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Will, George

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NO MERRI

recycled neo-cons? to be fair just took stat, but used as endorsement

George Willin The Washington Post:

“The American Main Street Initiative, a think tank, says the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations compiled more debt held by the public, adjusted for inflation, than did all previous presidents combined. And if the national debt rises for 60 years at the rate it has risen during the previous 30, it will then exceed $1.5 quadrillion. (A quadrillion is a thousand trillions.)’” Read more

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AN 1 26 ALEX PRETTI POST

George Will calls for Supreme Court to halt Trump’s overreach

george will says reads all of the, realclears? cspan bktv 1021 eastman? jok?....

AN 7 25

'Unconstrained executive power': George Will slams Trump as 'most statist' president in 'US history'

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AN 7 25

Among opponents of President Donald Trump, there is a lot of debate about whether Democrats should move to the left or the center. "Real Time" host Bill Maher believes that "woke identity politics" cause Democrats to lose votes, and similarly, veteran Democratic strategist James Carville argues that Democrats have a "woke problem" when they alienate voters by using "Latinx" and other "faculty lounge jargon."

Conservative Washington Post columnist George Will is no fan of "woke" language either. And like Maher and Carville, he is also a scathing critic of President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement.

In a column published on July 9, Will points to centrist Democrat Rahm Emanuel — former Chicago mayor and White House chief of staff for the Obama Administration — as an example of someone who, he says, is doing Democrats a favor by forcefully rejecting "the culture police."

READ MORE: Bloodthirsty Republicans need to stop their praying

"Politics is mostly talk," Will argues. "In an interview, Emanuel says, more in anger than in sorrow, that too many Democrats speak as though their words have been 'focus-grouped in a faculty lounge.' He has a point."

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The Never Trumper continues, "If the progressives who coined the term 'Latinx' had known a few Hispanics, they would have known there was no interest in a 'nonbinary' (more progressive-speak) name for members of an ethnic group who have said they prefer to be called 'Americans.' Between 2020 and 2024, Donald Trump increased his portion of the Latino vote from 36 percent to 48 percent."

Progressives, Will laments, sound like they "speak a private language" when they use terms like "Latinx" and "justice-involved populations" — which, he says, make voters feel "mystified."

"Emanuel wishes some Democrats would worry less about 'a child’s right to pick his pronouns' and more about 'children who do not know what a pronoun is,'" the conservative columnist writes. "He is proud of an education reform he instituted as mayor: Before handing a diploma to a high school senior, the student had to hand over a letter of acceptance from a four-year college, a community college, an armed service or a vocational school…. Emanuel sees signs of incipient sanity in the fact that in this year's gubernatorial contest, the two most important contests, Democrats have nominated two centrists with national security backgrounds: in New Jersey, Rep. Mikie Sherrill, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate and former helicopter pilot; in Virginia, Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer and congresswoman."

READ MORE:Why Americans haven’t reached the Trump tipping point yet — and what it will take

Will adds, "The uber-progressive president of New Jersey’s teachers union finished fifth in a primary field of six."

READ MORE:'What kind of dummies are you?' How one comedian is 'getting under' Trump press secretary’s 'skin'

*George Will's full Washington Post column is available at this link (subscription required).

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1 25 ~ trump cab pix

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an 1120

"It's God's Will': Conservative George Will Lays Out Mike Pence's Twisted Religious Justification for Serving Trump

Cody Fenwick AlterNet

September 11, 2018

Conservative commentator and ex-Republican George Will appeared on MSNBC with Chris Matthews Monday to discuss the bizarre relationship between Vice President Mike Pence and President Donald Trump.

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Conservative writer George Will says Trump’s incitement of violence shows he’s weak and a ‘national embarrassment’

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https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/collusion-russia-hiding-plain-sight-conservative-writer-george-will-denounces

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WAPO column supports exxon bogus

maybe not so much fail as punked?  NY Mass AG's vs Exxon knew, 1st amend BS ploy

AN

http://www.alternet.org/environment/exxon-using-tobaccos-failed-free-speech-defense-decades-deception-climate-change

The past week has seen a barrage of opinion pieces carrying water for the fossil fuel industry, defending against the ongoing fraud investigations. The Washington Post had two pieces, Newsweek had one and the Financial Times had an editorial, in addition to op-eds in a couple of other conservative outlets. Of those six, half were penned by groups funded at least in part by fossil fuel companies.

The arguments are all by and large the same, claiming that the investigations infringe on fossil fuels companies’ right to free speech while steadfastly ignoring the fact that ExxonMobil funded climate denial to protect their business model. Only the Financial Times editorial actually acknowledges the “misleading claims from fossil fuel interests and their allies” but concludes that it is “because the stakes [of the debate] are so high that all arguments must be heard.” While that sounds fair at first Glantz, it quickly sounds silly when applied to a recent example: the tobacco industry’s denial of the fact that its carcinogenic product is addictive.

All but one of the pieces similarly ignored the tobacco industry precedent and the only person who mentioned it was one of the few voices not plugged into the professional denial apparatus.

As for the pros, Newsweek ran a blog post from the Hoover Institution, which rambled on about climate science that’s supposedly still uncertain, lamenting that fair debate is impossible if one side can bring the other to court. Not mentioned is how a fair debate can be possible if one side launches multi-million dollar PR campaigns to mislead the public about the science.

Feds Refer Exxon #Climate Investigation to FBI: https://t.co/MS5BfY7PNp via @EcoWatch pic.twitter.com/mBWybUPmVb

— DeSmogBlog (@DeSmogBlog) March 7, 2016

Heritage’s Hans von Spakovsky’s piece in the Washington Times misses the tobacco precedent, but went all the way back to the Spanish Inquisition for his First Amendment fear mongering.George Will used his column in the Washington Post to offer a lesson on how this campaign is part of a larger progressive strategy to shut down debate. But apparently it’s Will that needs a history lesson, as he uses as evidence a story about a 2013 IRS investigation accusing the agency of targeting conservatives. But that investigation “found no evidence” that the IRS actions were politically motivated. No doubt his column is similarly bereft of evidence.

The Washington Post also gave space to the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) to defend itself by pretending it is being investigated for political dissent, not its years of Exxon funding for climate denial. Worth noting CEI’s careful phrasing about its relationship with Exxon, which CEI says “publicly ended its support for us after 2005.” With Donors Trust and others making it possible to anonymize giving, the key word is “publicly.”

Ironically, despite the admission that its Exxon funding is a perfectly legitimate reason to look into its communications, CEI considers its subpoena to be a fishing expedition. Meanwhile, CEI’s own coal-funded Chris Horner continues to engage in nuisance FOIAs for climate scientists.

Exxon’s defense is a hot topic in denierland, as it advances the narrative that the fossil fuel industry is an embattled population facing government persecution. But here’s a reality check: Before Honduran activist Berta Cáceres was murdered on March 2, she reported receiving 33 death threats after years of intimidation. Instead of investigating a man who had previously bragged about his plans to murder her, authorities claim the prime suspects are two of her fellow activists.

Heartbreaking! @GoldmanPrize Activist Berta Cáceres Murdered in Honduras https://t.co/Zj97cmwQi3 @FoEint @greenpeace pic.twitter.com/tAujvEGtMR

— EcoWatch (@EcoWatch) March 3, 2016

Looks like the fossil fuel industry isn’t the one facing persecution after all.

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conservative Columnist George Will Publishes a Striking Directive: 'Vote Against the GOP This November'

columnist George Will is hoping President Donald Trump's horrifying zero-tolerance policy on the border that led to the separation of thousands of kids from their parents will be the last straw for many people planning to vote Republican in the 2018 midterms.

In a striking op-ed for the Washington Post, Will made his point directly in the headline: "Vote against the GOP this November."

"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," he writes. "The Republican-controlled Congress, which waited for Trump to undo by unilateral decree the border folly they could have prevented by actually legislating, is an advertisement for the unimportance of Republican control."

Trump's malicious and incompetent border policies are just the beginning of Will's problems with the Republican Party.

He rails against the Republicans' refusal to curtail the president's abuse of his congressionally granted tariff powers. He is equally scathing toward Stephen Miller and Corey Lewandowski, two of the most corrosive figures in Trump's orbit.

"Meaningless noise is this administration’s appropriate libretto because, just as a magnet attracts iron filings, Trump attracts, and is attracted to, louts," he writes.

He is almost equally disdainful of House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI): "Ryan traded his political soul for .?.?. a tax cut."

Essentially, his argument boils down to this. The president is out of control, and Congress currently provides no check on his powers. To those who oppose the legislative agenda Democratic majorities would pursue, Will points out that they would hold little power to accomplish much of anything without the presidency or supermajority control of the Senate.

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"So, to vote against his party’s cowering congressional caucuses is to affirm the nation’s honor while quarantining him," he writes. "And to those who say, 'But the judges, the judges!' the answer is: Article III institutions are not more important than those of Articles I and II combine

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/conservative-columnist-george-will-publishes-striking-directive-vote-against-gop

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mann bk:

ch 12: 2007 big year: inc truth,

IPCC ARA 4, Nobel

even Luntz 180 after 2002 memo

ARA ~ pillars of deniers

but 2008 Nature jrnl artl misrepped, --> GW stopped meme --> Geo Will Wapo op ed; superFreakonomics 2009

Jrnl G res defreitas, carter amd ---

M&M PNAS

http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/09/01/study-newspaper-opinion-pages-feature-science-denial-and-other-climate-change-misinformation/212700

The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and The Washington Post all published climate science denial and other scientifically inaccurate statements about climate change on their opinion pages over the last year and a half, while The New York Times avoided doing so, according to a new Media Mattersanalysis of those four newspapers. The Journal published by far the most opinion pieces misrepresenting climate science, while all three instances of climate science denial in the Post came from columns written by George Will.The Journal and USA Today also published numerous climate-related op-eds without disclosing the authors’ fossil fuel ties, while USA Today, the Post, and particularly the Journal frequently published some of the least credible voices on climate and energy issues.

Three Major Newspapers Published Climate Science Denial On Opinion Pages, Led By The Wall Street Journal

Analysis: Three Major Newspapers’ Opinion Pages Published Climate Science Denial And Other Antiscience Claims. Media Matters examined op-eds, editorials, and columns in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New York Times, and The Washington Post from January 1, 2015, to August 31, 2016, to determine how often climate science denial and other false statements about climate science appeared on each newspaper’s opinion pages. We found that the Journal, the Post, and USA Todayall published climate science misinformation on their opinion pages, while theTimesavoided doing so. Unlike the Journaleditorial board,which has denied climate science, the editorial boards of the Times, the Post, and USA Today all recognize the scientific consensus around man-made climate change. But our analysis found that theTimeswas the only one of these newspapers that did not publish an op-ed or column containing climate science denial during this time period. *Media Matters,* [Climate Denial/Misinformation Spreadsheet; The New York Times, 4/29/15; The Washington Post, 7/21/15; USA Today, 11/30/15]

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http://www.alternet.org/environment/exxon-using-tobaccos-failed-free-speech-defense-decades-deception-climate-change

he past week has seen a barrage of opinion pieces carrying water for the fossil fuel industry, defending against the ongoing fraud investigations. The Washington Post had two pieces, Newsweek had one and the Financial Times had an editorial, in addition to op-eds in a couple of other conservative outlets. Of those six, half were penned by groups funded at least in part by fossil fuel companies.

The arguments are all by and large the same, claiming that the investigations infringe on fossil fuels companies’ right to free speech while steadfastly ignoring the fact that ExxonMobil funded climate denial to protect their business model.Only the Financial Times editorial actually acknowledges the “misleading claims from fossil fuel interests and their allies” but concludes that it is “because the stakes [of the debate] are so high that all arguments must be heard.” While that sounds fair at first Glantz, it quickly sounds silly when applied to a recent example: the tobacco industry’s denial of the fact that its carcinogenic product is addictive.

All but one of the pieces similarly ignored the tobacco industry precedent and the only person who mentioned it was one of the few voices not plugged into the professional denial apparatus.

As for the pros, Newsweek ran a blog post from the Hoover Institution, which rambled on about climate science that’s supposedly still uncertain, lamenting that fair debate is impossible if one side can bring the other to court. Not mentioned is how a fair debate can be possible if one side launches multi-million dollar PR campaigns to mislead the public about the science.

Feds Refer Exxon #Climate Investigation to FBI: https://t.co/MS5BfY7PNp via @EcoWatch pic.twitter.com/mBWybUPmVb

— DeSmogBlog (@DeSmogBlog) March 7, 2016

Heritage’s Hans von Spakovsky’s piece in the Washington Times misses the tobacco precedent, but went all the way back to the Spanish Inquisition for his First Amendment fear mongering. George Will used his column in the Washington Post to offer a lesson on how this campaign is part of a larger progressive strategy to shut down debate. But apparently it’s Will that needs a history lesson, as he uses as evidence a story about a 2013 IRS investigation accusing the agency of targeting conservatives. But that investigation “found no evidence” that the IRS actions were politically motivated. No doubt his column is similarly bereft of evidence.

The Washington Post also gave space to the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI)to defend itself by pretending it is being investigated for political dissent, not its years of Exxon funding for climate denial. Worth noting CEI’s careful phrasing about its relationship with Exxon, which CEI says “publicly ended its support for us after 2005.” With Donors Trust and others making it possible to anonymize giving, the key word is “publicly.”

Ironically, despite the admission that its Exxon funding is a perfectly legitimate reason to look into its communications, CEI considers its subpoena to be a fishing expedition. Meanwhile, CEI’s own coal-funded Chris Horner continues to engage in nuisance FOIAs for climate scientists.

Exxon’s defense is a hot topic in denierland, as it advances the narrative that the fossil fuel industry is an embattled population facing government persecution. But here’s a reality check: Before Honduran activist Berta Cáceres was murdered on March 2, she reported receiving 33 death threats after years of intimidation. Instead of investigating a man who had previously bragged about his plans to murder her, authorities claim the prime suspects are two of her fellow activists.

Heartbreaking! @GoldmanPrize Activist Berta Cáceres Murdered in Honduras https://t.co/Zj97cmwQi3 @FoEint @greenpeace pic.twitter.com/tAujvEGtMR

— EcoWatch (@EcoWatch) March 3, 2016

Looks like the fossil fuel industry isn’t the one facing persecution after all.

denial even in record heat  http://www.onearth.org/blog/america-hottest-year-ever-george-will

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/12/22/misinformer-of-the-year-george-will/201946

...Will's 2014 misinformation was not limited to attacking and dismissing rape victims. Throughout the year,Will failed to disclose several major conflicts of interest in his columns, and his tangled relationship with political entities backed by Charles and David Koch was cited by the outgoing ethics chair of the Society of Professional Journalists as the kind of conflict journalists should disclose in their writing. His history as a prominent denier of climate change also helped further undermine his credibility, with more than 100,000 people signing a petition demanding the Washington Post stop printing the science misinformation he and others regularly push in its pages.

Will has written a column for the Post since 1974, which is syndicated in over 450 papers. He started his career as a Republican Senate staff member and speech writer before moving into the ranks of the conservative press, contributing to The American Spectator and working as the Washington editor for the National Review for a time. He has become a fixture in the right-wing think tank infrastructure, serving as a board member of the Bradley Foundation, which funds conservative groups such as the Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Federalist Society. But Will was always careful to keep one foot in the mainstream -- in addition to his Post column, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1977, he served as an ABC News commentator for three decades and was even a featured interview in several Ken Burns documentaries.

Yet late last year, he left ABC to join Fox News as a political contributor, cementing his increasingly conservative and counterfactual tendencies. Some of his politics -- such as his longstanding climate change denial -- seemed to fit in at the network. But at the time, Media Matters wondered if an association with Fox's more angry and crude fare would ruin the brand of the staid conservative pontificator, shifting his erudite elitism towards the hard-edged style of misinformation for which Fox is better known. Will's accomplishments in 2014 revealed our suspicions were well-founded.

Media Matters isn't the only organization to recognize the damage Will's commentary did to the discourse this year. When PolitiFact awarded its 2014 Lie of Year to "exaggerations about Ebola," they cited Will as a prime example. Will used his Fox News platform to spread lies about the disease, falsely claiming that it could be "spread through the air." As PolitiFact noted:

Will's claim that Ebola could spread through the air via a cough or sneeze shows how solid science got misconstrued. The conservative commentator suggested a thought shift about how the virus could spread. In reality, Will simply misunderstood scientists' consistent, albeit technical explanation.....

1/15

George Will displays stunning illogic on climate science.

Already named Misinformer of the Year by Media Matters, George Will started the new year by completely misconstruing climate science and proceeding to misinform his readers some more.

In a column this week ostensibly reviewing two books on climate change, Will displayed some of that brilliant pretzel logic for which he is so revered. The books, written by actual scientists, show how, historically, even modest climate change in one region has wrought far-reaching devastation. Will’s bizarre takeaway from this is that the fact the climate has changed in the past for reasons other than humans and their carbon pollution proves that humans don’t cause climate change.

Huh?

Pretzel logic is perhaps too generous a term for this. It’s a bit like arguing that because people have been injured in the past by things other than automobiles, being hit by a car is really not that bad for you.

hundreds protested George Will's appearance at Miami University over his remarks that efforts to fight campus sexual assault have made "victimhood a coveted status":http://mm4a.org/ZJh54X

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spanish study 2009

George Will / Syndicated columnist

Spain's experience with the 'green' economy: Save the planet, lose some jobs

A sobering report about Spain's experience with green jobs must be false, writes columnist George F. Will, because otherwise the behavior of some American importers, seeking to cash in on the U.S. government's promotion of wind power, might be participating in an economically unproductive project.

By George Will

Syndicated columnist

WASHINGTON — The Spanish professor is puzzled. Why, Gabriel Calzada wonders, is the U.S. president recommending that America emulate the Spanish model for creating "green jobs" in "alternative energy" even though Spain's unemployment rate is 18.1 percent — more than double the European Union average — partly because of spending on such jobs?

Calzada, 36, an economics professor at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, has produced a report which, if true, is inconvenient for the Obama administration's green agenda, and for some budget assumptions that are dependent upon it.

Calzada says Spain's torrential spending — no other nation has so aggressively supported production of electricity from renewable sources — on wind farms and other forms of alternative energy has indeed created jobs. But Calzada's report concludes that they often are temporary and have received $752,000 to $800,000 each in subsidies — wind-industry jobs cost even more, $1.4 million each.

And each new job entails the loss of 2.2 other jobs that are either lost or not created in other industries because of the political allocation — sub-optimum in terms of economic efficiency — of capital. (European media regularly report "eco-corruption" leaving a "footprint of sleaze" — gaming the subsidy systems, profiteering from land sales for wind farms, etc.) Calzada says the creation of jobs in alternative energy has subtracted about 110,000 jobs from elsewhere in Spain's economy.

The president's press secretary, Robert Gibbs, was asked about the report's contention that the political diversion of capital into green jobs has cost Spain jobs. The White House transcript contained this exchange:

Gibbs: "It seems weird that we're importing wind turbine parts from Spain in order to build — to meet renewable energy demand here if that were even remotely the case."

Questioner: "Is that a suggestion that his study is simply flat wrong?"

Gibbs: "I haven't read the study, but I think, yes."

Questioner: "Well, then. (Laughter.)"

Actually, what is weird is this idea: A sobering report about Spain's experience must be false because otherwise the behavior of some American importers, seeking to cash in on the U.S. government's promotion of wind power, might be participating in an economically unproductive project.

It is true that Calzada has come to conclusions that he, as a libertarian, finds ideologically congenial. And his study was supported by a like-minded U.S. think tank (the Institute for Energy Research, for which this columnist has given a paid speech). Still, it is notable that, rather than try to refute his report, many Spanish critics have impugned his patriotism for faulting something for which Spain has been praised by Obama and others. Judge for yourself: Calzada's report can be read at http://tinyurl.com/d7z9ye. And athttp://tinyurl.com/ccoa5s you can find similar conclusions in "Yellow Light on Green Jobs," a report by Republican Sen. Kit Bond.

What matters most, however, is not that reports such as Calzada's are right in every particular. It is, however, hardly counterintuitive that politically driven investments are economically counterproductive. Indeed, environmentalists with the courage of their convictions should argue that the point of such investments is to subordinate market rationality to the higher agenda of planetary salvation.

Still, one can be agnostic about both reports while being dismayed by the frequency with which such findings are ignored simply because they question policies that are so invested with righteousness that methodical economic reasoning about their costs and benefits seems unimportant.

When the president speaks of "new green energy economies" creating "countless well-paying jobs," perhaps they really are countless, meaning incapable of being counted.

For fervent believers in governments' abilities to control the climate and in the urgent need for them to do so, believing is seeing: They see, through their ideological lenses, governments' green spending as always paying for itself. This is a free-lunch faith comparable to that of those few conservatives who believe that tax cuts always completely pay for themselves by stimulating compensating revenues from economic growth.

Windmills are iconic in the land of Don Quixote, whose tilting at them became emblematic of comic futility. Spain's new windmills are neither amusing nor emblematic of policies America should emulate.

The cheerful and evidently unshakable confidence in such magical solutions to postulated problems is yet another manifestation — Republicans are not immune: No Child Left Behind decrees that by 2014 allAmerican students will be proficient in math and reading — of what the late Sen. Pat Moynihan called "the leakage of reality from American life."

George F. Will is a columnist for The Washington Post, writing about foreign and domestic politics and policy. E-mail: georgewill@washpost.com

The Washington Post's George Will is under fire for a recent column, in which Will rewrote Watergate by making Robert Bork the hero. This prompted the chief of the Watergate task force to personally rebuke Will. Jeremy Holden sets the record straight: http://mm4a.org/W6jLGm

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George F. Will is a conservative columnist and commentator, as well as a frequent panelist on ABC's This Week.

Briefing book backer

In 1980, George Will rumored to haved used a briefing book stolen from Jimmy Carter to coach Ronald Reagan for the debates. Afterwards, he went on ABC'sNightline and praised Reagan's performance without noting his involvement.

Resources

"The myth of the 1970s Global Cooling Consensus" by TC Petersonet al, September 2008 volume 89 issue 9, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

he writes 3 cols on it, last in pitts trib-rev

References

  2. ↑ Directors, Raoul Wallenberg Committee of the United States, accessed August 22, 2008.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=George_Will

cites Hudson on dereg; http://www.peoplesworld.org/fish-gotta-swim-and-george-will-gotta-lie/

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3418

George Will

Conservative syndicated columnist and TV pundit George Will has amassed a long record of climate change “skepticism.” As his ABC colleague George Stephanopoulos said to him (2/4/07), “You have one of the longest living question marks in history on this issue.”

This is a kind description of Will’s record; he was an early critic of Al Gore’s position on the issue, accusing him (Washington Post, 9/3/92) of being “cavalier about the truth.” As Will confidently pointed out, “Gore knows, or should know before pontificating, that a recent Gallup Poll of scientists concerned with global climate research shows that 53 percent do not believe warming has occurred, and another 30 percent are uncertain.”

This would have been a more effective argument if it had been true. The poll found that 66 percent of the scientists said that human-induced global warming was occurring; 10 percent disagreed, and the rest were undecided. Gallup actually issued a corrective to Will’s inaccurate claim (San Francisco Chronicle, 9/27/92), which went unmentioned by Will.

Not that being caught distorting poll results would divert Will’s rhetorical assault. Still on the topic 12 years later, he used a column (12/23/04) to approvingly summarize the plot of Michael Crichton’s anti-global-warming novel, a scenario where the environmentalist “villains are frustrated because the data do not prove that global warming is causing rising sea levels and other catastrophes. So they concoct high-tech schemes to manufacture catastrophes they can ascribe to global warming.”

Like Stossel, Will found in this conspiratorial fantasy an illuminating parallel to actual environmental efforts around global warming, which he called more recently (4/12/07) “a campaign without peacetime precedent. . . . Never, other than during the two world wars, has there been such a concerted effort by opinion-forming institutions to indoctrinate Americans.” The odd reference to April 2007 as “peacetime” aside (letter, Washington Post, 4/21/07), coverage of global warming can only resemble world war–era propaganda if you believe that while Americans were fighting Germany, there were numerous prominent pundits playing the George Will role by continually promoting pro-German arguments.

In one Post column (4/2/06), Will noted that the increase in global temperature “might be the margin of error when measuring the planet’s temperature”—as if the world’s climate scientists were likely to have overlooked something as basic as the margin of error. Will soldiered on, comparing global temperature to that of the human body: “To take a person’s temperature, you put a thermometer in an orifice or under an arm. Taking the temperature of our churning planet, with its tectonic plates sliding around over a molten core, involves limited precision.”

In a Newsweek column rounding up some notable end-of-year stories (12/18/06), Will chuckled: “Two U.S. explorers went to the North Pole to study how global warming threatens polar bears. They had planned to go last year, but were forced to delay Project Thin Ice because of unusually heavy snow and ice.” As blogger Glenn Greenwald noted (Salon, 4/14/07), pointing to cold weather as disproof of global warming is exactly as persuasive as citing individual obituaries to debunk the notion that the world’s population is growing. Not that the scientific details matter to Will, but one of the Project Thin Ice explorers told Extra! that the team encountered largely lake-effect snow—which is created by open water—a phenomenon that may be related to warming rather than debunking it.

One panel discussion on ABC’s This Week (3/26/06) found Will conceding that while there might be such a thing as human-caused global warming, “any solution requires trillions of dollars of sacrifice from world economic growth. That’s trillions of dollars that won’t be spent on education, culture, AIDS prevention. Are we sure we want to do this?” Will doesn’t usually promote government spending on such problems, of course—not unless it can be used to beat back the threat of doing something about climate change. After Nation editor Katrina vanden Heuvel summarized the scientific case on climate change, Will’s incisive reply was “shut up.”

One might conclude that Will has little else left to support his case. That could explain his exasperation with the fact that the subject is even being discussed. “Enough already,” Will wrote in Newsweek (2/12/07), before going on to deride “climate Cassandras” and the “consensus catechism about global warming.” Alliterative accomplishments aside, Will’s real problem seems to be that scientists refuse to agree with him.

Despite their prominence, pundit skeptics portray themselves as lone voices of calm in the wilderness, and bash the media for not providing more viewpoints like their own. While noting that the vast majority of Americans “say warming is probably happening” (Washington Post, 4/2/06), Will asserted that the change in the planet’s temperature is impossible to notice: “Did 85 percent of Americans notice? Of course not. They got their anxiety from journalism calculated to produce it.” Of course, most phenomena covered by the media are not personally witnessed by the general public; one doesn’t generally therefore doubt that they happen.

He went on to criticize ABC for posting an online article that discussed industry-funded warming deniers: “It suggests there has been a misinformation campaign implying that scientists might not be unanimous, a campaign by—how did you guess?—big oil.” The fact that this is true (Mother Jones, 5–6/05) did not deter Will from closing his column by lamenting, “Perhaps the problem is big crusading journalism.”

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Will

George Frederick Will (born May 4, 1941) is an American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winner best known for his conservative commentary on politics. In 1986, the Wall Street Journal called him "perhaps the most powerful journalist in America," in a league with Walter Lippmann (1889–1974).[2][3]

Contents

Education and early career

Will was born in Champaign, Illinois, the son of Frederick L. Will and Louise Hendrickson Will.[4] His father was a professor of philosophy, specializing in epistemology, at the University of Illinois.

Will graduated from University Laboratory High School of Urbana, Illinois, and Trinity College, in Hartford, Connecticut (B.A., Religion, 1962).[1] He subsequently studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Magdalen College, University of Oxford (B.A., M.A.), and received M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in politics from Princeton University. His 1968 Ph.D. dissertation was entitled Beyond the Reach of Majorities: Closed Questions in the Open Society.

From 1970 to 1972, he served on the staff of Senator Gordon Allott (R-CO). Will then taught political philosophy at the James Madison College of Michigan State University, and at the University of Toronto. He taught at Harvard University in 1995 and again in 1998.

Career in journalism

Will served as an editor for National Review from 1972 to 1978. He joined the Washington Post Writers Group in 1974, writing a syndicated twice-weekly column, which became widely circulated among newspapers across the country. In 1976, he became a contributing editor for Newsweek, writing a biweekly backpage column. As of 2011, Will still writes both columns.

Will was widely praised by liberals for condemning the corruption of the Nixon presidency. He won a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for "distinguished commentary on a variety of topics" in 1977. Often combining factual reporting with conservative commentary, Will's columns are known for their erudite vocabulary, allusions to political philosophers, and frequent references to baseball.[5]

Will has also written two best-selling books on the game of baseball, three books on political philosophy, and has published eleven compilations of his columns for the Washington Post and Newsweek and of various book reviews and lectures.

His column is syndicated to 450 newspapers.[6]

Will is also a news analyst for ABC since the early 1980s and was a founding member on the panel of ABC's This Week with David Brinkley in 1981, now titled This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Will was also a regular panelist on television's Agronsky & Company from 1977 through 1984 and on NBC's Meet the Press in the middle and late 1970s.

Political views

Foreign policy and national security

Will has proposed that the United States withdraw all troops from Afghanistan[7] and defended Barack Obama's response to the uprisings after the 2009 elections in Iran.[8] He also criticized the Bush administration for engaging in warrantless surveillance[9] and supported trials for detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. On immigration, Will supports tighter border security and a "path to citizenship" for illegal immigrants.[10]

Social issues

Will has argued that the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision caused a "truncation of democratic debate about abortion policy".[11] On crime, Will is opposed to the death penalty,[12] but thinks that higher incarceration rates make the populace safer.[13] Additionally, Will is generally skeptical of affirmative action programs.[14] Will favors the legalization of drugs.[15]

Economic issues

Will supports low taxes, as he thinks that they stimulate economic growth and are more morally fair.[16] He was also opposed to both George W. Bush and Barack Obama's stimulus plans.[17] Will also supports abolishing the minimum wage [18] and creating voluntary personal retirement accounts in order to reduce the federal cost of Social Security.[19] In February 2013, Will wrote in support of a proposal by "relentlessly liberal" Sherrod Brown to break up consolidated banks and finance industry conglomerates, ending "Too big to fail" by restoring the Glass-Steagall Act.[20]

Criticism of Republican politicians

Despite his identification with conservative politics, Will has criticized fellow Republicans.

Will was among the first to oppose President George W. Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the United States Supreme Court.

Even though Will had been hawkish in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, he eventually expressed reservations about Bush administration Iraq policies, eventually openly criticizing what he perceived to be an unrealistically optimistic set of political scenarios. In March 2006, in a column written in the aftermath of the apparently sectarian bombing of the Askariya Shrine in Samarra, Baghdad, Will challenged the Bush administration—and U.S. government representatives in Iraq—to be more honest about the difficulties the United States faced in rebuilding and maintaining order within Iraq, comparing the White House's rhetoric unfavorably to that of Winston Churchill during the early years of World War II. Will described the optimistic assessments delivered from the Bush administration as the "rhetoric of unreality."[21] He criticized the Bush Iraq policy, and broader White House and congressional foreign and domestic policy making, in his keynote address for the Cato Institute's 2006 Milton Friedman Prize dinner.[22]

Will was also a harsh and early critic of both Sarah Palin and John McCain's 2008 election campaign. He criticized Palin's understanding of the role of the Vice President and her qualifications for that role.[23]

In late 2011, as the 2012 Republican Party presidential primaries approached, Will said that frontrunner Newt Gingrich "embodies almost everything disagreeable about modern Washington."[24]

Controversy

1980 Ronald Reagan presidential campaign

Main article: Debategate

Will's detractors complain about instances when Will has blurred the line between independent journalist and political advocate. Will helped Ronald Reagan prepare for his 1980 debate against Jimmy Carter. Immediately after the debate, Will—not yet a member of the ABC News staff—appeared on ABC's Nightline. He was introduced by host Ted Koppel, who said "It's my understanding that you met for some time yesterday with Governor Reagan," and that Will "never made any secret of his affection" for the Republican candidate. Will did not explicitly disclose that he had assisted Reagan's debate preparation, or been present during it. He went on to praise Reagan, saying his "game plan worked well. I don't think he was very surprised."[25]

In 2004 and again in 2005, Carter accused Will of giving the Reagan campaign a top-secret briefing book stolen from Carter's office before the 1980 debate.[26] In a 2005 syndicated column, Will called his role in Reagan's debate preparation "inappropriate" but denied any role in stealing the briefing book.[27] In response to Will's column, Carter wrote a letter to the Washington Post retracting his accusations. Carter apologized to Will for "any incorrect statement that I have ever made about his role in the use of my briefing book.... I have never thought Mr. Will took my book, that the outcome of the debate was damaging to my campaign or that Mr. Will apologized to me."[28]

2003 Association with Conrad Black

Will was criticized for his dealings with Canadian-born British financier Conrad Black.[29] Will served on an informal board of advisors to Hollinger International, a newspaper company controlled by Black. The board met once a year and Will received an annual payment of $25,000. The board was disbanded in 2001. In March 2003, Will wrote a syndicated column which praised a speech by Black and did not disclose their previous business relationship.[30]

2008 Offshore drilling by China

Main article: Offshore drilling on the US Atlantic coast#Straits of Florida

In a Washington Post column on June 5, 2008, Will stated that "Drilling is underway 60 miles (97 km) off Florida. The drilling is being done by China, in cooperation with Cuba, which is drilling closer to South Florida than U.S. companies are". This statement was incorrect. It was later quoted and subsequently withdrawn by Dick Cheney after Congressional Democrats, backed by energy experts, pointed out the error. House Leader John Boehner also cited the incorrect statement: "Right at this moment some 60 miles (97 km) or less off the coast of Key West, Fla., China has the green light to drill for oil."[31][32][33]

In a June 17, 2008 column, George Will issued a correction: "In a previous column, I stated that China, in partnership with Cuba, is drilling for oil 60 miles (97 km) from the Florida coast. While Cuba has partnered with Chinese companies to drill in the Florida Straits, no Chinese company has been involved in Cuba's oil exploration that close to the United States."

2009 Global Sea Ice Level

In a Washington Post column which expressed doubt over the effects of global warming, Will stated that: "According to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979."[34] This and several other claims attracted the attention of environmentalists, such as British author and activist George Monbiot.[35] Asked to respond, the website of Arctic Climate Research at the University of Illinois states that: "We do not know where George Will is getting his information, but our data shows that on February 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79 million sq. km and on February 15, 2009, global sea ice area was 15.45 million sq. km. Therefore, global sea ice levels are 1.34 million sq. km less in February 2009 than in February 1979."[36] Will responded in a column that he accurately reported the Center's information and the challenge was mistaken.[37] This drew a second response from George Monbiot, who insisted Will had not accurately reported the Center's information.[38] The debate continued in several forums, including a subsequent op-ed by Chris Mooney published in The Washington Post challenging Will's assertions.[39]

Personal

Family

Will has three children—Victoria, Geoffrey, and Jonathan—with his first wife, Madeleine;[40] Jon was born in 1972 with Down syndrome, which Will has written about in his column on occasion.[41][42][43]In 1989, he and Madeleine divorced after 22 years of marriage.[44]

In 1991, Will married Mari Maseng. They have one child, a son named David, born in 1992, and live in the Washington D.C. area. Maseng is a political consultant and speechwriter who was in charge of communications for the Rick Perry 2012 presidential campaign. She earlier worked on Michele Bachmann's 2012 presidential campaign, and offered her services to the Mitt Romney 2012 campaign.[45][46] She previously worked for Reagan as a presidential speechwriter, deputy director of transportation, and Assistant to the President for Public Liaison. She also was a former communications director for Robert Dole.

Interests

Will is a fan of baseball, and has written extensively on the game, including his best-selling book Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball. He was one of many interview subjects for *Baseball*, Ken Burns' PBS documentary series. He serves as a member of Major League Baseball's special committee on on-field matters. He is a minority owner in the Baltimore Orioles. He is a Chicago Cubs and Chicago Bears fan.[47][48]

Will revealed in a Colbert Report interview that he is an agnostic.[49]

He is parodied in The Simpsons episode "A Streetcar Named Marge" as William F. George, a syndicated columnist who has been invited as a member of the panel of celebrity judges for a beauty pageant.

Awards

In addition to more than 16 honorary degrees:

Works

See also

Attachments