Charles Krauthammer, the famed conservative commentator, said Friday that he is dying from cancer and has weeks left to live.
He delivered the news in the
Washington Post, where he has had a column since 1984. The letter was also read on
Fox News, where he's been a longtime commentator.
"My doctors tell me their best estimate is that I have only a few weeks left to live," Krauthammer wrote. "This is the final verdict. My fight is over."
Krauthammer, 68, noted he had been "uncharacteristically silent" for 10 months. That was because he had a malignant tumor removed from his abdomen. While that surgery was a success, he said it led to complications, and that an aggressive form of cancer has now returned.
"I had thought that silence would soon be coming to an end, but I'm afraid I must tell you that fate has decided on a different course for me," he wrote.
He thanked his colleagues, readers and viewers in the note, as well as his doctors and caregivers.
"I believe that the pursuit of truth and right ideas through honest debate and rigourous argument is a noble undertaking," he wrote. "I am grateful to have played a small role in the conversations that have helped guide this extraordinary nation's destiny."
Rupert Murdoch, executive chairman of Fox News, said Krauthammer had been a "guiding star" for the cable news channel.
"Charles has been a profound source of personal and intellectual inspiration for all of us at Fox News," Murdoch said, per Fox. "His always principled stand on the most important issues of our time has been a guiding star in an often turbulent world, a world that has too many superficial thinkers vulnerable to the ebb and flow of fashion, and a world that, unfortunately, has only one Charles Krauthammer."