George Will urges voters to oust the Republicans in November

Neoneocon.com ^ | 6-23-2018 | Neo-Neocon

[servo1969]

George Will has been writing columns for a long, long time, and has been considered a highly influential columnist on the right. But I never have read him much; I'm not sure why, but he just never appealed to me.

You'd think he would appeal to me. After all, when I experienced my political change, I considered myself (and still do consider myself, in certain ways) to be a relatively moderate conservative. Will was supposedly a moderate as well. But I found his writing boring and uninsightful for the most part.

Just now I wondered whether I just wasn't remembering correctly. Maybe I liked him better or paid more attention to him than I recall. But when I did a search for posts in which I've mentioned Will on this blog, I only came up with eleven mentions in close to 14 years of blogging, and most of those turned out to be short takes such as quotes from other people mentioning Will in passing, or quick links to a column of his without much discussion of it, often on specific topics such as rent control rather than larger issues.

I found this, however. Written shortly after the 2012 election, it seems to be a foretaste of things to come:

This election has undermined the reputation of a lot of pundits on the right who confidently predicted a Romney victory, sometimes even a large one. What were George Will and Michael Barone (to name just two of many) thinking? I find it hard to give them any credence now when they say things like "cheer up," when they've been proven not to have had their fingers on the pulse of anything except their own hopes.

George Will now appears to be vying for the leadership of the NeverTrump movement, and he's taking it out on the entire GOP. His column from yesterday is behind the WaPo firewall, but here are some excerpts:

Amid the carnage of Republican misrule in Washington, there is this glimmer of good news: The family-shredding policy along the southern border, the most telegenic recent example of misrule, clarified something. Occurring less than 140 days before elections that can reshape Congress, the policy has given independents and temperate Republicans -- these are probably expanding and contracting cohorts, respectively -- fresh if redundant evidence for the principle by which they should vote.

The principle: The congressional Republican caucuses must be substantially reduced. So substantially that their remnants, reduced to minorities, will be stripped of the Constitution's Article I powers that they have been too invertebrate to use against the current wielder of Article II powers. They will then have leisure time to wonder why they worked so hard to achieve membership in a legislature whose unexercised muscles have atrophied because of people like them.

There's much much more, all of it dripping with highfalutin disdain and crafted with wordsmith care and pride. The message is that the GOP should never cooperate with the vile Trump. Even though Will admits that the Democrats are awful, he doesn't think they can do much harm. As for the need to approve the appointment of conservative judges, which requires a Senate controlled by the GOP--well, this Pooh-bah poo-poos that, because they're not as important as showing the GOP a lesson.

In all of this, Will reminds me a bit--although the style and ultimate goals were very different--of the people on the far right I used to argue with during the 2012 election, those who hated Romney (and/or the GOP establishment) so much that they said they'd be voting for the Democrats. It seemed destructive then, and it's destructive now.

Along the way, Will makes some glaring errors (in addition to the big error of asking people to vote in a Democratic Congress to teach the GOP a lesson). He references this:

Corey Lewandowski, a Trump campaign official who fell from the king's grace but is crawling back (he works for Vice President Pence's political action committee), recently responded on Fox News to the story of a 10-year-old girl with Down syndrome taken from her parents at the border. Lewandowski replied: "Wah, wah." Meaningless noise is this administration's appropriate libretto because, just as a magnet attracts iron filings, Trump attracts, and is attracted to, louts.

First of all, for what it's worth, Lewandowski replied "womp, womp," not "wah, wah." It may be all the same meaningless noise to the lout-phobic Will, but it's not the same phrase and doesn't have the same meaning. What's more, Lewandowski explained he directed the remark at a fellow guest on a cable news program, not at the child:

Lewandowski claimed the "womp womp" was directed to his cable news opponent, a Democratic strategist named Zac Petkanas, for using a child to "politicize an issue."

"I never meant to insult anybody with Down syndrome. And who I was talking to was [Democratic strategist Zac Petkanas]. And I understand what the perception is here and what the media wants to talk about," he said.

"What Zac was attempting to do was to use a child with Down syndrome to politicize an issue," Lewandowski said.

By the way, "womp, womp" means that a person is losing, as in a game show (I'm not the expert on this, since I never heard of the expression before this incident). "Wah-wah" would have been a remark that was far more likely to have actually been a way to mock the child's feelings, but that's apparently not what Lewandowski said.

But that mistake of Will's pales in comparison to another one Will makes (or at least a point he totally ignores). Lewandowski added:

But what [Petkanas] didn't tell you, what you need to understand was that person, that poor child was not taken from her parent because she came to this country illegally. That poor child was taken from her parent because her mother has been suspected of being a material witness in a child smuggling ring. And so we have to understand the difference."

This is the case, and it was reported four days before Will's column came out:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said Wednesday that a 10-year-old girl with Down syndrome was not separated from her family under the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" immigration policy.

The agency said in a statement obtained by CNN that the girl was separated from her mother and detained in a Texas facility because her mother is a material witness in a human smuggling case.

CBP added that the mother was "not prosecuted."

It is typical of people who are incensed about the family separation issue to outright lie or at least be so sloppy with the facts that they mislead, and to ignore the dangers faced by illegal immigrants on their journey. Therefore Will's failure to have noticed the true story or to mention it is not the least bit surprising. He's become a propagandist himself. And he's got plenty of company.

[servo1969]

Previously a lifelong Democrat, born in New York and living in New England, surrounded by liberals on all sides, I found myself slowly but surely leaving the fold and becoming that dread thing: conservative. My friends and family don't want to hear about my inexplicable conversion, so I started this blog to tell the tale of my political change and provide a forum for others. I have a Master's degree in Marriage and Family Therapy (not practicing), but my politics make me a pariah there, too. Little did I know that I moved in such politically homogeneous circles. Why the apple? See this.

[2banana]

George Will has been rabidly anti Trump since 2016...

And now he would rather see Pelosi and Schumer in charge..

[fella]

Another RAT driven out into the open.

This one is a “King RAT”.

[spincaster]

Truly a Big Rat turn coat. We saw it and knew it was coming from another Never Trumper. He would rather see our country be destroyed than admit he is wrong.

[Gay State Conservative]

I’m trying to remember the last time I took his advice on *anything*...and...the answer is “never”!

[shalom aleichem]

I’m sure many of his fellow Demonrats will follow his advice

[Gay State Conservative]

We saw it and knew it was coming from another Never Trumper.

I,personally,have never reached any conclusions about a guy by the crease in his trousers.But this atheist did.

[marktwain]

President Trump is doing a tremendous job of showing the traitors among us.

George Will has been revealed as one such.

[.44 Special]

I first started reading George Will’s articles some 30 years ago from the begging something did not seem right about his views. The more I read the less he appealed to me. About 20 years ago I began to feel that Will was not what he appeared to be. Although by that time I only read his work very occassionally.
Now, I feel he has really come out as what he always has been at heart, a liberal.

[From The Deer Stand]

So George is a Progressive Socialist I guess.

[rlmorel]

I think you may have been thinking of David Brooks, but...I do understand your sentiment!

[Preachin']

George Will is losing his persuasive voice in the GoP. GOOD!

[neverevergiveup]

Will parades as an intellectual, but his words and writings suggest a close-minded and unyielding person who is unwilling to truly examine and consider the thoughts of those he intrinsically doesn't like. In other words, he is acting like a Democrat.

[Gay State Conservative]

I think you may have been thinking of David Brooks...

You're right of course.I often have trouble keeping my fraudulent atheists straight.

[RollingThunder]

George Will, another stupid POS with Trump Derangement Syndrome Is proof that the elitists in the MSM (Malevolently Stupid Media) is a total disgrace. His actions lately prove beyond and doubt that he doesn’t care about the truth. Doesn’t care about the American Citizen. He only cares about himself and his TDS cause.

[bray]

Apparently his wife couldn’t find any lucrative Repub campaigns to mis-manage.

[ThePatriotsFlag]

This is an example of the result of living in an echo chamber, he still thinks he is relevant.

[rlmorel]

Snort...there are so many of the sorry bastiges that is completely understandable...

[Radix]

Once Will and Krauthammer got together with Wallace on Fox News Sunday, I was done with it, after having watched almost from the earliest days when possible. I don’t know, 5 years or so since. Williams and Liason were dull, but Will brought a Street cred with him after years of being the designated ‘Conservative’ at the Post and in my case the Boston Globe.

Will’s biweekly final page on Newsweek back in the 70s was new to me and I appreciated it, but as I aged I began to discern that he was simply a double talking egghead with an occasional skill with the language that I definitely was enjoying for a time.

[Wuli]

Trump was not “nice” like the Bushes. Will always liked “nice” and no matter how uncivil the Left and the media were toward Conservatives, like the RINOs he thought Conservatives should not come back at the Left for it’s hypocrisy, just be nice. Of course that always puts Conservatives on the defensive, but Will didn’t care, at least we were nice. He gradually became irrelevant to Conservatives, the more we realized that being nice was just playing by what the Dims rule book wanted from their opponents - nice, and defensive 24/7/365. As Conservatives began to play offense, Will felt estranged.