George Will allowed his erudition, unnecessary historical perspective (nothing, not even the passage of time, can elevate this aberration) and a faux objectivity get in the way of the truth.
When push came to shove, he hedged his bet; he pulled his punch; he wimped out.
What trusty ol' George actually said was this:
Had George Will written Sleaze, the sequel (the "sequel" is, of course, hillary) after 9-11-01, I suspect that he would have had to forgo the above conceit, as the doubt expressed in the setup phrase was, from that day forward, no longer operational.