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The Daily Signal
On the Fourth
of July, Honoring American Exceptionalism and an Exceptional American,
Charles Krauthammer
Lee Edwards
Elizabeth Edwards Spalding
July 04, 2018
Amid all the pomp and parades, the fireworks and other illuminations,
the hot dogs and the ice cream, the home runs and the World Cup goals,
let us be sure to pause on this Fourth of July holiday and say with
grateful hearts and proud voices, “Happy birthday, America!”
This land—our land—is 242 years young today.
Led by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Ben Franklin, our Founding
Fathers signed a document that raised high the banner of independence
and challenged England, at the time the most powerful nation in the
world.
Remarked one delegate as he signed the Declaration of Independence, “My
hand trembles, but my heart does not.”
What was the central idea of this revolutionary declaration that
Jefferson, its author, called “an expression of the American mind”?
Here is what Charles Krauthammer, the TV commentator and syndicated
columnist, said: “America is the only country ever founded on an idea …
and the idea is liberty.”
Many of us in Washington, D.C., are still lamenting the June 21 death
of Krauthammer, who had a commanding grasp of politics, including
foreign policy, that sprang from his intellect, his medical training
and practice, and his formation in the Jewish tradition.
Krauthammer was very much like a Founder. Whether they agreed with him
or not, those who knew him commented on his grace, civility, and humor.
He combined the character of George Washington, the prudential mind of
James Madison, and the wit of Franklin.
Asked how he could go from being a speechwriter for Walter Mondale to a
political commentator on Fox News, he replied, “I was young
once.” He was a happy warrior even though he dealt with more
difficulties—he was a quadriplegic from the age of 22—than most of us
can imagine.
He could sum up a politician or a historical trend in just a few words.
One year into the Obama administration, he wrote, “Fairness through
leveling is the essence of Obamaism.” Toward the end of President
Barack Obama’s first term, he summed up the four years: “The greatest
threat to a robust, autonomous civil society is the ever-growing
Leviathan state and those like Obama who see it as the ultimate
expression of the collective.”
Krauthammer excelled at explaining our times. He coined the phrase “the
Reagan Doctrine” to explain President Ronald Reagan’s support of
anti-communist forces in Afghanistan and Nicaragua, and extolled
Winston Churchill as the 20th century’s most indispensable leader.
Paraphrasing the Nobel laureate Milton Friedman, he said, “The free
lunch is the essence of modern liberalism.”
He was ever generous toward the rising generation. The co-author of
this commentary will be always grateful for his support at the start of
her academic career. Krauthammer would meet with her students who
learned much about politics from him, although nearly all disagreed
with him—at least at the beginning.
On one occasion, she took her students to see the satirical troupe
“Capitol Steps,” and Krauthammer was there with his family, laughing at
the anti-conservative sallies.
In the introduction to his book “Things That Matter,” Krauthammer
referred to Adams and Jefferson and their tempered hopes for the
durability of liberty.
He was not pessimistic, but realistic, about the future, writing: “The
lesson of our history is that the task of merely maintaining strong and
sturdy the structures of a constitutional order is unending, the
continuing and ceaseless work of every generation.”
He was a prime example of someone who knows that man does not live by
politics alone. His favorite diversion (after chess) was baseball,
specifically the up-and-down, in-and-out, always unpredictable
Washington Nationals, about whom he would wax poetic.
You get there [to the park], and the twilight’s gleaming, the popcorn’s
popping, the kids’re romping, and everyone’s happy. The joy of losing
consists in this: Where there are no expectations, there is no
disappointment.
But Krauthammer, liberal-turned-conservative,
psychiatrist-turned-political commentator, expected good things from
the people. He wrote of the tea party revolt, “No matter how far the
ideological pendulum swings in the short term, in the end, the bedrock
common sense of the American people will prevail.”
In his final column, he wrote: “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.”
Of course, his was not a small, but rather a leading, role, one that
will serve as a model for those with the right ideas who take up the
responsibility of keeping this exceptional nation on the road to
liberty.
So—along with “Happy Birthday, America!”—we say to Charles Krauthammer,
a mentor and an inspiration who will be missed beyond measure: “May God
bless you and keep you.”
Read this and other articles at The Daily Signal
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