I really enjoyed reading the letter excoriating Charles Krauthammer for his use of proper English. (“Columnist lost without Obama.”) The complaint seems to be that anyone who uses language taught in many high school English classes is stuck up and therefore their comments don’t have merit.
The letter writer’s concerns are symptomatic of one of the failings of the public school system. We barely teach our kids communication skills required to get a job at a fast food restaurant. I don’t know if the writer understood the meaning of Krauthammer’s words and was just putting him down for using them or he actually didn’t understand them. I do agree that Krauthammer frequently uses words that are not in regular usage, but when I’ve looked them up, I discovered that his choice of words was appropriate for the situation where it was applied.
I don’t think I would fare well in a battle of words with Charles Krauthammer but I have never been intimidated by his intellect. On the contrary, I appreciate it when he applies it to his commentaries. Krauthammer challenges me every week.
If everyone who had a syndicated column had the intellect of Charles Krauthammer we would have a lot more thoughtful analysis and most likely far less liberal columnists. I suspect that if left-leaning columnists used words like Mr. Krauthammer they would lose their readers, since most of them wouldn’t understand a word they said let alone the thoughts behind them.
With regard to the suggestion that Krauthammer is obsessed with Obama, I can only say Charles is one of very few voices in the wilderness steadily pointing out the two faces of the administration. The president and most of his administration hacks are either grossly incompetent as evidenced by their own admissions that they knew nothing about any of the blunders in advance or had a meaningful plan to respond to them after the fact … or … they are just prolific prevaricators.
The writer also alluded to some unstated political bungles of Bush 43 following Sept. 11, 2001 suggesting that Krauthammer had nothing of consequence to say during that time that might criticize anyone on the right. I don’t really remember which bungles he’s referring to. Everyone knows Krauthammer is a right winger so what do you want him to write?
Krauthammer could write a daily column and never lack for material since we are also blessed with the likes of Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner in the target-rich Washington environment.
Steve Dana
Snohomish
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