Mort Kondracke

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Morton M. Kondracke (born April 28, 1939) is an American political commentator and journalist. He currently serves as executive editor and columnist for the independent Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call. He is also co-host of The Beltway Boys on Fox News Channel and a regular nightly contributor on Special Report with Brit Hume.

Mort Kondracke

1 Professional career
2 Personal life
3 Trivia
4 External links

[edit] Professional career

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Kondracke graduated from Joliet Central High School in 1956, and from Dartmouth College in 1960. He joined the U.S. Army and served in Washington, DC in the Counter Intelligence Corps while pursuing graduate work at Georgetown University and working part time for the Washington Star. After leaving the Army in 1963, Kondracke joined the staff of the Chicago Sun-Times, moving to the paper's Washington bureau in 1968, eventually working his way up to White House correspondent in 1974. His influence landed him on the master list of Nixon political opponents.

Kondracke left the Sun-Times in 1977 to become executive editor of The New Republic. He would work there until 1985 when he left to become Washington Bureau Chief for Newsweek magazine. In the meantime, his increased profile led to commentary positions at National Public Radio, This Week with David Brinkley and The Wall Street Journal. In 1982, he joined The McLaughlin Group as one of the original panelists, a position he held for 16 years.

In 1984, he was a panelist for the second televised debate (on foreign policy) between President Ronald Reagan and Democratic challenger Walter Mondale.

In 1991, Kondracke began serving as executive editor of Roll Call. In October 1998, he began co-hosting his own show, The Beltway Boys, with Fred Barnes on Fox News Channel. He is also a regular nightly contributor on Special Report with Brit Hume on the same network. Kondracke also writes a twice-weekly column in "Roll Call" ["Pennsylvania Avenue"] that is syndicated by Newspaper Enterprise Association, part of United Media.

[edit] Personal life

In 1967, Kondracke married Millicent Martinez, a part-Mexican, part-Catholic, part-Jewish liberal activist. They had two children, filmmaker Alexandra and Andrea. Kondracke battled alcoholism during the 1980s, and he credits Millicent for helping him end his addiction by 1987. In 1988, Millicent was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Her long battle with the disease led Kondracke to become an advocate for Parkinson's research and for increased government spending on medical research. Millicent Kondracke grew increasingly incapacitated by the disease and died on July 22, 2004.

On August 14, 2005, Kondracke proposed to Marguerite Sallee in Paris, France. Sallee is CEO and President of America's Promise. Prior to that, she was on the staff of U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.).

Kondracke detailed his family's struggle with Parkinson's in a 2001 book called Saving Milly: Love, Politics, and Parkinson's Disease (ISBN 0-345-45197-X). The book was the basis of a CBS television movie called Saving Milly, starring Madeleine Stowe and Bruce Greenwood, which aired March 13, 2005.

[edit] Trivia

In the 1996 sci-fi film Independence Day, Mort Kondracke appears in the beginning of the movie on a morning talk show speaking about the ineffectual leadership of President Thomas J. Whitmore (Bill Pullman) saying, "Leadership as a pilot in the Gulf War is completely different from leadership in politics." ^{[citation needed]}