Charles Krauthammer

Today all the interns took the metro to meet with Charles Krauthammer, a conservative columnist for the Washington Post. The meeting was excellent, lasting well over two hours.

Mr. Krauthammer began with a 25 minute discussion on how he found his profession, entitled "how not to become columnist." Interestingly he went to medical school and was a psychiatrist for 3 years but he had a couple of fortuitous career events happen at the right times. When asked to write two columns a week -- the industry norm at the time -- he insisted (successfully) that he write only one, explaining to us that "writing a column is like having sex with a nymphomaniac ... once you stop, you start up right again."

We then moved to question-and-answers. Mr. Krauthammer spoke so eloquently and comprehensively that we spent 90 minutes on four questions. We talked about the importance of studying history, the Obama revolution, the national debt, and Israel. He labeled the intense partisanship in Washington as a positive force, reminding us that being an ideologue means that one adheres to a strict set of political beliefs. Mr. Krauthammer then explained that we are in the midst of a great national and public debate in this country, one that decides whether we honor the tradition of limited government and the Constitution or follow the path of a European Social Democracy and encourage a nanny-state and rampant spending: in the former, the individual defines his own goals in life; in the latter, the government has that job. In my opinion, the former is clearly superior. Our President has been destructive: one has to work real hard to accumulate trillions of debt in just three years. Mr. Krauthammer confirmed my beliefs, explaining that the consequences of reelecting President Obama -- a democratic Reagan, in terms of revolutionary change -- would be disastrous. The Republican presidential field is mediocre at this point. However, there's a generation of up-and-coming stars -- Chris Christie, Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan -- who will be prime to run in the following cycles. The question is, can Republicans continue to command public opinion. The President is ignoring entitlement reform, betting that Americans approve of deficit reduction and spending cuts in the abstract, but shirk away from the tangibles.

In other news, ChrossTalk officially went public today, and we posted our fist two podcasts! Please visit www.chrosstalk.wordpress.com.