Krauthammer, for real
Actually that should be a question:
Krauthammer, for real?
I might have misunderestimated this guy, putting him down as a simple paid flack for the Bush/Rove White House. Turns out he is not the Devil incarnate, just a Karl Rove Junior, without the virtue of consistency. Charles K wasn't always this way; Karl R was born into it.
What made me decide to look a little harder at Karl Junior was the fact that he is so often described as "Pulitzer prize winning conservative columnist." I didn't know there was a Pulitzer prize for conservative columns, and in fact there isn't, although it wouldn't have surprised me all that much. Most people think of the Pulitzer in terms of the "best photo of the year" or "best news story" of the year but the word Pulitzer looks so good on any writer's resume that the Board now grants the award in twenty-one categories plus annual "special citations and awards." Details at Wikipedia, of course.
The Pulitzer is the premier award (Oscar quality) in most of the writing professions, and has a reputation for being more or less non-political, the Board being administered by the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia. The reputation is so great that writers will sometimes describe themselves as a "Pulitzer prize nominee," which in reality means that they have paid the entry fee. Yes, it's a contest, and you pay a fee to submit your entry. Since the Prize is so prized, and there are fees involved, it's no surprise that the list of categories is growing.
But... so far there's no Pulitzer for "conservative columns." And therefore ipso facto Krauthammer's Pulitzer was not for "conservative columns."
Then I found out that the guy is a paraplegic, as a result of a diving accident when he was in college. Got to be sympathetic, unless he has used his handicap to political advantage. Which he has (read on).
Here's the summary bio, which shows an apparent streak of callousness from the very beginning. Born in New York City in 1950, he got honors degrees in political science and political science and economics from McGill University in 1970. McGill... isn't that in Canada? So Krauthammer happened to be in Canada, in college, when so many of his contemporaries (including me!) were getting drafted and sent to Viet Nam. He's a Draft Dodger! He earned his membership in the Bush/Rove/Cheney/Rumsfeld Chicken Club, for sure.
He followed-up McGill with a year at Oxford, then went to medical school at Johns Hopkins. His diving accident happened during his freshman year at Johns Hopkins, and he resumed his training at Harvard, earning his M.D. in 1975.
He specialized in psychiatry, of all things (having started in political science and economics), but didn't last long in the field before going into political exploitation of his medical degree. In '78 he quit the field to "direct planning in psychiatric research" for Jimmy Carter, at which time he also began writing for The New Republic, a progressive journal sometimes described as "neo-liberal." In 1980 he wrote speeches for Democratic candidate Walter Mondale!
I haven't seen any direct evidence that he used his handicap to get any of these jobs, but come on-- a Jewish doctor in a wheelchair? That's mega-minority-points. I guess that sounded like a cheap shot, but Mr K never hesitates to take them.
The one consistent theme in Krauthammer's public persona is his staunch support of Israel. Me, I'm absolutely not anti-semitic, and in fact believe that we should support Israel. But it is a fact of life and politics that Jews are a minority and you get extra points for hiring or appointing minorities and/or the handicapped. If Krauthammer had enough sense to turn himself into a female he'd probably be a Senator by now. He's gone through other radical changes. Funny, conservatives are supposed to be against radical change, and here's a guy that became a conservative in and because of a radical change.
Krauthammer did his philosophical 180 toward the end of the eighties, and began writing for Time and the Weekly Standard, which is a conservative political magazine. Now he is thoroughly identified with the neocon branch of conservatism and promotes the unipolar theory of American domination of the world. Along the way he was appointed to Bush's "Council on Bioethics." The Sten Gazette piece that called him "craphammer" and was the inspiration for me in writing the blog said "Krauthammer is a confidant of Karl Rove. Krauthammer 'consulted' on Bush’s State of the Union speech, then sat around with other paid “contributors” on Fox News to praise it."
By the way, the Pulitzer was awarded to him in 1987, before the wind-shift, so calling him a "Pulitzer prize winning conservative columnist" is really sneaky. Almost as sneaky as claiming him as an MD doctor on the bioethics panel. A "bioethicist" whose paraplegia presumably lends a great deal of weight to his stance against stem-cell research. The guy's a real pro and knows how to turn a "handicap" to his own advantage.
I think Sten Gazette did a good job of exposing Karl's Junior as a "media whore," but that is a misunderstimation. The guy is a professional propagandist, a clone of Karl Rove, and perhaps even his heir-apparent (it won't surprise us at all if Jeb Bush runs for prez in 2008, with Chuckie K as his "political advisor").
A psychiatrist as a professional propagandist, hmmm. The famous Dr. Joseph Goebbels was a psychologist.
Last but not least, I kept staring at the picture of Craphammer thinking he sure does look like somebody else, and eventually it dawned on me-- it's this guy!
Krauthammer, for real?
I might have misunderestimated this guy, putting him down as a simple paid flack for the Bush/Rove White House. Turns out he is not the Devil incarnate, just a Karl Rove Junior, without the virtue of consistency. Charles K wasn't always this way; Karl R was born into it.
What made me decide to look a little harder at Karl Junior was the fact that he is so often described as "Pulitzer prize winning conservative columnist." I didn't know there was a Pulitzer prize for conservative columns, and in fact there isn't, although it wouldn't have surprised me all that much. Most people think of the Pulitzer in terms of the "best photo of the year" or "best news story" of the year but the word Pulitzer looks so good on any writer's resume that the Board now grants the award in twenty-one categories plus annual "special citations and awards." Details at Wikipedia, of course.
The Pulitzer is the premier award (Oscar quality) in most of the writing professions, and has a reputation for being more or less non-political, the Board being administered by the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia. The reputation is so great that writers will sometimes describe themselves as a "Pulitzer prize nominee," which in reality means that they have paid the entry fee. Yes, it's a contest, and you pay a fee to submit your entry. Since the Prize is so prized, and there are fees involved, it's no surprise that the list of categories is growing.
But... so far there's no Pulitzer for "conservative columns." And therefore ipso facto Krauthammer's Pulitzer was not for "conservative columns."
Then I found out that the guy is a paraplegic, as a result of a diving accident when he was in college. Got to be sympathetic, unless he has used his handicap to political advantage. Which he has (read on).
Here's the summary bio, which shows an apparent streak of callousness from the very beginning. Born in New York City in 1950, he got honors degrees in political science and political science and economics from McGill University in 1970. McGill... isn't that in Canada? So Krauthammer happened to be in Canada, in college, when so many of his contemporaries (including me!) were getting drafted and sent to Viet Nam. He's a Draft Dodger! He earned his membership in the Bush/Rove/Cheney/Rumsfeld Chicken Club, for sure.
He followed-up McGill with a year at Oxford, then went to medical school at Johns Hopkins. His diving accident happened during his freshman year at Johns Hopkins, and he resumed his training at Harvard, earning his M.D. in 1975.
He specialized in psychiatry, of all things (having started in political science and economics), but didn't last long in the field before going into political exploitation of his medical degree. In '78 he quit the field to "direct planning in psychiatric research" for Jimmy Carter, at which time he also began writing for The New Republic, a progressive journal sometimes described as "neo-liberal." In 1980 he wrote speeches for Democratic candidate Walter Mondale!
I haven't seen any direct evidence that he used his handicap to get any of these jobs, but come on-- a Jewish doctor in a wheelchair? That's mega-minority-points. I guess that sounded like a cheap shot, but Mr K never hesitates to take them.
The one consistent theme in Krauthammer's public persona is his staunch support of Israel. Me, I'm absolutely not anti-semitic, and in fact believe that we should support Israel. But it is a fact of life and politics that Jews are a minority and you get extra points for hiring or appointing minorities and/or the handicapped. If Krauthammer had enough sense to turn himself into a female he'd probably be a Senator by now. He's gone through other radical changes. Funny, conservatives are supposed to be against radical change, and here's a guy that became a conservative in and because of a radical change.
Krauthammer did his philosophical 180 toward the end of the eighties, and began writing for Time and the Weekly Standard, which is a conservative political magazine. Now he is thoroughly identified with the neocon branch of conservatism and promotes the unipolar theory of American domination of the world. Along the way he was appointed to Bush's "Council on Bioethics." The Sten Gazette piece that called him "craphammer" and was the inspiration for me in writing the blog said "Krauthammer is a confidant of Karl Rove. Krauthammer 'consulted' on Bush’s State of the Union speech, then sat around with other paid “contributors” on Fox News to praise it."
By the way, the Pulitzer was awarded to him in 1987, before the wind-shift, so calling him a "Pulitzer prize winning conservative columnist" is really sneaky. Almost as sneaky as claiming him as an MD doctor on the bioethics panel. A "bioethicist" whose paraplegia presumably lends a great deal of weight to his stance against stem-cell research. The guy's a real pro and knows how to turn a "handicap" to his own advantage.
I think Sten Gazette did a good job of exposing Karl's Junior as a "media whore," but that is a misunderstimation. The guy is a professional propagandist, a clone of Karl Rove, and perhaps even his heir-apparent (it won't surprise us at all if Jeb Bush runs for prez in 2008, with Chuckie K as his "political advisor").
A psychiatrist as a professional propagandist, hmmm. The famous Dr. Joseph Goebbels was a psychologist.
Last but not least, I kept staring at the picture of Craphammer thinking he sure does look like somebody else, and eventually it dawned on me-- it's this guy!
posted by KrappHammer at 10:42 AM
2 comments
