Latest Charles Krauthammer Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• The medical malpractice system is totally out of control. Everybody in the system knows it. And it's not just of the outrageous judgments, it's not just the fact that some people get millions of dollars, others get nothing, and the one people who get rich are lawyered, it's just that it causes doctors to practice defensive medicine.

  Charles Krauthammer

  People, Medical, Judgment

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

• I think the first thing is to recognize a mistake that Obama made. And others have made in thinking that you can revolutionize a system that's unbelievably complex and interlinked, one-sixth of the economy. That was a mistake because whenever you change one thing, it changes 80 other things, and now if you're changing everything at once, you have no idea what the outcome is going to be and you get all of these unintended side effects.

  Charles Krauthammer

  Mistake, Thinking, Economy

  Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

• If Russia were to do something that it could do, it looks like it might even be preparing to do, to invade Ukraine and essentially to dismember it, this would be the one item that could reflect really badly on Trump because of the warm way he spoke about Putin.

  Charles Krauthammer

  Source: www.foxnews.com

• Truman left in the middle of an unpopular war, a war of choice. Truman didn't have to go into South Korea. And he was reviled and ridiculed for the stalemate that resulted. Now, he's seen as one of the great presidents of the 20th century.

  Charles Krauthammer

  War, Korea, Choices

  Source: www.spiegel.de

• There are cycles in American politics. US cycles are even more pronounced because we Americans have a totally entrepreneurial presidential system. We don't have parliamentary opposition parties with a shadow prime minister and shadow cabinets. Every four years, the opposition reinvents itself.

  Charles Krauthammer

  Party, Years, Presidential

  "Obama Is Average". Interview with Klaus Brinkbäumer and Gregor-Peter Schmitz, www.spiegel.de. October 26, 2009.

• There's no free lunch. If you want an industrial economy, you need energy. If you want energy, it will produce pollution. You can have it in two forms. You can have it dissipated in the atmosphere - like carbon dioxide - which then you cannot recover, or you can have the waste concentrated in one small space like nuclear. That is far easier to deal with. The idea that you can be able to create renewable energy at a price anywhere near the current price for oil or gas or coal is a fantasy.

  Charles Krauthammer

  Ideas, Two, Lunch

  "'Obama Is Average'". Interview with Klaus Brinkbäumer and Gregor-Peter Schmitz, www.spiegel.de. October 26, 2009.

• I'm not against international institutions that would try to tackle global warming. But the way to go, at least in the short run, is to go to nuclear power. It's amazing to me that people who are so alarmed about global warming are so reluctant to adopt the obvious short-term solution - the bridge until the day when we have affordable renewable energy - of nuclear power.

  Charles Krauthammer

  Running, Bridges, People

  Source: www.spiegel.de

• I don't think you can pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere indefinitely and not have a reaction. But there are great scientists such as Freeman Dyson, one of the greatest physicists of the last hundred years, who has studied the question, who believes quite the opposite. The reason transnational action is so difficult is because the major problem with climate change is, A, that there is no consensus, and, B, that the economic cost is simply staggering. Reversing it completely might mean undoing the modern industrial economy.

  Charles Krauthammer

  Believe, Mean, Thinking

  "Obama Is Average". Interview with Klaus Brinkbäumer and Gregor-Peter Schmitz, www.spiegel.de. October 26, 2009.

• Where there is a confluence of interests among nations, as, for example the swine flu or polio, you can get well functioning international institutions like the World Health Organization. And you can act. Climate change is different, because the science remains hypothetical and the potential costs staggering.

  Charles Krauthammer

  Get Well, Organization, World

  "'Obama Is Average'". Interview with Klaus Brinkbäumer and Gregor-Peter Schmitz, www.spiegel.de. October 26, 2009.