Author, George F. Will has for a long time has been feted by both Republicans and moderate Democrats as the voice of reason. Generally, he sits prominently on some pundit filled panel show populated by yelling combatants and calmly states his view. That allows him to portend a calmness in the midst of chaos. Do not allow the quaint baseball stories, when cornered, steer you away from his years of foolhardy and borderline bigotry. Will recently penned a column that begins with the question, “Is there anything more depressing than a cheerful liberal?” Once you get past the obligatory Will history lesson, and read down the page he states, “In contrast, much of the Great Society’s liberalism sought to de-moralize policies, deeming repressive those policies that promoted worthy behavior. This liberalism’s political base was in government’s caring professions that served “clients” in populations disorganized by behaviors involving sex and substance abuse. Surely this goes far toward explaining what Goldfield’s narrative leaves inexplicable:
Will was objecting to historian David Goldfield’s book ( “The Gifted Generation: When Government Was Good”) bestowing valor to the virtues of government. The subtle reference to the disorganized due to drugs and sex is a pointed indictment at those uninvited to the capitalist party. Reading Will’s words are sometimes the only way to consume his obviousness. His verbal magic is to lull you into his sense of calm with his bespectacled grandfatherly demeanor when in truth he is a garrulous charlatan in love with the sound of his own pretense; but hey, who hates granddad?
I caught a bit of Will’s act last night on MSNBC, attempting to make the case that the Devin Nunes memo fiasco is perfectly reasonable from his perch as a curious cat. He sat the viewers on his knee, patted their heads and calmly stated, “ I would like to know?” Know what exactly, that Devin Nunes is an unabashed stooge for Donald Trump? Curiosity is not an excuse for poor judgment. Had Mr. Will been writing columns during the Truman Presidency, I could imagine a column entitled, ‘Why couldn’t we see the attack plan memo for Hiroshima.’Saving the argument for dropping the bomb on Japan for another day, it illustrates the specious logic of George Will’s calming but ludicrous query.
It is easy…
I understand the Svengali-like spell of Will. Trying to sort through Chris Matthews’ bellowing questions and subsequently stepping on the answers or Don Lemon’s refereeing of nightly lightweight bouts is exhausting. A trip to Disneyland would help more often than not but FOX News has turned fantasy into something ugly. Then there is Will, his calm and reasonably sounding voice are welcomed in the throes of political orgasmic bedlam. Will railed, in May of 2003, about what he saw as a Democratic strategy to “mobilize” the African American vote using fear, “professional civil rights groups have a stake in an undiminished sense of victimhood…” The George Will mystique has carried him to the level of writing excellence that I hope to emulate someday. I admire his use of the language and reading and listening to him, from a technical standpoint, is a lesson in both execution and elocution.
Unfortunately, the end product is far too often a version of quiet nonsense disguised as intellectual nuance.
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