Steve Benen gives George Will some good advice about writing columns on subjects he doesn’t understand.
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George Will often writes collumns that contain good-ole common sense — right up to the moment prior to him drawing a conclusion based upon the facts he has marshalled.
Yeah, I saw that article, and wondered if Will is suffering from early-onset dementia. He is, after all, almost 70.
Here’s a thought:
If we really want to run America like a business, wouldn’t we want to eliminate all the old people (like Will) and the weak minded (like Will)?
I mean really: aren’t they just sucking up a bunch of resources and providing no value?
How To Run America Like a Business: Get Rid Of All The Old People
George Will is not in favor of cannabis legalization, so I don’t listen to him or read anything he writes. I think he’s just another of the arrogant fucking asshole talking heads out there who should be publicly horsewhipped.
@3 And while we’re running government like a business, lets make eastern Washington pay for it’s self finally. I’m tired of redistributing western Washington’s “wealth” to those lazy bums in eastern Washington who “choose” to get jobs at Dollar General instead of going to college and getting a high paying tech job. Not MY fault! Those welfare bums sucking off MY tax dollars. Just because we have most of the money and tax base in western Washington (Boeing, Microsoft, Starbucks, Amazon, Nintendo, etc), why should we be subsidizing the “rural lifestyle choice” of those conservatives in eastern Washington who want to life in some tiny far flung little town but WANT all the big city stuff like electricity, sewage plants, highways and all this stuff you can’t really pay for in a town of 4,500. Pay your OWN way you bums! ;-)
George Will frequently writes about baseball. I can’t venture an opinion on that, as I don’t know enough about baseball to offer an informed opinion.
His other columns, however, are frequently wrong. But at least he tries to use logic and reach a logical conclusion, even if it’s the wrong one. In the 1970’s -1980’s he was widely embraced by the conservatives, but I always felt like you could have a resonable discussion with him.
But during the Bush administration, and even more so with the rise of the Tea Party, he’s been dismissed as being too “liberal” for the modern Republican Party. This article seems to be an attempt by him to curry favor with the Tea Party folks. He is following the Tea Party line that it’s not just about a rational discussion about transit policy, it’s an issue of “freedom vs. communism”.
The only good thing about George Will is that he’s doesn’t cite the Bible as a reference the way so many other conservative commentators do (and yet he still manages to get everything wrong).
I find George Will quite perplexing. Some of us columns are incredibly well-written and insightful, even if I disagree deeply with his premise, and some are just plain silly, and reflect a knee-jerk conservativism that undermines his credibility on everything else.
I really want to believe that this latest effort was a failed attempt at satire, but I just can’t quite believe it.
George Will is an old and increasing tired tool of the right wing inside-the-beltway/village consensus. That he ostensibly speaks in a right wing voice is barely relevant – the consensus remains no matter what the nattering head or its orientation (David Broder anyone?): robust increases in national security state spending year after year, more and more corporate tax breaks to serve the ever-growing beltway lobbyist industry year after year, holding the line on income tax cuts for the rich year after year and the sooner the day that yearly DECREASES in entitlement and other discretionary spending comes – the better.
George Will is an institutional man.
He’s pandering.
George Will may occasionally show considerable flashes of intellectual rigor, but only insofar as it serves his purpose, which for quite a long time has been to pander to Spiro Agnew’s Amerika.
He’s not stupid. If he were he might be forgiven. He’s really just terribly dishonest.
George Frederick Will = Asshat
@11: Sort of. He looks and acts like he hasn’t taken a shit for a long time.
For all his polysyllabic pomposity, Will’s message is directed at all the insecure white males driving those big pickups: “Them pinko fag tree-huggin’ libruls is gonna chop off yer four hunnert horsepower DICK!”
He should pull the Archimidean lever out of his ass.
How is the conservative philosophy of grovelling at the feet of big oil and coal (to the detriment of progress and advancement) not prying the world in a direction they prefer?
He should pull the Archemidean lever out of his ass.
How is the conservative philosophy of grovelling at the feet of big oil and coal (to the detriment of progress and advancement) not prying the world in a direction they prefer?
WTF? I swear I didn’t post that twice.