musica Hebraica, a nonprofit dedicated to the recovery and performance of classical Jewish music.
He lives with Robyn, an artist and sculptor, in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Their front yard, however, is in Washington, D.C.
Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics Page 33