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tv   Geraldo at Large  FOX News  November 2, 2013 10:00pm-11:01pm PDT

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have a great weekend. i'm megyn kelly. this hour, when he krautham this hour, when he walks, washington listens. charles krauthammer, his uniquely american story. the journey of md to the pulitzer prize. how he overcame a devastating accident with a determination to lead. a life that matters. hello, i'm brett baier. i hope you'll enjoy this special as much as we enjoyed making it. fox viewers know where charles krauthammer sits on this panel and they probably know his position on most issues. but we bet there's a lot you don't know about the all-star panelist.
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syndicated columnist. harvard trained psychiatrist. and even occasional baseball analyst. we think you should even if the doctor has a different opinion. you are a little reticent when we started this project. what is your thought about all this? >> i don't like it. >> full disclosure. i have been trying to convince charles krauthammer to sit for an interview for some time. >> secretary kerry on the hill today -- >> not one where he simply shares his thoughts on news of the day. >> i suspect there's going to be another twist here. >> but one where he pulls back the curtain and reveals beyond the extraordinary writer and influential thinker, the life on an intensely private man. >> look. when i say i don't like it, i'm not averse of the spotlight. i'm not going to pretend somebody's on television every night doesn't enjoy it but when it comes to interior life, it is not very interesting to me. >> more disclosure. charles krauthammer is a
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colleague, and friend. but he only agreed to cooperate on a fox news reporting profile reluctantly as part of the publicity campaign for, yes, a new book. "things that matter" is not a confessional memoir it is a collection of pieces from the pulitzer prize winning columnist or maybe it's more than that. >> are you decoding my book? >> i am decoding it right now. >> like it's all about me. it's all written in hieroglyphics. >> it's not as impenetrable as hieroglyphics. let's start with part one. it is titled "personal." and in there, the first column is really an incredibly moving piece about your brother. marcel krauthammer died of cancer several years ago. he was 59. charles writes this about his older brother. quote, he taught me most everything i ever learned about every sport i ever played. he taught me how to throw a
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football, hit a back hand, grip a 9 iron, field a grounder, dock a sailboat in the tailing wind and how we played. it was paradise. tell me about that. >> it was a childhood. we were inseparable. he was four years older, which is why this was a priceless gift. he insisted i be included so i got used to being around the big boys and taking the slings and arrows and that's how you get toughened up. my parents were from europe. he was american. my brother. born in brazil but that's a long story. but american. and he made me an american. >> that long story short. krauthammer's mother, thea, from belgium. his father from a real estate developer from what's now a province of ukraine. both jews who left world war ii europe.
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they met in havana, moved to rio and eventually new york city where charles was born in 1950. when he was 5, the family moved to montreal. but they spent summers at the family cottage in long beach, new york. charles recalls spending every day with his brother on the field, on the court or in the water. >> i don't think i owned a shirt until i was 21. all the pictures, the family movies, my father is shirtless. my brother shirtless. i am. we're outside in the sun. i read on the beach. that's where i got all my knowledge is reading. >> of course there was reading and studying. the father who spoke nine languages even carried his son's stellar second grade report card around in his coat pocket. >> his motto is to know everything. i want you to learn everything. you don't have to do everything but you have to know everything. he thought that was part of life. >> that life did not include a tv. says the cable news pundit. >> my father wouldn't allow it. once a week, sunday night we go
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to the neighbors to watch "the ed sullivan show." that was the one concession of the television. >> inspired by uncles who were doctors, marcel krauthammer went to medical school. it was assumed charles would follow but as a 19-year-old senior, the internationally renowned canadian university, he was bitten by a different bug. political journalism. >> with campus intrigue, the editorship of the newspaper was controlled by the student council. i had been elected to the student council, and the paper was becoming unreadable. it was just -- it looked like it came out of the soviet union. you just couldn't read it. so we engineered a coup to fire the editor and realized we have to find an editor. so they looked around and decided it's going to be me. so i said, wait. i've never worked on a paper. they said oh, it's a detail.
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>> a poly sci and economics major, he loved writing and thinking about all things political. he applied to medical school to please his family and got accepted to harvard and got into oxford, as well. to study political theory. would krauthammer choose a life of sirens or a life of letters? the brilliant graduate had enviable options but didn't figure out what matters most to him, so he split the difference. he put off harvard and enrolled at oxford and while studying history's great political philosophers he met a fellow student from australia, robin trethaway. attractive and brilliant, too. a clerk to the chief justy of her home state's supreme court. but so much would change in the three years between when they met and married. beginning with his sudden decision to leave england. >> i had this little epiphany of sorts. i started political theory. it was getting more and more abstract. i learned a lot but i began to
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feel that i was sort of spinning out into a universe that didn't have anything to do with the real world. i called the registrar and said i'd like to come in the coming class. and i remember her saying, well, one guy dropped out. we have a spot if you're here on monday it's yours. so i grabbed a toothbrush and didn't pack. i got on a plane and i left and that's how i decided to come -- become a doctor. now, when i woke up in boston, next day, i thought to myself, oh my god, what have i done? but it was no going back. >> why did you choose psychiatry? >> i was looking for something halfway between the reality of medicine and the elegance if you like of philosophy so psychiatry was the obvious thing. that was my intention from the first day and that was -- i was lucky because it was probably the easiest branch of medicine for me to do once i was hurt. >> hurt.
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that doesn't even begin to describe it. when did you begin that the ac >> the second it happened. >> after the break.
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welcome back to fox news welcome back to fox news reporting. so far, you've met the young charles krauthammer. harvard medicine. class of '75. his life seemed to be going according to plan. but then, no life ever really does. the snapshot was taken in may, 1972. it shows a strapping 6'1" charles krauthammer standing on the beach. it's the confident smile of a young man well on his way to making it. smart, athletic, handsome, driven. the future all his. >> that was spring break of my first year of medical school. i went with a bunch of friends to bermuda.
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that's the last picture of me taken standing. of course, i didn't know at the time. i was coming out of the water carrying my sandals. i saw one of my friends with a camera. and then when i got to the top of the dune, i just stood there for a picture. thought nothing of it until i discovered it years later lying around in a box. and remembering it, of course, it was a fateful picture. >> fateful because of what would happen back at harvard that summer. you were 22 years old. tell me about that day. >> i went out. we had -- it was the end of my first year of medical school. we're doing neurology. we're studying the spinal cord of all things. my classmate and i decide to skip the morning session. beautiful july day. we're going to -- we played tennis instead. >> after their game, they head back to class for the afternoon session.
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but along the way, they stop at a pool on campus. set down their books and pull off their sneakers. >> we're very sweaty, very hot. we go for a swim, take a few dives and i hit my head. >> a freak accident says krauthammer. >> the amazing thing is there was no -- not even a cut on my head. it just hit at precisely the angle where all the force was transmitted to one spot and that is the cervical vertebra which severed the spinal cord. >> when did you realize the accident was life altering? >> the second it happened. >> you knew? >> i knew exactly what happened. i knew why i wasn't able to move. and i knew what that meant. >> at the bottom of the pool. >> i wasn't getting out. i knew, yeah. >> he was paralyzed. unable to move his arms or legs. his friend thought he was clowning around. and hesitated before diving down to save him.
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>> what there ever a moment that you thought, this is the end? >> well, when i knew what happened and i was at the bottom of the pool and i knew i wouldn't be able to swim, i was sure that was the end. >> do you think back to that day often? >> not really. it doesn't -- i kind of have a distance from it. i see it like as if it happened in a film. and interestingly enough with near death experience, there was no panic. there was no great emotion. i didn't see a light. i didn't -- my life did not flash before me. you sort of get to a place where you're ready and then you're suddenly brought back to the world. >> so no cosmic revelation as he was rushed to the hospital. though krauthammer notes the
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irony of what he left behind. >> there were two books on side of the pool when they picked up my effects. one was the anatomy of the spinal cord. and the other one's man's fate. quite a choice. i didn't know what was coming but it fit very well. >> coming up, krauthammer's fate lay in the balance. what he did next astounded his professors and classmates. >> i knew that would be fatal. it was not a question. i got this. no, i'll get it! no, let me get this. seriously. hey, let me get it. ah, uh. i don't want you to pay for this. it's not happening, honey. let her get it. she got her safe driving bonus check from allstate last week. and it's her treat. what about a tip? oh, here's one... get an allstate agent. nice! [ female announcer ] switch today and get two safe driving bonus checks a year for driving safely. only from allstate. call an allstate agent and get a quote now. just another way allstate is changing car insurance for good.
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nothing to do but think. >> i made one promise to myself on day one. i was not going to allow it to alter my life except in ways which are sort of having to do with gravity. i'm not going to defy gravity and i'm not going to walk and water ski again. that's fine. so that you know. but on the big things in life, the direction of my life, what i was going to do, that wouldn't change at all. >> krauthammer says he never entertained the notion one day through his own effort or a medal miracle he would regain full use of his arms and legs. he resigned himself to the cold reality that wherever he went in life he'd go in a wheelchair. was that hard? >> i think the physical part was hard. getting -- learning to do everything again. i have a great capacity for erasing memories. so it seems very short. it was long but it would seem
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very short. >> his teachers and classmates certainly thought he was rushing his decision to resume his studies immediately. you never thought about taking a year off or taking a couple years off? >> no. i knew that would be fatal. it was not a question. >> because you just couldn't survive? >> yeah. i mean, life would be over. it's a little early for life to be over. >> while nobody had heard of someone with his injury standing up to the rigors of a med school curriculum, krauthammer convinced harvard to let him try. amazingly, mere weeks after his accident he resumed classes while still in his hospital bed. >> i was lying on my back, couldn't move. professors would come in, repeat their lectures and project slides on the ceiling because i had asked the medical school to let me stay with my class. >> and you read by laying on your back? >> one of the cardiac residents
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hooked up a plexiglass plate and the nurses would put a book on it face down. you don't want to call them every minute and a half to turn the page so i put two books up at once, so they'd only have to come half the lime but you have to remember where you were. a bit of a challenge. it keeps you busy. there wasn't a lot else to do. >> with such force of will, krauthammer graduated on time in 1975 and near the top of his class. along the way, he got the girl, too. and married robin. but as he began his three-year residency at massachusetts general hospital, there were indications from the beginning that charles and psychiatry might not be the perfect fit. >> part of the residency is that you're supposed to go to a weekly group therapy session and you didn't want to go. >> there were 12 of us residents in mass general, and there was a group therapy once a week.
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and i didn't go. i thought it's a pointless exercise so i -- i was called in to the chief's office after about seven weeks of non-appearance. he said to me, why aren't you going to therapy? i said, sir, i came here to give therapy, not to receive it. he said you're in denial. i said, of course i'm in denial. denial is the greatest of all defense mechanisms. i could be a professor of denial. i'm an expert. i was going on and on. he wasn't amused. >> he gave an ultimatum. go to group therapy or leave the program. >> so i went to the next 21 weeks of sessions or whatever it was but i didn't really say a word. so whatever people would notice that, they'd say why aren't you talking? i said because i'm in denial. i'm not a big therapy guy. >> but was it because you didn't want somebody looking around your head? >> yes.
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i don't like to talk about myself except with you i guess. i'm not a touchy feely guy. and that's probably why i quit psychiatry. if you're not in to feelings and emotions and all the back story then you ought to be doing something else. >> in 1978 krauthammer took a government job in washington at what would become the national institute of mental health. it wasn't what he really wanted but it put him in the right neighborhood. >> i thought, once i'm in washington isn't that where they do politics? one thing will lead to another. >> his woke >> his folks worried about their son tossing away a doctor's livelihood but didn't discourage him. his wife robin who would leave her job in law to become a painter and sculptor urged him to follow his dream. >> she was the one who 35 years ago encouraged me to follow my heart and with her wit and humor
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and generosity of spirit has co-authored my life. >> in a moment, charles co-author helps him answer a higher calling. and later, he finds himself moving left to right after the break. [ male announcer] surprise -- you're having triplets.
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important person of the 20th century. "time" magazine had chosen einstein, the great scientist. charles disagreed. he picked churchill, the indispensable statesman who led the fight against hitler and sounded the alarm over communism. politics trumping science. that might explain why he traded a big-time medical career for a one way ticket to washington and why once here his eyes locked on to a help wanted ad in the political opinion magazine "the new republic." >> i showed it to my wife and she said, why don't you apply? i said, how can i apply? i've never written anything, don't know anybody. she said, you write it. i'll hand deliver it. that morning at my office i get a call. i'm mike kingsly. i just got your letter. why do you want to do this? you're a doctor. >> i was intrigued so i called him.
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>> he was looking for a managing editor for the left-leaping magazine. >> was there something in his application, something in the phone call this made you want to bring him down? >> it was mainly the fact he was a psychiatrist, he had no writing samples. we arranged for him to come to lunch and there he was. in his wheelchair. and we hit it off right away. >> what did you see in him, though? >> you know, i just enjoyed talking to him so much. i had this feeling he must be able to write this down. >> krauthammer gave it a shot as the saying goes, he wrote about what he knew. his first article, the expanding shrink. protested how psychoanalysis was creeping into political discourse. for example, president carter's famous malaise speech that blamed the horrible economy on americans' crisis of confidence. >> they liked it. they published it. and i got lucky again. it was republished on the op-ed page of "the washington post." first time any article of "the
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new republic" was picked up from "the post." >> he kroet a few more pieces for the magazine and might have joined the staff. except he got apeven more intriguing offer. as a speech writer for vice president mondale. >> that lasted six months and when we got totally crushed in the general election, i got a call from the new republic and they said we think you're unemployed. would you like to work for us? i said yes right away. i started on the day reagan was sworn in, that's the day i started as a writer. >> so help me god. >> the new president was promising big changes. even starting a world anew. reagan's inaugural truly signaled a great clash of ideas. >> in this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem. >> and the new republic was right in the midst of it. >> well, it was overwhelmingly liberal. the writers were the best of that era. i was still a democrat at the time.
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traditional liberal democrat. great society liberal. i was pretty hard line on the soviets. hard to believe now but the democratic party had a very powerful wing that was very anti-soviet. >> but those democrats were a dying breed and krauthammer found himself agreeing more with president reagan than with the liberal readers. >> i supported just about every element of the reagan foreign policy and, boy, did we get reaction from the liberal readership. i wrote one article that caused the largest number of canceled subscriptions in the history of the magazine which i was very proud of. >> what was the writing like? >> it's always been extremely step by step logical. you can read a column by charles about something and you can still disagree with him after you're through with it and then you know you must have a pretty good argument. >> those arguments had
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conservative columnists like william f. buckley wondering why krauthammer and "the new republic" were not supporting reagan's re-election in 1984. >> he was writing, why don't you give up on the democrats? i was still one of those that still wanted to save the soul of the democratic party and maintain this conservative element of which the magazine really was. >> krauthammer fired off a letter to buckley writing, reagan still had, quote, a lot to answer for on foreign policy and his domestic policy was far worse. quote, the catalog of sins we believe the president has committed is too long to a capitulate here, but krauthammer says he privately wanted reagan to beat his old boss, walter mondale. >> but i had worked for mondale in 1980. i liked him and had respect for him and as a personal matter, as a kind of a matter of honor, i didn't want to vote against a man for whom i had respect and affection. >> so you have a vote, reagan or
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mondale? >> that's the only presidential election where i left that line blank. >> left it blank? >> but if i had been the, you know, the swing vote, i would have obviously had voted for reagan. >> it was a turning point in krauthammer's transition from the political left to the political right. >> and just a few months after the election i wrote something called the reagan doctrine. >> it was a "time" magazine column and it was provocative. for a while, krauthammer praised reagan on a number of foreign policy issues, he was now crediting him with a breakthrough insight that changed the calculus of the cold war. >> i realized that what reagan had done without a grand master plan was to challenge what at the time was called the brezhnev doctrine. and when we take over a country, communist, it's ours and then reagan had challenged that to sa no, you don't get to keep what you got. we'll challenge your
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possessions. wherever they are. and i thought this was a really good idea. and i'm going to give it a name. >> he invented the reagan doctrine. not reagan. and now everyone's got to have a doctrine. >> yeah. >> charles has made it mandatory to come up with a doctrine. for every president. >> but even after reagan's 49-state landslide, krauthammer was not sure what to make of reagan the man who he met at the white house in 1986. >> he invited me to lunch. i tried to engage him like on the contras, what will you do? all of a sudden i'm hearing from him is a story about how when he and nancy were in the guest house of the president of the philippines there was a giant spider on the ceiling and the question was, how do get him off without scaring nancy. i'm thinking, i don't get it. this is the most successful president in my lifetime. he seems to be out to lunch. what's going on?
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>> he says it was only later that he realized what alluded him about reagan. >> he had no need ever to show how smart he was. he knew what i was asking. he didn't want to talk about it and if you thought he was a dunce, he didn't care. he knew he wasn't. >> it would also be sometime before krauthammer embraced a conservative domestic policy, taxes, welfare, small government and other reaganesque sins. >> took me about a decade. i was skeptical of tax cuts, i was skeptical of smaller government at the beginning and then by the end of the '80s i had begun to change. >> what happened? >> empirical evidence. as a doctor i was trained in empirical evidence. i mean, if the treatment is killing your patients you stop the treatment. and so i began to look and read and think about whether the view i had of a social democratic society like they had in europe was the right way and i sort of -- i moved gradually to the idea of a more limited society, smaller government.
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>> by that time, krauthammer's world was really falling into place. in 1985, his son daniel was born. two years later, krauthammer won the biggest honor in print journalism. the pulitzer prize. not bad for someone that started in the business less than a decade earlier without even a writing sample. he went straight from the ceremony to see his father who had once worried about his son's jump from medicine to journalism. he was 84 and gravely ill. >> i went to the hospital where he was and i said, dad, i have something i want to give you. and i gave him the medal. and he beamed and he showed it to all the nurses. >> it turned out to be krauthammer's final visit with his dad. >> so the last time i saw him was a time when this whole circle was closed and he could feel that the choice had been redeemed in some way. it was a very comforting thing to remember about the last time
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you see your parent. >> krauthammer called the 1990s a holiday from history. the cold war was won. the era of big government declared over. and 9/11 brought a new urgency to his commentary. people understand there's a nexus between these weapons, these states and the terrorists and we have to attack them where they are. >> krauthammer began appearing on special reports, all-star panel and was soon an audience favorite. >> you have been a fixture on special report for a long time. and even still a lot of people don't know that you're in a wheelchair. >> they don't know the extent of your paralysis. >> i'm sitting behind a table and it is true. i say half the people i meet are absolutely surprised to see me in a wheelchair. one of the more amusing of those incidents happened about, oh, eight, nine years ago and i remember i was sitting in
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madison square garden in the fox box. i think it was a convention. sean hannity looks at me and goes, what happened? i just -- you know, i told him i was hurt at a medical student. no big deal and told me even somebody i'd been on the air with wouldn't know. >> what is apparent is that krauthammer has the attention of people in high places. just one example -- krauthammer's opposition to white house council harriet myers not only helped block her nomination to the supreme court, a comment on the panel apparently gave president bush a way out. >> i remember thinking, how do they get out of this? and it came to me while on the set of "special report." >> i think what the administration ought to do is say, look -- >> the face-saving solution basically went like this. because myers legal writings covered by executive privilege, the senate couldn't vet her so she had to withdraw. >> and three days later, that's
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what they did. >> are you surprised by the amount of influence that you have with your column with "special report," that you hear or see things that happen as a result of a column or a statement? do you ever think about it? >> i think about it and i find it worrisome. the reason is that when i was totally unknown, i could say anything i damwell pleased. >> coming up, power players and power hitters. from the all-star panel to the ballpark in eight minutes flat. was a truly amazing day. he was a matted mess in a small cage. so that was our first task, was getting him to wellness. without angie's list, i don't know if we could have found all the services we needed for our riley. from contractors and doctors to dog sitters and landscapers, you can find it all on angie's list. we found riley at the shelter, and found everything he needed
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at angie's list. join today at angieslist.com
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welcome back to fox news reporting. charles krauthammer set out to write a book about the thing that is mattered most. and he didn't mean politics. the palm on 19th street. one of washington's legendary
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power scenes. and you know you're lunching with one of the d.c. power players if his caricature's on the wall. >> i got another scenario for you. >> today charles krauthammer's holding forth on the nuances of power. >> i can't wait to hear this. i know where this is going. >> not the political power of the white house ten blocks away. he's talking about the washington nationals. and whether they can power a late season playoff run. >> the nats finish 14-2. one game ahead of cincinnati. >> right. >> i was wondering where he was going. >> i think charles and i are both people that write about politics to support our baseball habits. >> newly minted fox news contributor george will has written two books on baseball. >> do you remember when you first met charles? >> i think it was 1982 because he was then at "the new republic" and wrote a cover story on me.
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and i said interesting guy. bring him to lunch and that's how we met. >> how long did it take before you were friends? >> i think it was instantaneous. five years later i bought a new house and the first thing i did was build a wheelchair ramp so charles could get in. >> you first talk baseball when you get together. and then when you've dealt with all the important issues you go to politics. >> if there's time left over, yes. >> tim, a senior writer for espn magazine has lunch with will and krauthammer a couple of times a year to talk baseball. >> to say they're fans is an understatement. to say they love the game is an understatement. >> i grew up playing the game. as i kid, my brother and i would go around on our bikes on the streets of long island with transiter radios listening to
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mel allen and phil rasuto doing the yankee games. this was our lives. >> since coming to washington in 2005, they have had no bigger fan than charles krauthammer. >> when i started to do your show every night, you know, it ends at 7:00. the game starts at 7:10. the garage at fox is seven minutes if the wind is fair in the third street tunnel from the garage at nat stadium so i get there in the bottom of the first. i mean, how can i resist? >> he makes that trip in a special vehicle designed just for him. that lets krauthammer accelerate and brake with the left hand and steer with his right. >> everybody who comes in here the first time is terrified. and i don't blame them. in fact, when i went for my driving test, tester didn't want to get in. i told him he had to. it's the law. i think he passed me because he survived. he was so happy to be alive when it was over. >> first time i saw you going to
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the parking lot, i waved and then you said to me, you really shouldn't wave. it's a little dangerous. >> yeah. the wave is a little bit hard. when somebody lets me in in traffic i'm tempted to say the thank you wave. then of course, i wouldn't have a hand on the steering wheel. >> it actually took us eight minutes to get to the stadium. when we took our seats, the nats were beating the braves 1-0. krauthammer went into analyst mode right away like breaking down a procedural move harry reid might use to thwart a ted cruz filibuster. >> on a 1-0 count, you want to steal on a breaking ball because it's slower. is he liking to slow a breaking ball? no. so he's unlikely to try to steal right now. strike one. now he might go for a breaking ball. >> turns out nine innings with
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charles krauthammer is not just a day at the park. it's essentially grad school for baseball. >> okay. this is unfortunate matchup. the only reason salano is in there, he's backup catcher that doesn't hit very well. >> come on. no, no, no, no. >> he's a catcher. can't run. >> from time to time, charles writes about baseball. typically in a way that transcends the sport. take his column of rick ankiel, 21-year-old pitching phenom who back in 2000 fell apart when he was picked to start a playoff game. with a huge national tv audience watching, he suddenly couldn't throw a strike. he never pitched the same again. but instead of writing, he went back down to the minors. learned a new position and returned to the majors as a hitter. the column is reprinted in krauthammer's book "things that
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matter." it's in the personal section just a few pages after the piece about his brother marcel. i was thinking about this piece. this is not about you but the last line. the catastrophe that awaits everyone from a single false move, wrong turn, fatal encounter, every life has such a moment. what distinguishes us is whether and how we ever come become. >> that's why the rick ankiel story resonates with me so much. i had my fatal encounter, as did rick ankiel. there's an element of that in everybody's story. there are low points. do you want it enough? are you lucky enough? that's a part of it, too. >> while his injury has kept him off the playing fields and courts, he's pursued another competitive outlet. chess. >> which lights you up more, baseball or chess when you're in the game? >> there's no comparison. it's chess. >> did you still play? >> no. i gave it up. it's an addiction. >> completely.
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>> it's a poison. i mean, it's -- you know, you reach a point on the internet, you know, middle of the night and playing speed chess and you realize in a motel and drinking aqua velva. >> your book was supposed to be a collection of essays on things other than politics but didn't turn out that way. why? >> in the end, all the beautiful, elegant things in life depend ultimately on getting politics right. >> you say science, art, poetry, baseball must ultimately bow to politics. >> i have a column in the book where i write about the firmy paradox. firmy was a great physicist and posed a simple question. we know there are millions of habitable worlds out there. so there have to be thousands, millions of civilizations. why have we never heard from any of them? most plausible explanation is
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that every time a civilization achieves consciousness and the kind of science that would allow you to traps mitt a signal, they destroy themselves. and the question is, can we regulate our politics in a way that will allow the human species to flourish and produce all of the beautiful stuff? and that's a question only can be answered by politics. coming up, battering the president and taking off the tea party. >> have you seen this mail? >> my assistant reads most of my mail, and he's now in therapy. >> fox news reporting continues after the break. , dead battery, need a tow or lock your keys in the car, geico's emergency roadside assistance is there 24/7. oh dear, i got a flat tire. hmmm. uh... yeah, can you find a take where it's a bit more dramatic on that last line, yeah? yeah i got it right here. someone help me!!! i have a flat tire!!!
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it was january 2009. 30 years after charles krauthammer began his journalism career here in washington. a new president was about to be sworn in, but krauthammer wasn't sure what to make of barack obama. he got the chance to size him up at a small dinner party hosted by his friend, george will. it was a week before inauguration day. >> i remember before the president elect arrived, saying, you know, i haven't been able to figure this guy out. is he a centrist who will throw a bone to the left or a lefty who will occasionally throw a bone to the right? nobody had any ideas. >> that was part of mr. obama's great strength. >> so we spent three hours with this new man. he leaves and i say the same question, is he a centrist, is he a lefty? nobody knew. >> five years later, you think you've figured him out? >> i figured him out after the first state of the union speech.
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>> we will invest $15 billion a year to invest in new technologies. we can no longer afford to put health care on hold. >> i was so astonished that i wrote five columns in a row on what kind of unusual political animal he was in giving an agenda as radical as my since fdr. he basically said, i'm not here to tinker. i've come here to transform america. >> you've been pretty must have on this administration, this president. >> i think he's done just about everything wrong. >> just as he was willing to offend his fellow liberals in the '80s, he's equally willing to take on conservatives. have you seen this mail from some of the things you've said about ted cruz? >> my assistant reads most of my mail and he's now in therapy.
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just kidding. >> krauthammer on fox did not appreciate what cruz did. >> if you listen to talkradio, it might really send his assistant over the edge. >> dr. charles krauthammer, in the '80s he was working for walter mondale. >> there's a deep division among republicans and a sense that they've been betrayed by leaders who are cowardly. i happen to think that that is a complete misreading of what's happened. it is 100% impossible to repeal something like obama care when you only control the house. i just think it's completely detached from reality, and when in the past i would encounter people detached from reality, first i would give them a shot, but that's not available to the right now. i know it's unpopular, but it's my job to call a folly a folly. if you're going to leave the medical profession because you have something to say, you're betraying your whole life if you don't say what you think and you don't say it honestly and
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bluntly. >> do you think you'll ever stop writing? >> no, i intend to die at my desk. >> really? >> i would like to. i'm not sure i can arrange it. s s store and essentially they just get sold something. we provide the exact individualization that your body needs. before you invest in a mattress, discover the only bed clinically proven to relieve back pain and improve sleep quality. when we actually lower the sleep number setting to get the sleep number bed to conform to them,
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welcome to "red eye." >> are baby tigers sending decoding messages to space coast? the shocking new evidence that will leave you speechless. plus, is president obama secretly building an army of robot teddy bears? the white house is denying it. >> the president never considered that. >> finally, are scientists testing a new drug that could turn humans into dust. more of those stories on "red e"

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