this hour, when he talks, washington listens. charles krauthammer, his uniquely american story. his journey from m.d. to the pulitzer prize. how he overcame a devastating accident with a determination to lead, a life that matters. hello, i'm bret baier. i hope you'll enjoy watchingt this special as much as we t enjoyed making it. fox viewers know where charles krauthammer sits on the panel and they probably know his position on most issues. but we bet there is a lot you don't know about the all-starknw panelist, syndicated columnist, harvard trained psychiatrist anh even occasional baseball

analyst. we think you should, even if the doctor has a different opinion. ump a little set rent when we start -- reticent when we started this project. what was your thoughts? >> i don't like it. >> full disclosure. i've been trying to convince charles krauthammer to sit foror an interview for some time. secretary kerry on the hill -- >> not one where he shares hisvw thoughts on the news of the day. >> i suspect there is going to be another twist here. >> but one where he pulls back the curtain and reveals beyond the extraordinary writer andnary influential thinker, the life of an intensely private man. >> look, when i say i don't likp it, i'm not averse to the spotlight. i'm not going to pretend somebody is on television every night doesn't enjoy it. t but when it comes to interior life, it's not something that's very interesting to me.meth >> more disclosure. charles krauthammer is a 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 or scandalous kiss and tell. it's a collection of newspaper and magazine pieces from the pulitzer prize winner columnist, or maybe it's more than that. >> are youpu decoding my book is this. >> i am.aybe >> like it's entirely about me. but it's all written in hieroglyphic.ero >> it's not like that.ot let's start with part one of your book titled "personal." and in there, the first column h is really an incredibly moving piece about your brother.our he died of cancer seven years ago. he was 59. charles writes this about his older brother: quote, he taught me most everything i everwr learned about every sport i ever played. he taught me how to throw a football, hit a back hand, grip, a nine iron, field a grounder,

dock a sailboat in a tailing wind. and how we played. it wasn paradise. tell me about that. >> my brother and i were inseparable. he was four years older. he always insisted i beless included. so iif got to being around the g boys, taking the slings and arrows and that's how you get toughened up. my parents were from europe. he wased american.re my brother. born in brazil, but that's a long story. but american. he made me an american. >> that long story, short. his mother is from belgium.hea his father was a real estate develop prosecutor approves of ukraine. both jews who left world war iio europe. they met in havana, moved toey m rio, and eventually new york city where charles was born in 1950. when he was five, the familyen h

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 thert water. >> i don't think i owned a shirt 'til i was 21. all the pictures, the family movie, my father is shirtless, my brother is shirtless. i am. we're outside in the sun. i i ran on then beach. that's where i got -- i read on the beach. >> there was reading and study. the father carried his son's second grade report card around in his coat pocket. >> his motto for us was i wantse you to know everything. i want you to learn everything.a you don't have to do everything. but you got 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'd go to the neighbor's to watch the ed sullivan show.

>> inspired by uncles who were doctors, marcel went to medical school. it was assumed charles would follow. a 19-year-old senior at mcgill, the internationally renowned canadian university, he was bitten by a different bug. political journalism. >> there was intrigue. the editorship of the newspaper atur mcgill was controlled by the student council. i had been elected to the student council and the paper was becoming unreadable. it was run by marxist. it looked like it came out of the soviet union. you couldn't read it. we engineered a coup of the editor. we had to find an editor. they looked around and decided it's going to be me. so i said, wait. i've never worked on a paper. they said detail. >> he loved thinking and writing about all things political. he applied to medical school toi

please his family and got accepted to harvard. f but he got into oxford as well to study political theory. would he choose a life of science or life of letters? the brilliant graduate had enviable option, but he hadn'tit figured out what mattered most to him. so he split the difference. he put off harvard, enrolled at. oxford. and while studying philosopher, he met a fellow student from australia, robin, attractive and brilliant, too. a clerk to the chief justice of her home state supreme court. but so much would change in theg three years between when they be met and married. beginning with his sudden decision to leave england. >> i had this little epiphany of sorts. i started political theory, getting more and more abstract. i learned a lot, but i began to feel that i was sort of spinning out into a university.

i called a registrar at harvard medical school and said i'd like to come in the coming class. the i remember her saying, well, onl guy dropped u. we got a spot. if you're here on monday, it's yours. so i grabbed a toothbrush and ir didn't pack. i got on a plane and i left. that's how i decided to become a doctor. now, when i woke up in boston the next day, i thought to w myself, oh, my god. what have i done? but it was no going back. >> why did you choose psychiatry? >> i was looking for somethingl 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 -- i was luckyi wa because it was probably the easiest branch of medicine for me to do once i was hurt. >> hurt. that doesn't even begin to describe it. when did you realize the

accident was life altering? >> the second it happened. >> after the break.

welcome back. fox news reporting. so far you've met the young charles krauthammer, harvard medicine, class of 75. his life seemed to be going se 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 onm the beach. it's the confident smile of a young man well on his way to making it. smart, athletic, handsome, driven. all his.e, >> that was spring break in my first year of medical school. i went with a bunch of friendsma to bermuda. that actually is the last picture of me taken standing.

i didn't know at the time. water oming out of the carrying my sandals. i saw one off my friends with camera. then when i got to the top ofsa the dune, ids 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 woulc happen back in harvard that har summer. you were 22 years old. tell me about that day. >> i went out. it was the end of my first year of medical school. we're doing neurology, studying the spinal cord of all things. my classmate and i decide to skip the morning session, beautiful july day.e we were going to play tennis instead. >> after their game, they head back to class for the afternoonr session. but along the way, they stop at a pool on campus, set down their books and pull off theirl

sneakers. >> we're very sweaty. it's very hot. you go for a swim, take a few dives and i hit my head on theii bottom of the pool. >> a freak accident, says charles krauthammer. >> the amazing thing is there t was not even a cut on my head.hg it hit at precisely the angle where all the force was transmitted to one spot and thae is the cervical vertebrae, which severed the spinal cord. >> when did you realize that th accident was life altering?or >> 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 couldn't get out. i knew.ttin yes. >> he was paralyzed. unable to move his arms or legs. his friend thought he wasough clowning around and hesitatedro before divingun down to save hi. was there ever a moment that you thought this is the end?

>> well, when i knew whatd? happened and i knew i was at the bottom of the pool and i knew ip wouldn't be able to swim, i was sure that was the end. >> do you think back to that day often? >> not really. i kind of have a distance from it. i see it likero as if it happend in a film. interestingly enough, people talk about near death experiences, there was no panic. there was no great emotion. i didn't feel light. 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 he notes the irony of what he left behind. >> there were two books on the w side of the pool when they picked up my effects. up

one was the anatomy of the spinal cord and the other one is man's fate. quite a choice. i didn't know what was coming,'s but it fit very well. >> coming up, charles krauthammer's fate lay in the balance. what he did next astounded his professors and classmates. >> i knew that would be -- itsos was not a question . [ grandma ] with n fedex one rate, i could ll a box and ship it r one flat rate. so i kn untilt was full. you'd be crazy not to. is tt nana? [ male announcer ] fedex one rate. simple, flat rate shipping with the reliability of fedex. i have a big meeting when we land, but i am so stuffed up, i can't rest. [ male announcer ] nyquil cold and flu liquid gels don't unstuff your nose. they don't? alka seltzer plus night fights your worst cold symptoms, plus has a decongestant. [ inhales deeply ] oh. what a relief it is.

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they skipped class. dive.ful a terrible injury. and there charles krauthammerrrb lay in a hospital bed, paralyzed. 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 gravityt and i'm not going to walk, i'm not going to water ski again. that's fine. so that you know. tha but on the big things in life,he the direction of my life, what i was going to do, that wouldn't change at all. >> he says he never entertained> the notion that one day, whethen through his own effort or evend, some medical miracle, he'd regain full use of his arms and legs. he resignedle himself to the cod reality that wherever he went in life, he'd go in a wheelchair. was it hard? >> i think the physical part wa hard, learning to do everything again. i have a great capacity for erasing memories so it seems very short. it wasn. long, but it would seem very short. >> his teachers and classmates certainly thought he was rushin:

his decision to resume his studies immediately. you never thought about taking a year off or taking a couple years off? >> i knew that would be fatal. it was not a question. >> you just couldn't survive? >> yeah. i mean, life would be over. it was 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, he convinced harvard to let him try. t amazingly, mere weeks after his accident, he resumed classes while still in his hospital bed. >> i was lying on my back, couldn't move. the professors would come in, repeat their lectures and project slides on the ceiling. 'cause i had asked the medical school to let me stay with myto class. >> you read by laying on your back? >> one of the cardiac residents hooked up a plexiglas plate that they hung from the posters of the bed and the nurses would put

a book on it face down. you don't want to call them every anyone and a half to -- 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 time. but you got to remember where you were. it's bit of a challenge. it keeps you busy. >> with such force of will, hei 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 this weekly group therapy session anp you didn't want to go. >> there were 12 of us at mass general. and there was a group therapy once a week.

and i didn't go. i thought it's a pointless exercise. so i was called in to the in chief's office after about seven weeks of nonappearance and hewek said to me, why aren't you going to therapy? and i said, sir, i came here to give therapy. not to receive it. and he said to me, you're in denial. and i said, of course i'm in of denial. denial is the greatest of all defense mechanisms. i could be a professor of denial. i mean, i'man an expert. well, i was going on and on of the he wasn't amused. >> he gave charles krauthammert an ultimatum.e ga go to group therapy or leave thl program. >> so iti went to the next 21he weeks of sessions or whatever is was. but i didn't really say a word. so whatever people would notice that, they would say, why aren't you talking? i said 'cause i'm in denial. i'm not a big therapy guy. >> you didn't want somebody>> r looking around your head?ad? >> question. i don't like to talk about myself, except with you, i

guess. i'm not a touchy, i'm not a feeley guy. that's probably why i quit psychiatry. if you're not into feelings and emotions and all the back storym then you ought to be doing something else. >> so in 1978, he took a government job in washington atn what would become the national institute of mental health. it wasn't what he really wanted. but it put him in the rightit p neighborhood. >> i thought once i'm in washington, isn't that where they do politics? one thing will lead to another. >> his folks worried about their son tossing away a doctor's live liehood.doct but didn't discourage him.dn't his wife, rob am, who would leave her career in law to her become a paintser and sculptor, urged imto follow his -- 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 and generosity and spirit, has

co-authored my life.rit >> in a moment, charles' co-author helps him answer a higher calling. and later he finds himself moving left to right after the break. one. it's not the "limit the cash i earnvery month" card. it's not the "i only earn decent rewards at the gas station" card. it's the no-games, no-signing up, everyday-rewarding, kung-fu-fighting, silver-lightning-in-a-bottle, bringing-home-the-bacon cash back card. this is the quicksilver card from capital one. unlimited 1.5% cash back on eve purchase, everywhere, every single day. so ask yourself, what's in your wallet?

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einstein, the great scientist. charles disagreed. he picked churchill, thechur indispensable statesman who led hitler andgainst sounded the alarm against communism politics trumping science. that may be why he trade add ticket to washington. 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 day at my office, i get aad call. i'm miken cinesly, editor of the new republic. why do you want to do this? you're a doctor. >> i was intrigued. so i called. >> michael kingsley was looking for a managing editor for the left leaning magazine. was there something in his application, something during that phone call that made you want to bring him down?

>> it was mainly the fact he war a psychiatrist because he had no writing samples. wewa arranged for him to come tm lunch and there he was in his wheelchair and we hit it off right away. hi >> what did you see in him,a though? >> you know, i enjoyed talking to him so much.ta i had this feeling he must be able to write this down. >> he gave it a shot. as the saying goes, he wrote about what he knew.ha his first article? the expanding shrink, protested how psychoanalysis was screaming 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." it was the first time anyst. articles in the retchic had been picked up by the post. >> he wrote a few more pieces for the magazine and might have

joined the staff, except he gote an even more intriguing offer. as a speech writer for vice president walter mondale. >> that lasted six months. 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 now. would you like to come work for us? i said yes, rightyoo away. i started on the day reagan wasn sworn in, that's the first day i started. >> the new president was promising big changes. even starting the world anew. reagan's inaugural truly signaled a great clash of ideas. >> in this present crisis, government is not the solutionri to our problem. government is the problem. >> and the new republic was right in the midst of it.epu >> well, it was overwhelmingly liberal. the writers were the best of that era.li i wabes still a democrat at thea time, traditional liberal democrat, great society liberal.

i was pretty hard line on the soviets. it's hard for people to believe now, but the democratic partypep had a very powerful wing that was very anti-soviet. >> but those democrats were aepr dying breed and charles krauthammer found himself agreeing more with president reagan than with his liberal readers. >> i ended up supporting almost every element of the reagan policy and boy, did we get reaction from our liberal readers. i wrote one editorial excoriated the nuclear freeze that caused? the largest number of canceled subscriptions in the history of the magazine, which i was very proud of. >> what was his writing like? >> it's always been extremelyha step by step, logical. if you can read a column by charles about something and you can still disagree with hime after you're through with it, then you know you must have a pretty good argument. >> those arguments had conservative columnists like william f. buckley wondering why

charlesin krauthammer were not supporting reagan's reelection. >> what buckley was writing was, why don't you give up on the was democrats and i was still one of those who wanted to sort of save the soul of the democratic party and maintain this conservative element of which the magazine really was. >> he 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.ws quote, the catalog of sins we believe the president hasbe committed is too long to recapitulate here.ng t but he tells me he privatelye. wanted reagan to beat his old boss, walter mondale. >> but i had worked for mondaler in 1980. i liked him and had respect for him and as a personal matter, a matter ofrnd of honor. i didn't want to vote against the man for whom i had respect and affection. >> so you have a vote, reagan or mondale? >> that's the only presidential election where i left that line

blank. >> left it blank?el >> but if i had been the swingbl vote, i would have obviously haw voted for reagan. >> it was a turning point in his transition from the political left to the political right. >> just a few months after the election, i wrote something called reagan doctrine. >> it was a time magazine column and it was provocative. for a while, he had praised reagan on a number of foreign policy issues. he was now crediting him with a breakthrough insight that changed the calculus of the cola war. >> i realized what reagan had done without a great master plan was to challenge what at the time was called the brezhnev doctrine and that was whenever we take over a country, it's ours and all of a sudden, whatci reagan had done had challenged that andu don't get tos keep what you got. we're going to challenge your possession wherever they are. i thought this is a really goodo

idea. and i'm going to give it a nam. >> he invented the reagan>> doctrine. not reagan. and now everybody has got to have a doctrine. charles had made it mandatory to come up with a doctrine for every president. man >> but even after reagan's 49 state landslide, charles>> r krauthammer was still not sure what to make of reagan the mant who he met at the white house in 1986. >> he invited me to lunch. i tried to engage him like on the contra, what are you goingth to do? all of a sudden i'm hearing is the story about how when he anda nancy were in the guest house of president marcos of the fill pipes, there was a giant spider on the ceiling and the question was how to get it off without scaring nancy and i'm thinking. i don't get it. this is the most successful president in ms y lifetime. he seems to be out m to lunch. what's going on? >> he says it was only later that he realized what eluded him

about reagan. >> he had no neeutd to show howd smart he was. he knew exactly what i was asking. he didn't want to talk about it. if you thought he was a dunce, he didn't care because he knewc he want. >> it would also be some time before charles krauthammer embraced a conservative domestic policy, taxes, welfare, small government, and otherl reaganesque sins. >> it took me about aer decade. i was skeptical of tax cuts. i was skeptical of smaller government at the beginning. and then by the end of the '80si i hadnn begun to change. >> what happened? >> the empirical evidence. as a doctor i had been trained in impeer cal evidence. if the -- empirical evidence. if the treatment is killing your patients, you stop the treatment. i began to look and to 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. >> by that time, his world was really falling into place

in 1985, his son, daniel, was born. two years later, he won the biggest honor in print journalism, the pulitzer prize. not bad for someone who started in the business less than a decade earlier without even a ls writing sample. he went straight from the dec ceremony to see his father, who had once worried about his son'w jump from medicine to journalism. he was 84 and gravel fy ill. >> i went to the hospital where he was and ira said, dad, i havp something i want to give you. i and i gave him the medal. and he beamed and he showed it to all the nurses. >> it turned out to be his final visit with his dad.l v >> so the last time i saw him was a time when this wholehis 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 you see your parent. >> he 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 h understand there isa nexus between these weapons, these states and the terrorists and we have to attack them. >> he began appearing on "special report" all star panel and was soon an audience favorite. >> you've been a fixture onor "special report" forit a long te 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 am sitting behind a table. and it is true, i'd say heavy the people i meet are absolutely surprised to see me in a wheelchair. and one of the more amusing incidents happened about eight, nine years ago.s ha and i remember i was sitting in madison square garden in the fom box. i think it was a convention.

and sean hannity stands up and p walks up the stairs and he looki at me and goes, what happened? i just -- i told him i was hurt as a medical student. but it just told me that even somebody i had been on the air with wouldn't know. >> ha is apparent is that charles krauthammer has theppa attention of people in high places. just one example, his oppositiom to white house counsel harriette myers not only helped block her nomination to the supreme court, a comment on the panel,a co 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 c of "special report." i think what the administration ought to do is say look. >> his solution? basically went like this. because myers' legal writings were covered by executived privilege, the senate couldn'tte vet her. so she had to withdraw. >> a few days later, that's whet they did. >> are you surprised by the

amount of influence that you have with your column, with "special report," that you heart or see things that happened as a result of a column or 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 did anything i damn well please. >> comingas up, power players ad power hitters, from the all-star panel to the ballpark in eight minutes flat.

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welcome back to fox news reporting. charles krauthammer set out to write a book about the things that matter most.hi and he didn't mean politics. the palm on 19th street. one of washington's legendary power scenes. and you know you're lunchingpol

with one of dc's power players if his caricature is on the wall. >> i got one other scenario for you. >> and today charles krauthammer is holding forth on the nuances of power. 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 was playoff run. >> 14-2, one game ahead. >> i was wondering where he wasg going. >> i think charles and i are both people who write about politics to support our baseball habits. >> noted conservative columnist george will, has written two w books on baseball. do you remember when you first met charles? >> i think it was 1982 because he was then withfi the new republic and wrote a cover stort on me. so i said, interesting guy, bring him to lunch. and that's how we met.

>> how long did it take beforelu you were friends? >> i think it was instantly. five years later, i bought a new house and the first thing i did was build a wheelchair ramp in the garage so charles could get. in. >> he told us when you first goe together you first talk baseball and then when you dealt with all the important issues, you go to politics. >> if there is time, yes. >> tim, a senior writer for espn magazine, has lunch with will and charles krauthammer a couple times a year to talk baseball. f >> to say they love the game is an understatement. >> i grew up playing the game. i love to play the game. as a kid, my brother and i woul go around on our bikes on the streets of long island with transistor radios listening to mel allen and phil risuto doing the yankee games. >> since the nationals came to .

washington in 2005, they've had no bigger fan than charles krauthammer. >> when i started to do your show every night, it ends at 7:00 >> o'clock. the game starts at 7:10, the garage at fox is seven minutes if the wind is fair from the tu garage at the stadium. soy get at the bottom of thee first. how can i resist? >> he makes that trip in a special vehicle designed just for him that let's him accelerate and brake with his left hand and steer with his h 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, the tester didn'tn want to get in. i told him he had to. t it's the law. i think he passed me because he survived. he was so happy tola be alive wn it was over. >> the first time i saw you go in a parking lot, i waved to you and then the next day you said me, you really shouldn't m

wave. it's a little dangerous. >> yeah. the wave is a little bit hard.> if someone let's me in in traffic, i'm tempted to take one hand and say the thank you wave. but then, of course, i wouldn't have a hand on the steeringve a wheel. >> it actually took us eight minutes to get to the stadium. when we took our seats, the nats were winning. charles krauthammer went into analyst mode right away as though he was breaking down a d procedural move harry reid might use to thwart a ted cruz filibuster. >> on a 1-0 count, you want to feel on the breaking ball. and is he likely to throw a breaking ball? no. he's unlikely b to try to steal right now. strike one. now he might go for a breaking ball. >> turns out nine innings withfo charles krauthammer is not just a day at the park.y it's essentially grad school for

baseball. >> okay. this is unfortunate matchup. the only reason solano is in there, he's the back up catcher. he doesn't hit very well.t >> no, no, no. >> from time to time, charles writes about baseball. typically in a way that transcends the sport. take his column about rick ankiel, a 21-year-old pitching phenom who fell apart when picked to play a playoff game. with a huge audience e suddenly couldn't throw a strike. he never pitched the same again. but instead of quitting, ankiel went back down to the minors. learned a new position and returned to the majors as a hitter. the column is reprinted in charles krauthammer's book, things that matter.auth it's in the personal section. just a few pages after the piece about his brother, marcel.

>> i was thinking about thisab column. this is not. really about you. but then your last line, the catastrophe that awaits everyonh from a single false move, wrong turn, fatal encounter, every life has such a moment. what distinguishes us is whethes and how we ever come back. >> that's why the rick ankiel story resonated so much with me. i mean, i had my fatal fa encounter, as did rick ankiel. there is an element of that in everybody's story. their low point. do you want it enough and areth you lucky enough? that's part of it. >> while his injury has kept him off the playing fields and courts, he's pursued anotherds a competitive outlet. chess. which lights you up more? baseball or chess when you're in the game? >> there is no comparison. it's chess.ss? >> you still play chess?comp >> no. i gave it up. it's an addiction. >> completely. >> it's a poison. ii mean, you reach a point when

you're on the internet, middle of the night and you're playing speed chess, you realize you're in a motel room and drinking aquavelva. >> your book was supposed to be on things other than politics. but it didn't turn out that way. why? >> in the end, everything, all n the beautiful, elegant things in life depend ultimately one getting politics right. >> you say science, art, poetry, baseball, must ultimately bow to politics. >> i have a column in the boo k where i write about the paradox. firmy was -- ferme was a physicist who posed a question. we know there were millions of habitable worlds out there.ha so there have to be thousands, millions of civilizations. why have we never heard from any of them?th most plausible explanation is that every time a civilization

achieves consciousness and thees kind of science that would allof to you transmit a signal, they destroy themselves. the question is, can we regulate our politics in a way that will allow the human speech to flourish and produce all the beautiful stuff?sh and that's a question that only can be answered by politics. >> coming up, battering theming president and ticking off the tea party. >> have you seen this mail? >> my assistant reads most of my mail. she's now in therapy. >> fox news reporting continues after the break.

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you can even choose 48 months interest-free financing on the new tempur-choice with head-to-toe customization. the triple choice sale ends sunday, thanksgiving weekend. ♪ sleep train ♪ your ticket to a better night's sleep ♪ 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. he wasn't sure what to make of barak obama. he got the chance to size him u in 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,u i haven't been able to figure this guy out. is he a centrist looking tois throw a bone to the left or isll he a lefty looking to throw a bone to the right? nobody had any ideas. >> that was part of mr. obama's great strength. >> so we spend three hours with this new man. he leaves and we're staying. behind a little bit and i say s the same question, is he a centrist? is he a lefty? nobody knew. >> five years later, you think you've figured him out?do >> i figured him out after that first state of the union speech. five weeks later. >> we will invest $15 billion a year to develop technology likeo wind power, solar power. we can no longer afford to put

health care reform on hold. be the goal of this administration -- >> i was so astonished that i wrote five columns in a row on o what kind of unusual politicalew animal he was in giving an agenda as radical as any since fdr. he basically said, i'm not here to at this pointer. i've come here to transform america. >> you've been pretty tough on this administration, this on president.is >> i think he's done just about' everything wrong. >> but just as he was willing t: offend his fellow liberals backh in the '80s, he is equally willing to take on conservatives he believes are wrong. have you seelin this mail from some of the things you've said about ted cruz? i get the e-mails.bout >> i know you get the e-mails. i've seen the tweets. my assistant reads most of my mail and he's now in therapy. just kidding. >> the krauthammer on fox didox

not like what cruz did. >> it might really send his assistant over the edge. >> dr. charles cars, the 1980s he was working for walter mondale. >> there is a deep division among republicans and a sense fr 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 repealo something like obamacare when you only control the house. i just think it's completely detached from reality and when in the past i would encounter w people detached from reality,ter look, first i'd give them a shot of haldoh but that's notem available to me of the i know it's unpopular, but it's my job to call a folly a folly.ou'r you're betraying your whole lifo if you don't say what you think. and you don't say it honestly and bluntly. >> do you think you'll ever stop writing? >> no. i intend to die at my desk.

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hello. i'm gregg jarrett. glad you're with us. well woman to a brand-new hour inside america's news headquarters. >> i'm arthel neville. topping the news this hour, the moment of truth for obamacare and the white house's deadline to get the problem-plagued web site up and running for most users. so is it ready for prime time? a live report moments away. we have seen those black friday lines outside the big box stores. but today small businesses are hoping to get in on some of the action. we'll