Fox News’ Charles Krauthammer wouldn’t allow paralysis to ‘alter’ his life

NEW YORK — After Fox News contributor and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer revealed on Friday that he only has a few weeks to live, the conservative network shared his thoughts on some of the interviews he’s done over the years.

Krauthammer disclosed his doctors’ prognosis in a letter released to colleagues, friends and viewers, saying he has “only a few weeks to live” because of an aggressive form of cancer.

He wrote that he underwent surgery in August to remove a cancerous tumor in his abdomen. While thought to be successful, he said there were complications that he was overcoming. However, he wrote recent tests revealed the cancer has returned and is “spreading rapidly.”

Krauthammer says he will “leave this life with no regrets.”

“I decided to become a writer so I could write about politics, because I thought that’s the most important thing one can involve oneself in. In the end, all the beautiful, elegant things in life, the things that I care about, the things that matter, depend on getting the politics right,” Krauthammer said in a series of exclusive interviews he did for Fox News. “Because in those societies where they get it wrong, everything else is destroyed, everything else is leveled.”

In the exclusive interviews, he discusses his faith, structure, the transition of his personal politics and his paralysis, among other topics.

The 68-year-old was paralyzed below the neck in a diving accident in college, yet he graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1975 and practiced psychiatry.

“All it means is whatever I do is a little bit harder and probably a little bit slower. And that’s basically it. Everybody has their cross to bear– everybody,” Krauthammer said. “I made a promise to myself on day one [after my injury]. I was not going to allow it to alter my life”.

He developed a career as a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and commentator.

“The one thing I try to do when I want to persuade someone is never start with my assumptions, because if I do, we’re not going to get anywhere. You have to figure out what the other person believes, and then try to draw a line from what they believe into what you believe in by showing them a logical sequence. But you’ve got to lead them along and you have to have it clear in your head from the beginning or you’ll never get there.”