Friday, May 01, 2009

Dr. K.   [Jay Nordlinger]

Back in the early 1990s, I said this about Charles Krauthammer as columnist: “The thing is, you can hold up a Krauthammer column and say, ‘Here it is. This is it. This is what I believe, in a nutshell. This is the case I would make, had I the ability.’” A Krauthammer column gave you something to wave. A document to nail to a door, so to speak. A friend or acquaintance would say to you, “What do you believe about this issue, and why?” And you could hand him a Krauthammer column, saying, “Here.”

 

In fact, that is the highest value of any columnist, don’t you think? He crystallizes your own thought. (Then again, he could make you reexamine.)

 

All of this came to mind when I read Krauthammer’s column published today, on torture: here. It makes you say, “Yep — that’s it.” At least it makes me say that. I also thought of George W. Bush. He said, on at least one occasion, “You never get credit for what didn’t happen” — e.g., further terror attacks on your country.

 

One more word about Krauthammer: WFB once wrote a column in praise of him. In the Washington Post — I’m going from memory here — it was titled “Washington’s Dr. K.” At the time, Dwight Gooden was a very famous baseball pitcher, and he was known as “Dr. K” (“K” standing for strikeout). I’m glad that, after all these years, Washington’s Dr. K. is still prescribing. And I’m glad he is no longer writing speeches for Mondale — that is, that he is no longer philosophically and politically suited for such a position.

 

Once upon a time, Dr. K. was a very fancy voice against missile defense. But then, James Burnham, Whittaker Chambers, Frank Meyer, Max Eastman, Willi Schlamm — all NR writers — were once fancy voices against . . . well, political freedom. I could throw in John Dos Passos and several others, too.

 

Isn’t growth a marvelous thing?

05/01 09:56 AMShare