Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer dies at 68

Charles Krauthammer, a Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist with The Washington Post and longtime Fox News commentator, died Thursday. He was 68. Krauthammer announced earlier this month that he likely had only a few weeks to live after a cancerous tumor in his abdomen returned. “I leave this life with no regrets,” he wrote. “It was a wonderful life—full and complete with the great loves and great endeavors that make it worth living.”

Krauthammer, who was a political liberal in his younger years, began his journalism career writing for The New Republic in the early 1980s. His shift to conservatism began during Ronald Reagan’s presidency, with Krauthammer championing Reagan’s strategy to end the Cold War and coining the phrase “the Reagan Doctrine.” Later, he was known as an outspoken supporter of Israel, a prominent advocate for the Iraq war, and a staunch critic of President Barack Obama. His criticism in recent times extended to President Donald Trump, whom he called “an undeveloped schoolyard bully” in 2016. But he was “independent and hard to peg politically,” according to Meg Greenfield, his editor at the Post for many years.

Prior to his career as a journalist, Krauthammer graduated from Harvard Medical School after a diving board accident left him paralyzed from the neck down. He specialized in psychiatry before turning to writing. Born to Orthodox Jewish immigrants, Krauthammer did not share their faith. “There was once a philosopher who said, ‘I don’t believe in God, but I fear him greatly.’ That’s about where I am,” he said in a 2013 interview with The Daily Caller. Krauthammer’s wife, Robyn, and his son Daniel survive him.