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Washington is the only place in the world where a gaffe is when a politician accidently speaks the truth.

Charles Krauthammer

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Charles Krauthammer
Age: 68 †
Born: 1950
Born: March 13
Died: 2018
Died: June 21
Columnist
Journalist
Physician
Psychiatrist
Pundit
Writer
New York City
New York
Politician
Politics
Speak
Place
Truth
World
Gaffe
Speaks
Washington

More quotes by Charles Krauthammer

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The great divide in American foreign policy thinking is between those who believe in paper and those who believe in power.
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In the Middle Ages people took potions for their ailments. In the 19th century they took snake oil. Citizens of today's shiny, technological age are too modern for that. They take antioxidants and extract of cactus instead.
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If you believe that health care is a public good to be guaranteed by the state, then a single-payer system is the next best alternative. Unfortunately, it is fiscally unsustainable without rationing.
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It’s not the advertising - it’s the dog food. Every time anybody has a look at it or has a lick of it, they don’t like it.
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Truman left in the middle of an unpopular war, a war of choice. Truman didn't have to go into South Korea. And he was reviled and ridiculed for the stalemate that resulted. Now, he's seen as one of the great presidents of the 20th century.
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I believe in what I believe, and I think after all these years I've heard a lot of arguments, and I'm convinced by the superiority of the arguments that are made on the conservative side. I think that's a better way to run a society.
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American public opinion, as you can see in the polls, radically changed from being against airstrikes to being heavily in favor that [President Obama] decided to do airstrikes. This is a classic example of leading from behind where he waits for public opinion. And now it's the public who's demanding he do something.
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Life and consciousness are the two great mysteries. Actually, their substrates are the inanimate. And how do you get from neurons shooting around in the brain to the thought that pops up in your head and mine? There's something deeply mysterious about that. And if you're not struck by the mystery, I think you haven't thought about it.
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There is a mystique about psychiatry that people think that you have some kind of a magical lens, you know, Superman's X-ray vision into the soul. One of the reasons I left psychiatry is that I didn't believe that.
Charles Krauthammer
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There is no comparing the brutality and cynicism of today's pop culture with that of forty years ago: from High Noon to Robocop is a long descent.
Charles Krauthammer
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It is an old liberal theme that conservative ideas, being red in tooth and claw, cannot possibly emerge from any notion of the public good.
Charles Krauthammer
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Americans are not intrinsically imperial, but we ended up dominant by default: Europe disappeared after the Second World War, the Soviet Union disappeared in 1991, so here we are.
Charles Krauthammer
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Some will protest that in a world with so much human suffering, it is something between eccentric and obscene to mourn a dog. I think not. After all, it is perfectly normal—indeed, deeply human—to be moved when nature presents us with a vision of great beauty. Should we not be moved when it produces a vision—a creature—of the purest sweetness?
Charles Krauthammer
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This is how the great post-partisan, post-racial, New Politics presidency ends - not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with a desperate election-eve plea for ethnic retribution.
Charles Krauthammer
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I'm a former Red Sox fan, now fully rehabilitated.
Charles Krauthammer
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Every new president flatters himself that he, kinder and gentler, is beginning the world anew. Yet, when Barack Obama in his inaugural address reached out to Muslims by saying, 'To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect,' his formulation was needlessly defensive and apologetic.
Charles Krauthammer
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When under attack, no country is obligated to collect permission slips from allies to strike back.
Charles Krauthammer
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Torture is an impermissible evil. Except under two circumstances. The first is the ticking time bomb. An innocent's life is at stake. The bad guy you have captured possesses information that could save this life. He refuses to divulge. In such a case, the choice is easy.
Charles Krauthammer
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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.
Charles Krauthammer
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Where there is a confluence of interests among nations, as, for example the swine flu or polio, you can get well functioning international institutions like the World Health Organization. And you can act. Climate change is different, because the science remains hypothetical and the potential costs staggering.
Charles Krauthammer