Re: Questions for Obama

you hillbillies will suck up to any lying piece of *** won't you ?
The Hypocrisy of George Will

Pundit's double standards, ethical lapses seldom noted

By Steve Rendall

When Republican senators filibustered President Clinton's economic stimulus
bill in 1993, columnist George Will vigorously defended the Senate rule that
requires the votes of at least 60 senators, a so-called supermajority, to
impose an end to debate. In a column headlined "The Framers' Intent"
(Washington Post, 4/25/93), Will 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."

Ten years and an apparent Copernican Revolution later, Will reversed
himself. In the column "Coup Against the Constitution" (Washington Post,
2/28/03), Will found the Senate rule he'd once draped in the mantle of
original intent was in fact an affront to the framers.

Concerned that "41 Senate Democrats" might succeed in stopping the
confirmation of Miguel Estrada, nominated by George W. Bush to the U.S.
Court of Appeals, 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."

By what intellectual pathway had Will's seemingly immutable constitutional
position changed? He never explained or even acknowledged holding the
earlier, contradictory view. But something obvious had changed: In February
2003, it was a Democratic minority in the Senate trying to block the action
of a Republican president, whereas in 1993 the parties' roles were reversed.

Edward Lazarus, a columnist for the legal website Findlaw.com and the first
to point out the hypocrisy in Will's filibuster bluster (3/6/03), made an
important observation when he noted the gap between Will's supposed status
as "an honest broker of ideas" and this "exquisitely brazen example of
intellectual flip-floppery that has nothing to do with the law or the
Constitution, or American history, and everything to do with conservative
politics."

"Thankful for double standards"
As one of the most prominent conservative commentators in recent decades,
Will has a reputation for being brainy, sober and well-researched. Among the
noisy current crop of talk radio-nurtured pundits, he gives the impression
of being a more reasonable, thoughtful and soft-spoken conservative. But
Lazarus' point about Will's filibuster contradiction underlines the general
mismatch between Will's reputation for intellectual rigor and integrity, and
the reality that his work is too often intellectually inconsistent,
ethically questionable and ideologically driven.

Take Will's 1988 interview of presidential candidate Rev. Jesse Jackson on
ABC's This Week (1/17/88). In a series of questions apparently meant to
expose Jackson as unqualified for office, Will asked: "As president, would
you support measures such as the G-7 measures of the Louvre Accords?" (These
accords were technical agreements employed the previous year to stabilize
exchange rates.) As Will sneeringly recapped in a later column (Washington
Post, 1/28/88), Jackson's "answer to [that] question was, 'Explain that.'"

When it was suggested that his markedly technical questioning of Jackson
might have been racist, Will lashed out in his column: "Because he is black,
his white rivals sit silently beside him, leaving his foolishness
unremarked. The real racism in this campaign is the unspoken assumption that
it is unreasonable to expect a black candidate to get rudimentary things
right." Will concluded, "He should be thankful for double standards."

Another Washington Post columnist saw a different kind of double standard at
work. In a column titled "The G-7 Question" (2/15/88), William Raspberry,
himself African-American, put Will's question in the context of historical
"literacy" tests selectively applied to black voters--tests that employed
impossibly high standards with the intention of ensuring black failure.
Raspberry concluded that Will's motivation "seemed to be to embarrass the
candidate rather than to flesh out his policy position."

But as Slate.com's Will Saletan noted in 1999, with the rise of George W.
Bush's presidential campaign, Will's rigorous presidential requirements
relaxed considerably. In a column recounting Will's earlier treatment of
Jesse Jackson, Saletan asked: "Now along comes George W. Bush, with his
fumbling references to 'Kosovians' and his confusion of Slovakia with
Slovenia. And what does Will think of this?" Saletan then examined Will's
column defending Bush's intellectual underachievement (Washington Post,
9/23/99), headlined: "He's No Intellectual--and So What?"

A questionable grasp of rudimentary things was now an asset, Will argued.
Defending Bush's shortcomings, he recalled U.S. presidents known for their
rational gifts but not necessarily for their presidential achievements,
concluding: "Such intellect in politics is rare, and perhaps should be." The
column closed with an approving citation of fellow conservative Richard
Brookheiser: "Perhaps the wise leader should strive to have intellectuals on
tap and not be one himself."

Domestic vulgarian
Integrity and civility are two of Will's favorite hobby horses, but he
doesn't always live up to the standards he sets for others. For instance,
Will sneers at cheating of all sorts, from that of Sammy Sosa's corked bat
(Washington Post, 6/5/03) to the extramarital adventures of President Bill
Clinton. The latter case produced this priceless example of Will's signature
high dudgeon (Washington Post, 2/3/98):


Having vulgarians like the Clintons conspicuous in government must further
coarsen American life. This is already apparent in the emergence of a
significant portion of the public that almost preens about supporting the
Clintons because of the vulgarity beneath their pantomime of domesticity.
Call this portion of the public the Europhile constituency.. He has caused a
pain he does not feel: The sense millions of Americans have that something
precious has been vandalized. The question is, Who should come next to scrub
from a revered institution the stain of the vulgarians?

From the scorn with which he attacks the "vulgarian" Clintons and their
"pantomime of domesticity," one might assume that Will's personal life has
been entirely dignified and free from scandal. One might be surprised to
read, in other words, that in the 1980s, while still married to his first
wife, Will was romantically linked to Lally Weymouth, daughter of Washington
Post owner Katharine Graham, according to Washingtonian magazine (1/87).
When Will moved out on his wife and children, he found his office furniture
dumped on his front lawn with a note reading, "Take it somewhere else,
buster" (Salon, 2/12/98). Though the lamentable lack of shame in U.S.
society is a common theme in Will's writing, shame, like other principles he
touts, seems to be for other people.

But expecting others to do as he says, not as he does, is par for Will's
course. Take his 1992 attack (Washington Post, 9/3/92) on Al Gore for being
"cavalier with the truth" in his "wastebasket-worthy" book Earth in the
Balance. Will confronted Gore on the issue of global warming: "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."

It was Will, however, who should have read the poll more carefully "before
pontificating." Gallup actually reported that 66 percent of the scientists
said that human-induced global warming was occurring, with only 10 percent
disagreeing and the rest undecided. Gallup took the unusual step of issuing
a written correction to Will's column (San Francisco Chronicle, 9/27/92):
"Most scientists involved in research in this area believe that
human-induced global warming is occurring now." Will never noted the error
in his column.

Though he expected others, including Al Gore, to be swayed by his misreading
of Gallup's findings, Will's own opinion on global warming remained
unchanged by learning the poll's actual results.

Ethical Lapses
First hired as a columnist by the Washington Post in 1974, Will took to
television quickly, appearing for years as a panelist on the syndicated
Agronsky & Company before moving on to the McLaughlin Group. Today Will has
a syndicated column appearing in more 450 newspapers, a twice-monthly essay
in Newsweek and a weekly slot on ABC's This Week as the show's unopposed
conservative voice. (See sidebar.)

With such a high media profile, it's remarkable how little attention is paid
to Will's double standards, ethical lapses and misstatements. Instead,
stories about Will are more likely to focus on his accomplishments. For
instance, a Washingtonian article (3/01) that acknowledged some Will
eccentricities, including his pretentious style, praised him as one of the
country's top journalists: "Will continues to wield influence as a
Washington institution and commands respect for his knowledge of history and
the seriousness of his approach."

Will's approach has been questioned in a few exceptional cases. During the
1980 campaign, he drew fire when it was learned he'd secretly coached
Republican candidate Ronald Reagan for a debate with President Jimmy Carter
using a debate briefing book stolen from the Carter campaign. Immediately
following the debate, Will appeared on Nightline (10/28/80) to praise
Reagan's "thoroughbred performance," never disclosing his role in rehearsing
that performance (New York Times, 7/9/83).

During the 1996 campaign, Will caught some criticism for commenting on the
presidential race while his second wife, Mari Maseng Will, was a senior
staffer for the Dole presidential campaign. Defending a Dole speech on ABC
News (1/28/96), Will, according to Washingtonian (3/96), "failed to
mention.. that his wife not only counseled Dole to give the speech but also
helped write it." Similarly, a Will column criticizing Clinton for proposing
tariffs on Japanese luxury cars (5/19/95) included no mention that Maseng
Will's public relations firm had received almost $200,000 from the Japanese
Automobile Manufacturers Association. When asked, Will defiantly dismissed
any need for disclosure, declaring (Washington Post, 5/23/95), "I was for
free trade long before I met my wife."

Will suffered another ethical lapse in the 2000 campaign when he met with
George W. Bush just before the Republican candidate was to appear on ABC's
This Week. Later, in a column (Washington Post, 3/4/01), Will admitted that
he'd met with Bush to preview questions, not wanting to "ambush him with
unfamiliar material." In the meeting, Will provided Bush with a 3-by-5 card
containing a crucial question he would later ask the candidate on the air.
Though strongly resembling his coaching of candidate Reagan in 1980, and in
strong contrast to his treatment of Jesse Jackson in 1988, this
extraordinary admission received little media mention.

Truth in advertising
In the end, the most troubling aspect of Will's prominence as one of the
country's most respected national pundits may not be his intellectual
inconsistencies or ethical shortcomings, but the fact that he operates in a
media environment where he is largely unopposed by pundits who could present
him with forceful counter-arguments and challenge him on his conflicts.

Though Will stands beside dozens of other conservative talking heads and
nationally syndicated columnists (see "Conservative Top 40," Extra!, 7/98),
progressive voices that might challenge him are virtually absent from
national television and account for only a handful of syndicated columnists.

Will has appeared on ABC's This Week as the show's in-house, movement
conservative since its inception in 1981. But the show has never regularly
featured a movement progressive. Perhaps the problem of Will's unanswered
ideological commentary is best expressed by a 1995 advertisement for This
Week which unwittingly captured the essence of the show with this headline:
"There's No Debate."

"jim" <jim10293@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:sc6h2499gkqutdfckmjidfd5kft66sv7o5@xxxxxxxxxx
[Default] On Mon, 12 May 2008 10:55:33 -0700, Sordo
<sordo @ privacy.net > wrote:

Questions for Obama

Have you told young couples straining to buy their first home that
declining prices of houses are a misfortune?

George F. Will
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 1:51 PM ET Apr 26, 2008

Senator, concerning the criteria by which you will nominate judges, you
said: "We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize
what it's like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what
it's like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old."
Such sensitivities might serve an admirable legislator, but what have
they to do with judging? Should a judge side with whichever party in a
controversy stirs his or her empathy? Is such personalization of the
judicial function inimical to the rule of law?

. Voting against the confirmation of Chief Justice John Roberts, you
said: Deciding "truly difficult cases" should involve "one's deepest
values, one's core concerns, one's broader perspectives on how the world
works, and the depth and breadth of one's empathy."

IOW, how one feels or emotional context versus the Constitution and
foundation of law. Just spin the outcome to fit what one feels about
justice. Gets that from Wright and his black/liberal orientation.

Not sure why we waste time stating the obvious. Liberals don't care
if they destroy this nation. They don't care about it's traditions
and foundations and want to change it all.

Is that not
essentially how Chief Justice Roger Taney decided the Dred Scott case?
Should other factors-say, the language of the constitutional or
statutory provision at issue-matter?

. You say, "The insurance companies, the drug companies, they're not
going to give up their profits easily when it comes to health care." Why
should they? Who will profit from making those industries unprofitable?
When pharmaceutical companies have given up their profits, who will fund
pharmaceutical innovations, without which there will be much preventable
suffering and death? What other industries should "give up their
profits"?

. ExxonMobil's 2007 profit of $40.6 billion annoys you. Do you know that
its profit, relative to its revenue, was smaller than Microsoft's and
many other corporations'? And that reducing ExxonMobil's profits will
injure people who participate in mu-tual funds, index funds and pension
funds that own 52 percent of the company?

. You say John McCain is content to "watch [Americans'] home prices
decline." So, government should prop up housing prices generally? How?
Why? Were prices ideal before the bubble popped? How does a senator know
ideal prices? Have you explained to young couples straining to buy their
first house that declining prices are a misfortune?

. Telling young people "don't go into corporate America," your wife,
Michelle, urged them to become social workers or others in "the helping
industry," not "the moneymaking industry." Given that the moneymakers
pay for 100 percent of American jobs, in both public and private
sectors, is it not helpful?

. Michelle, who was born in 1964, says that most Americans' lives have
"gotten progressively worse since I was a little girl." Since 1960, real
per capita income has increased 143 percent, life expectancy has
increased by seven years, infant mortality has declined 74 percent,
deaths from heart disease have been halved, childhood leukemia has
stopped being a death sentence, depression has become a treatable
disease, air and water pollution have been drastically reduced, the
number of women earning a bachelor's degree has more than doubled, the
rate of homeownership has increased 10.2 percent, the size of the
average American home has doubled, the percentage of homes with air
conditioning has risen from 12 to 77, the portion of Americans who own
shares of stock has quintupled . Has your wife perhaps missed some
pertinent developments in this country that she calls "just downright
mean"?

. You favor raising the capital gains tax rate to "20 percent or 25
percent." You say this will not "distort" economic decision making. Your
tax returns on your 2007 income of $4.2 million show that you and
Michelle own few stocks. Are you sure you understand how investors make
decisions?

. During the ABC debate, you acknowledged that when the capital gains
rate was dropped first to 20 percent, then to 15 percent, government
revenues from the tax increased and they declined in the 1980s when it
was increased to 28 percent. Nevertheless, you said you would consider
raising the rate "for purposes of fairness." How does decreasing the
government's financial resources and punishing investors promote
fairness? Are you aware that 20 percent of taxpayers reporting capital
gains in 2006 had incomes of less than $50,000?

. You favor eliminating the cap on earnings subject to the 12.4 percent
Social Security tax, which now covers only the first $102,000. A Chicago
police officer married to a Chicago public-school teacher, each with 20
years on the job, have a household income of $147,501, so you would take
another $5,642 from them. Are they undertaxed? Are they rich?

. This November, electorates in four states will vote on essentially
this language: "The state shall not discriminate against, or grant
preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race,
sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in the operation of public
employment, public education or public contracting." Three
states-California, Washington and Michigan-have enacted such language.
You made a radio ad opposing the Michigan initiative. Why? Are those
states' voters racists?

. You denounce President Bush for arrogance toward other nations. Yet
you vow to use a metaphorical "hammer" to force revisions of trade
agreements unless certain weaker nations adjust their labor,
environmental and other domestic policies to suit you. Can you define
cognitive dissonance?

. You want "to reduce money in politics." In February and March you
raised $95 million. See prior question.

But coming next, questions for John McCain.
URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/134316


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