Columnist Krauthammer dies at 68

NEW YORK — Charles Krauthammer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and pundit who helped shape and occasionally dissented from the conservative movement as he evolved from “Great Society” Democrat to Iraq War cheerleader to denouncer of Donald Trump, died Thursday. He was 68. His death was announced by two organizations that employed him, Fox News Channel and The Washington Post.

Krauthammer had said publicly a year ago he was being treated for a cancerous tumor in his abdomen and this month revealed that he likely had just weeks to live.

“I leave this life with no regrets,” Krauthammer wrote in The Washington Post, where his column had run since 1984. “It was a wonderful life — full and complete with the great loves and great endeavors that make it worth living. I am sad to leave, but I leave with the knowledge that I lived the life that I intended.” Sometimes scornful, sometimes reflective, he was awarded a Pulitzer in 1987 for “his witty and insightful” commentary and was an influential voice among Republicans, whether through his syndicated column or his appearances on Fox News Channel. He was most associated with Brit Hume’s nightly newscast and stayed with it when Bret Baier took over in 2009.

Krauthammer was a leading advocate for the Iraq War and a prominent critic of President Barack Obama, whom he praised for his “first-class intellect and first-class temperament” and denounced for having a “highly suspect” character.

Krauthammer was a former Harvard medical student who graduated even after he was paralyzed from the neck Krauthammer down because of a diving board accident. He was a Democrat in his youth and his political engagement dated back to 1976, when he handed out leaflets for Henry Jackson’s unsuccessful presidential campaign.

But through the 1980s and beyond, Krauthammer turned against his old party on foreign and domestic issues. He aligned with Republicans on everything from confrontation with the Soviet Union to rejection of the “Great Society” programs enacted during the 1960s.

For the Post, Time magazine, The New Republic and other publications, Krauthammer wrote on a wide range of subjects, and in “Things That Matter,” a million-selling compilation of his writings published in 2013, listed chess, baseball, “the innocence of dogs” and “the cunning of cats” among his passions.

Krauthammer married Robyn Trethewey, an artist and former attorney, in 1974. They had a son, Daniel, who also became a columnist.