A columnist’s first 50 years

The Washington Post ^ | November 26, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EST | George F. Will

[E. Pluribus Unum]

One secret of column-writing: Offer platoons of facts that give readers the delight of discovery.

It is tempting but mistaken to say that the current administration of the universe is defective because people are not required to read op-ed columns. That thought is too adjacent to progressivism, which, a critic has said, does not care what people do as long as it is compulsory. Besides, a smaller readership can be superior to a bigger one.

Most people do not read newspapers; most who do skip the op-ed page. This means that the few, the happy few, who do read columns do so because their mental pantries are stocked with curiosity, information and opinions. So, the columnist can assume the readers’ foundation of knowledge, which enables large arguments in small spaces.

The 15th century produced what remains the most consequential communication technology ever: Johannes Gutenberg’s movable type. Glassy-eyed Americans squinting at their smartphones for videos of kittens might consider it quaint to ascribe history-shaping potency to mere print, especially during today’s digital typhoon. Media constantly clamor for Americans’ attention, which is increasingly elusive and of decreasing duration.

A newspaper column — one musty option on a rapidly expanding menu of distractions — requires reading, which, unlike passive grazing at an endless buffet of graphic distractions, is an activity. It demands one’s mental engagement. So, a column had better be pleasurable from the start, even if its subject is not pleasant. Here is Murray Kempton (1917-1997), in a column on President Dwight D. Eisenhower campaigning in Florida in 1956:

“In Miami he had walked carefully by the harsher realities, speaking some 20 feet from an airport drinking fountain labeled ‘Colored’ and saying that the condition it represented was more amenable to solution by the hearts of men than by...”

[subterfuge]

LOL. Hilarious!

[E. Pluribus Unum]

If you read the front page of the Washington Post you have read the editorial page.

Excellent point.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

And to think that I once thought this guy had something worthwhile to say.

Me too, back in the day when the three antique TV networks had a monopoly on "news" programs.

[nwrep]

To be fair, he is a solid, pedigreed and respected intellectual, who, once upon a distant time, spoke and argued for our side (conservatism) with an potent literary scalpel of logic mixed with elevated prose, which made people sit up and take conservative ideas seriously. He served a purpose in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, especially in the lead-up to and during the Reagan era, and that is well and good.

Unfortunately, he missed and misjudged the turning tide of conservative thought, and his cold-war era outlook is out of step with today's MAGA movement. He can still be somewhat useful to us if he recants and re-educates himself about MAGA, but his belabored style and loquacious commentary is probably outdated in today's age, which is what he is complaining about.

[OKSooner]

Thank you. 1990 seems so far away now, yet OTOH just last week.

[DCPatriot]

Met him several times. His ego is off-the-charts.

Insufferable!!

[E. Pluribus Unum]

To be fair, he is a solid, pedigreed and respected intellectual, who, once upon a distant time, spoke and argued for our side (conservatism) with an potent literary scalpel of logic mixed with elevated prose...

George Will was never a William F. Buckley.

[nwrep]

There were both egotistical, and there were other similarities. Of course, WFB is a straw man comparison - they served different purposes, and one can argue that Will was more widely read and heard across the spectrum than WFB.

[nwrep]

That alone is not disqualifying as long as he performs a service for our side, which he stopped doing more than two decades ago.

[DCPatriot]

That alone is not disqualifying as long as he performs a service for our side, which he stopped doing more than two decades ago.

I would go back further than 2 decades. Remember when he called George HERBERT Walker Bush "Reagan's Lap-Dog"? That did it for me...

[Larry Lucido]

I love how the show incorporates names of writers.

*********

Julie: I like Anna Quinlan’s column and Safire. Don’t you like Safire?

George: Oh, Safire. Uh ha.

Julie: Although at times can be rather pedantic.

George: He can be pedantic. He can be pedantic.

[cowboyusa]

Idio6 never played Baseball, and he thinks he knowsceverything about it.

[nwrep]

He earned it. "As Bush said last week, “I am for Mr. Reagan—blindly.” https://time.com/archive/6883272/election-84-the-loyal-figure-in-the-wings-awaits-his-call-to-the-stage/

Who uses the epithet "blindly"?

[cowboyusa]

The only thing Conservatism conserverved was American decline. Reagan and Trump are Jacksonian Maga.

[Vendome]

George was always a beard for the left

I actually thought he was dead

He is dead to me....forever

[nwrep]

The only thing Conservatism conserved was American decline.

So true. For too many decades, it was too focused on foreign policy and not enough on domestic policy, where we were losing ground. Perhaps these were the exigencies of the times, but I also fault Reagan for too much of a FP focus, and not enough about how the seeds of institutional decline and rot were being sowed stateside.

[Lurker]

This creep is on my airport list.

L

[cowboyusa]

The Soviet Union was on the March everywhere , and winning the Cold War when he came in. He warned about the left in his Farwell speech. FINALY, we are back at 1989, after years and years of globalism.( Trump’s 1st term was sabatouged).

[nicollo]

I’ll always remember him for giving an incorrect definition of the Hawthorne effect.

What, did he think the Hawthorne effect is when (com)Post readers look at his columns and think he's an actual conservative?

[nwrep]

Better than 1989. Back then, the libs had a 6-3 majority on SCOTUS.