George Will (cc photo: Keith Allison)
George Will may be the dean of conservative punditry with a reputation for sober consistency, but when it comes to intellectual honesty and principle–well, a person could get whiplash trying to follow his opportunistic and hypocritical positions over the years.
On Thursday’s Special Report on Fox News (1/21/13), George Will was sad that the Democrats had invoked the “nuclear option,” preventing Senate minorities from using the filibuster to block presidential appointments, other than Supreme Court nominees. “It was a melancholy day for American life,” said Will:
It diminishes minority rights, which are always at threat in a democracy, where majorities rule. It further expands presidential power, which is too powerful under Republicans and Democrats alike.
Ten years ago, in the column “Coup Against the Constitution” (Washington Post, 2/28/03), Will declared the hallowed filibuster an outrage against the framers. Concerned that “41 Senate Democrats” might succeed in blocking a Bush judicial nominee, Will wrote:
If Senate rules, exploited by an anti-constitutional minority, are allowed to trump the Constitution’s text and two centuries of practice, the Senate’s power to consent to judicial nominations will have become a Senate right to require a supermajority vote for confirmation.
And 10 years before that, when a Republican Senate minority filibustered President Clinton’s economic stimulus bill, Will was all for it. In a column headlined “The Framers’ Intent” (Washington Post, 4/25/93), he praised “the right of a minority to use extended debate to obstruct Senate action,” and he cheered “the generation that wrote and ratified the Constitution” for properly establishing “the Senate’s permissive tradition regarding extended debates.”
Dismissing a liberal critic of the rule, Will wrote:
The Senate is not obligated to jettison one of its defining characteristics, permissiveness regarding extended debate, in order to pander to the perception that the presidency is the sun around which all else in American government–even American life–orbits.
In short, Will supports the filibuster when the senate minority is Republican and opposes it when it’s Democratic. Like Groucho Marx, Will has his principles, and if you don’t like them–well, he has others.
Last sentence: I think “majority” should be “minority.” Otherwise, the article doesn’t make much sense.
Yes, thanks Paul. Corrected.
A serious news organization wouldn’t read the old ones. Not sporting of you.
You have to give George Will credit, though, for consistency on global warming.
His Newsweek column of Oct. 13, 2007, claimed global warming scientists were “zealots” promulgating “loopiness” and “climate porn.”
So far he has been sticking with his long-time abysmal ignorance of that subject.
Does George Will know that three of the Supreme Court judges are Jewish and the remaining are pro-Israel Zionists? Jews make less than 2% of US population but have disproportional members at Congress and the Senate. In fact, Barack Obama’s entire administration is loaded with Israel-Firster Jews and Zionist Christians.
http://rehmat1.com/2013/11/12/obamas-apartheid-united-states/
G Will has always been and ardent and regular practitioner of the Mini-trues black/white policy. If the Republicans were to come out with a mandate that everyone should take their children out and execute them on the front lawn it would ‘great’, whereas if Democrats were to offer $10,000 to everyone tax free, then it is “evil”. The man is very simple, and very stupid. He knows he is a paid corporate troll so he prints what he is told when he is told by his lords and masters.
He has two thoughts, “Republicans good” and “Everyone else Evil”, from the there the rest is the vast emptiness of space.
Will has long established himself as an unmitigated conservative Republican party-hack with an undeserved reputation (like his mentor WmF Buckley,Jr also had) for ‘gravitas’ simply because he uses large words (to hide small concepts), talks relatively slowly, and doesn’t scream like most of the Faux News crowd. But beyond that he’s just another ‘financial Republican’ who likes to hear himself talk…
@FAW: Your short assessment of the U.S. Senate is the best I’ve seen, but given that it’s a private club for bribe takers, many of whom will retire to K Street to distribute more bribes, why not just abolish it?
We already have one gerrymandered legislature totally controlled by the ultra-rich. Why would we want two?
Interesting to note that Will’s intellectual forbearer is John C. Calhoun. Calhoun believed that slavery was a “positive good,” and, although he died before the Civil War, many of his ideas were embodied into the various declarations of secessions issued by several states in Feb of 1861. Knowing full well the Federalist papers, Calhoun wanted to protect the rights of a certain minority against the tyranny of the majority. That minority was the white, slave-owning planter class. What a perversion of the original intent of (I think) Federalist paper #14. He invlked the idea of the tyranny of the majority to protect an already privileged class whose way of life he was trying to protect and perpetuate. And so look at the first quote in the above article where Will defends “minority rights”. Whose rights is he talking about? Why none other than well-heeled Republicans whose rights need protecting against the tyranny of a Democrat majority. Both Calhoun and Will have taken the original intent of that Federalist paper and turned it upside down.
To hell with Will giving us whiplash….How about the speeches made by Obama,Biden, Pelosi,and Reed during the first election when they scared everyone by proclaiming only those “evil” republicans would ever do such a thing?I believe Obama said it would “destroy the country”(to massive crowd applause)And now these filthy hypocrate’s have gone and done it!!!!!!Talk about voter suppression.You just stole the vote from half of Americans!I was against it when some crazy Rs spoke about it in a philosophical way allowing this president to jump on it for political gain.And Im totally against it when the liar in chief enacts it.Dems are so short sighted.See the day will come when you will have a Sarah Palin or someone like the person who wakes you in a fright from your liberal night mares.And that person will win the presidency.And you fools keep handing them power on top of power.And they may use that power to use the IRS to target you.They may force people not to get healthcare but to end abortion rights lets say or any number of things that scare you to your cores.They may allow the NRA to buy 1 billion rounds of ammo with your money- to be stored along with 900 armored vehicles in top secret locales.They may load all the judges with hard core right wing conservative christians.Im against all of it.As all my tea party constitutionalist friends are.The ends do not justify the means.The person in charge matters not one wit.Obama and Bush are the same.We dont want either of them so empowered.that is why the tea party exists.To stand up and say (to both men)that the constitution says you have gone too far.Beyond that you must hold your leaders to their promises.And Obama said he would never do this.He lied again.does it even matter to you?
@ Michael e: In a comment you made yesterday to a November 22 posting on this site, you referred to “most of my lib friends.” Here you say liberals are filthy “hypocrats,” short-sighted, and fools.
I can only assume that somehow yesterday you lost all your liberal friends. My sincere condolences.