Krauthammer: Ukrainian Defense Minister Ignoring Hagel"s Calls Shows How Weak, Irrelevant US Has Become

When it comes to working with the United States, Russia is “playing a zero sum game,” Charles Krauthammer said on Fox News Thursday.

“The premise of the whole reset policy was that we are not in competition and Putin could not believe his luck, to come across a naif from the White House who believed that,” he said. “The Russians did not cooperate on Iran. They’re running Syria. They’re arming Syria. Thumbing their nose at us with Snowden and now Ukraine. And they are playing a zero sum game.”

“The fact that no one answers our call in the Defense Ministry in Kiev is a sign of how weak and irrelevant the U.S. has become,” he continued. “I can assure you that if Putin’s on the line, the phone is answered.”

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Krauthammer: Ukrainian Defense Minister Ignoring Hagel"s Calls Shows How Weak, Irrelevant US Has Become

Krauthammer: Benghazi "Won"t Even Be An Issue" For Hillary In 2016 Nomination Fight

SHANNON BREAM: Charles, do you think that Benghazi will factor in at all — in the primary or the general should Hillary Clinton be the Democratic nominee?

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: It won’t in the primary. It won’t even be an issue. I think the status she enjoys among Democrats is semi-divine. It’s not going to be a coronation. It’s going to be a worship service. And it will go on for about six or eight months. I don’t think there is any serious challenger. There might be noise, but I don’t even think that the left that we’ve talked about is that the significant. It’s a noisy left. But, I don’t see any impediment on the way to her nomination. But I think she is going to be rather weak if she decides to run, which I think she likely is. She will be a relatively weak opponent. And Republicans, I think, are going to have a really good shot at the White House.

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Krauthammer: Benghazi "Won"t Even Be An Issue" For Hillary In 2016 Nomination Fight

Krauthammer: Snowden not vindicated

‘He’s only one judge,’ Krauthammer says about Edward Snowden. | John Shinkle/POLITICO

Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer on Monday noted that even while the constitutionality of the National Security Agency’s spying network is in question, “it isn’t as if Snowden is vindicated.”

Krauthammer’s comments on Fox News follow U.S. District Judge Richard Leon’s ruling in favor of five plaintiffs challenging the NSA’s collection of their phone meta-data. Judge Leon on Monday ruled only on those specific cases, but his ruling could invite broader appeals.

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“He’s only one judge. We have no idea how this would end up in the Supreme Court,” explained Krauthammer on Fox News Monday. “What [Judge] Leon is arguing is that the use of this phone, the way this information is more detailed today, is different than it was in the ’70s and thus it is an invasion of the fourth amendment.”

(Also on POLITICO: Judge: NSA phone program likely unconstitutional)

Even as the constitutionality of the bulk meta-data collection program is being reviewed, Krauthammer was careful not to praise NSA leaker Edward Snowden, whose leaks revealed the existence of the program.

“[T]hat issue is yet undetermined and there is no definitive ruling yet. So it isn’t as if Snowden is vindicated. He is not a constitutional lawyer and if he was interested in this, he would have leaked only this instead of taking everything that he had into Russia and China and kept it from the authorities.”

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Krauthammer: Snowden not vindicated

Krauthammer On PBS: To Hear Truth About Obamacare, "Try FOX"

GORDON PETERSON: [Paul] Ryan’s response was this, ‘Look, you want to get things done, you have to be willing to be criticized by everybody. Republicans don’t run everything. You have to find a way to work with the other side of the aisle to make the government work.’ Apparently there are people in Washington who find that kind of reasoning toxic, Charles.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Let me start with an editorial note. I love how you guys just can’t wait to get your teeth into Republicans throwing mud at Republicans on a week when this administration — by the way, the viewers, you’re not going to hear a word about a week in which the Secretary of HHS unilaterally — lawlessly — changed every deadline in the Obamacare law without any legal authority, in a way that is absolutely astonishing. But you won’t hear about this on this show, so try FOX. (Inside Washington, December 14, 2013)

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Krauthammer On PBS: To Hear Truth About Obamacare, "Try FOX"

Krauthammer: "The Death Of Obamacare Will Be Delivered By Democrats"

MCKELWAY: Charles, there is a bit of a conundrum for Republicans, because Obamacare and defunding it, delaying it was the centerpiece of the Republicans’ position on the government shutdown. Yet the Cruzes and the Senator Lees of the world were proven right.

KRAUTHAMMER: But the beauty of the Republicans’ position today is that the death of Obamacare if and when it comes will be delivered by Democrats. Had it been delivered by Republicans before it was enacted with a defunding or any other measure, liberals would have said for 100 years we tried to get national health care, and the Republicans have thrown orphans in the snow again.

This time you can get a revolt in the Senate that’s already started. It was suspended temporarily while Obama said we are going to fix the website. But the Senate Democrats who are up for re-election next year are in a panic. They have been quiet. They’re not going to remain quiet. When the web site is not working in December, when tens of millions of cancellations are going to go out next year among people who have employer-provided insurance, there is going to be a revolt, and it will be Democrats who do this. And that, in and of itself, will be a blow to Obama-style liberalism of a kind it would take a decade to recover from.

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Krauthammer: "The Death Of Obamacare Will Be Delivered By Democrats"

Charles Krauthammer: COMMENTARY Is “Fearless, Informative, Indispensable”

Charles Krauthammer 11.14.2013 – 9:25 AM

For decades, COMMENTARY has opened its pages to the most serious uncompromising defense of the American creed–exemplar of ordered liberty at home, pillar of the free world abroad–in an era when it has been most under attack. From the exceptionally influential manifestoes of Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jeane Kirkpatrick to today’s counterattack against the empowered advocates of the entitlement state and of American decline, COMMENTARY remains what it has been for more than a generation: fearless, informative, indispensable.

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Charles Krauthammer: COMMENTARY Is “Fearless, Informative, Indispensable”