Things That Matter: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles Krauthammer

Charles, on everything:

Stupidity:

Youth:

I was a Great Society liberal on domestic issues. People ask me, ‘How do you go from Walter Mondale to Fox News?’ The answer is, ‘I was young once.’

Canadians:

I don’t know about you, but I lie awake nights worrying about Canadian uranium. I know these people. I grew up there. You have no idea what they’re capable of doing. If Sidney Crosby hadn’t scored that goal to win the Olympic gold medal, there’s no telling what might have ensued.

America’s favorite pastime:

Baseball is a slow, boring, complex, cerebral game that doesn’t lend itself to histrionics. You ‘take in’ a baseball game, something odd to say about a football or basketball game, with the clock running and the bodies flying.

Politics in America:

To understand the workings of American politics you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil.

Obama:

In the course of his presidency, Obama has gone from an almost magical charismatic figure to an ordinary politician. Ordinary. Average.

One World Order:

The international community lies at the center of the Obama foreign policy. Unfortunately, it is a fiction. There is no such thing. Different countries have different histories, geographies, necessities, and interests. There’s no natural, inherent, or enduring international community.

Liberals:

What’s the definition of a liberal? Someone who doesn’t care what you do as long as it’s mandatory.

The tyranny of the left:

The left is entering a new phase of ideological agitation no longer trying to win the debate but stopping debate altogether, banishing from public discourse any and all opposition. The proper word for that attitude is totalitarian. It declares certain controversies over and visits serious consequences from social ostracism to vocational defenestration upon those who refuse to be silenced.

Equality of opportunity v equality of outcome:

Liberal Media:

Fox News is no monopoly. It is a singular minority in a sea of liberal media. ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, NPR, CNN, MSNBC vs. Fox. The lineup is so unbalanced as to be comical – and that doesn’t even include the other commanding heights of the culture that are firmly, flagrantly liberal: Hollywood, the foundations, the universities, the elite newspapers.

Pharmacology and Advertising:

Consider the oddity of those drug commercials on television. Fifteen seconds of the purported therapeutic effort, followed by about 45 seconds of a rapidly muttered list of horrific possible side effects. When the ad is over, I can’t remember a thing about what the pill is supposed to do, except perhaps cause nausea, liver damage, projectile vomiting, a nasty rash, a four-hour erection, and sudden death. Sudden death is my favorite because there is something comical about it being a side effect. What exactly is the main effect in that case? Relief from abdominal bloating?

Gun Control:

In the liberal remake of ‘Casablanca,’ the police captain comes upon the scene of the shooting and orders his men to ’round up the usual weapons.’ It’s always the weapon and never the shooter.

Economics:

If you subsidize apples, you get more apples; if you subsidize unemployment, you get more of it.

Great Leaders (which explains why Obama wasn’t)”

Great leaders are willing to retire unloved and unpopular as the price for great exertion.

Multiculturalism:

History has blessed us with all the freedom and advantages of multiculturalism. But it has also blessed us, because of the accident of our origins, with the linguistic unity that brings a critically needed cohesion to a nation as diverse, multiracial and multiethnic as America. Why gratuitously throw away that priceless asset? How mindless to call the desire to retain it ‘racist.

I could go on, but suffice to say the world is a little worse off today for the loss of another brilliant mind.

Besides, I see that the world of media has already moved on to obsess over the intent of Melania’s cloaked message:

Answer: No.