Charles Krauthammer, a syndicated columnist with The Washington Post, was a popular presence on The San Diego Union-Tribune's opinion pages for years. His brave, emotional note to readers, published Friday morning, explains his absence and describes his terminal cancer with typical brevity and grace. As a 22-year-old freshman at Harvard Medical School, he severed his spinal cord in a diving accident, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down. But he persevered, first getting his M.D. in psychiatry and then emerging as one of journalism's most lucid, powerful, insightful writers.
In 2007, Krauthammer wrote movingly about Rick Ankiel, a pitching phenom who suffered an emotional breakdown before enjoying redemption years later as an outfielder. He described the vicissitudes of fate _ "the catastrophe that awaits everyone from a single false move, wrong turn, fatal encounter" _ and wrote, "What distinguishes us is whether _ and how _ we ever come back." His own comeback was distinguished. And how.
Yet the lessons to be learned from Krauthammer go beyond his resolve in overcoming personal catastrophe. Unlike many pundits who settle into intellectual ruts, he was open to changing his mind _ evolving from a liberal who wrote speeches for Walter Mondale to a neoconservative admirer of hawkish Ronald Reagan to an iconoclast with no use for Donald Trump, hot-button social conservatism or stunts like government shutdowns.
Journalism could use more people with his courage and thoughtfulness. And so could the world in general.
