Morton Kondracke
- Executive Editor and Columnist for Roll Call
- Regular commentator for the Fox News Channel
Morton Kondracke Speaker Biography
Morton Kondracke has been a journalist for 45 years, 40 of them in Washington, and has covered nearly every phase of American politics and foreign policy. He’s done so in newspapers, magazines and on radio and TV.
In 2006, he won The Washington Post’s Crystal Ball Tournament of Champions Award for correctly predicting the Democratic takeover of Congress, outpacing 10 other previous Crystal Ball winners. He previously won that award in 1994 and was runner-up in 1996.
Since 1991, Morton has been executive editor and columnist for Roll Call, Capitol Hill’s independent newspaper. He writes “Pennsylvania Avenue,” a weekly column on national politics, domestic and foreign policy, syndicated nationally through United Media.
He has been a regular commentator for the Fox News Channel since October 1996. He also has been co-host of the weekly political show, The Beltway Boys, since July 1998 and is a nightly “all stars” panelist on Special Report with Brit Hume.
Morton Kondracke is the author of Saving Milly: Love, Politics and Parkinson’s Disease (2001), a New York Times and Washington Post bestseller. Saving Milly was also the subject of a CBS Sunday Night movie (March 2005).
Morton was regular panelist on The McLaughlin Group from the inception of the highly rated NBC/PBS talk show in 1982 until FoxNews began The Beltway Boys in 1998.
He was executive editor (1977 to 1985) and senior editor (1986 to 1991) for The New Republic; Morton wrote its “White House Watch” column (1981 to 1985). Morton was the Washington bureau chief for Newsweek (February 1985 to September 1986).
Morton served as a panelist for This Week with David Brinkley on ABC-TV (monthly, December 1984 to March 1988), as a columnist for Wall Street Journal (monthly, 1980 to 1985) and the United Features Syndicate (twice weekly, 1983 to 1985), and as a panelist for the 1984 Reagan-Mondale Presidential Debate on Foreign Policy.
He was also a correspondent for The Chicago Sun-Times (1963 to 1977), writing from the Washington Bureau (1968 to 1977), as a White House Correspondent (1974 to 1977), and as a reporter for the Springfield Bureau Chief (1963 to 1968).
On the air, Morton was the host of National Desk, the PBS documentary series, from 1993 to 1999. He was a commentator for National Public Radio (1972 to 1982), and was a talk show host on WRC-AM in Washington (1981 to 1983).
Morton was or is an occasional panelist on various shows, including Meet the Press, Crossfire, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and Voice of America. He’s had articles published in The New York Times, The Economist, Reader’s Digest, The Washingtonian, and The Weekly Standard. He can be seen in the movies Dave and Independence Day.
Morton Kondracke is a board member of the Parkinson’s Action Network and the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College (A.B. 1960) and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.
Book this SpeakerFeatured Videos
Speech Topics
- A View From Washington
Mort Kondracke gives an up-to-the-minute look at American politics and foreign policy. As a Washington journalist since the early ’60s, Mort’s observations and amusing anecdotes have the weight of his considerable experience. He’ll tell you what’s going on in Washington, how the Obama Administration and Congress are doing and what it means for the 2010 midterm elections. On request he will address your organization’s legislative prospects.
- Saving Milly: Love, Politics, and Parkinson’s Disease
In this inspiring and informative presentation based on his The New York Times best seller of the same name, Mort Kondracke gives audiences a glimpse into a side of American life that is usually left behind closed doors. He shares the story of his own family’s struggle with Parkinson’s disease – a debilitating condition that struck his wife in her middle years. Kondracke describes his transformation from careerist to caregiver and disease activist, and explores the realities of “disease politics” in the campaign to find a cure for Parkinson’s and other diseases. He also discusses the need for the U.S. government to re-double its minuscule investment in medical research.
- America’s Health Agenda
Mort Kondracke has a special interest and indepth knowledge about the condition of health care in the United States. He discusses why health care should be at the top of the national agenda, while exploring: health policy, rising costs, Medicare prescription drugs, prospects for the uninsured, and other issues that are relevant to your audience.
