Breindel, a former editorial page editor of the New York Post and senior vice president of the News Corporation, died of liver complications in 1998. Past winners of the award created in his honor include Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal and Max Boot, now a senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations.

"If we look at the past winners, it's for years now honored people are swimming upstream rather than taking the easy way down, politically and ideologically speaking," Krauthammer said. "It's a special award."