Vincent J. Curtis
20 March 2016
Syndicated columnist George Will has had hardly an
unpublished thought in forty years. He
was once considered a very thoughtful, articulate, and sound conservative voice
in the realm of punditry. Lately,
however, he has given plenty of evidence that his powers of reasoning are
evaporating, and has espoused positions that, frankly, are not up to standard.
Today, Will had published in National Review Online an
opinion piece in which was headlined, “The GOP’s Blocking of Supreme Court Pick
is Indefensible.” Now, a man should not
be hanged for a headline that someone else likely wrote, but the gist of
the headline is valid. Will argues in
the piece that the Republicans should hold hearings on the nomination of Judge Merrick
Garland for a seat on the Supreme Court.
Let us dispose of the “indefensible” claim. Will spends many words breaking down the
defenses against holding hearings at all.
The “Biden Rule” is a complete and untouchable defense against holding
hearings. The perfection of the Biden
Rule as a defense against holding hearings is why the Obama Administration is
talking about everything but the Biden Rule.
They have no refutation of the Biden Rule. Somehow, the perfection of the Biden Rule
against holding hearings eludes the diminishing awareness of the declining Mr.
Will. What is sauce for the goose being
also sauce for the gander escapes Mr. Will’s current powers. The conclusiveness of fighting fire with
fire, and of reaping what you sow eludes him.
If the perfection of the Biden Rule as a defense were
insufficient, behind it lies the Obama contention. The Obama contention is that a Senator should
filibuster a perfectly qualified candidate like Sam Alito just because he doesn’t
like him, or like his politics, or like the politics of he who nominated him,
or for personal political advantage having nothing to do with the nominee
himself. The point that what is sauce
for the goose is also sauce for the gander etc. eludes Mr. Will, who seems to
recognize it but fails to grasp its power.
On this morning’s Fox News Sunday, Dr. Ben Carson was asked
about his endorsement of Donald Trump, and in the course of his explanation Dr.
Carson remarked that politics needed to be played like a game of chess, not of
checkers. George Will, in respect of the
Garland nomination, plays politics like checkers, thinking only one move
ahead. Suppose the Senate Republicans
did entertain the nomination, went through the process, and in the end rejected
the nomination. What would Obama
do? Why, nominate another! And all the while lashing the Republicans for
their perfidiousness.
In the meantime, Will misses the point of the Trump and Cruz
phenomenon. The Republican base is sick
and tired of Republicans promising in the election and collapsing in
Washington. The point of the 2014
election, in which Republicans took the Senate and gained a bigger majority in
the House, was to stop Obama. To
date they have singularly failed to do so, and the budget deal of December 2015
just about put the last nail in the coffin.
If Republicans so much as look like they are caving again – and moving
the Garland nomination forward would look like it – the fate of the Republicans
other than on the presidential race would look dim.
Speaking of Trump, Will displays utter snobbishness in
respect of this interloper. Today, on
Fox News Sunday, Will said that he would vote for a third party rather than
Trump in November. He complained about
how the conservative party would no longer exist in the Republicans, as if the
takeover of the Republican party by the conservative movement in the wake of
the Goldwater nomination were legitimate and its supersession, not.
With his diminished powers, Will fails to see that Trump has
deftly avoided the trap set by Saul D. Alinsky for the enemies of
progressivism, that of freezing, identifying, labelling, and destroying a
target. That Trump avoids been frozen
and labelled by his rhetorical methods is what upsets Will, who wants to see a
faithful conservative, frozen, labelled, and ripe for destruction.
Unlike the eggheads at National Review, I get Trump. I get that he is a driving businessman who
has been successful by his lights. In
his forty years of business he has acquired a skill set that he wants to apply
to the problems of America, to make American great again. What’s past is past, and this pragmatic man
wants to tackle the problems of America as the last major thing he does in his
life. Mitt Romney was the same way, but
he let himself be frozen, labelled, and destroyed with lies. Trump isn’t making that same mistake.
The obvious rapport that Trump has with his audiences ought
to be a clue Will and National Review that he is the man who can beat Hillary. Trump can fight just as dirty as she can, and
win. Trump, unlike Obama, is too much
the New Yorker, too much an American to subvert the constitution as Obama
has. He will have to work with the Congress
to get his intentions fleshed out in legislation. Trump, in the first couple of years, will
able to marshal the political support necessary to get rid of the progressivism
that is holding America back. Hillary’s presidency,
because of her many crimes and those of her husband, with a Republican Congress
will be doomed to failure from day one.
Trump will have a mandate to get something done that undoes the Obama
legacy.
Democrats count on a George W. Bush presidency: a man who
has so much respect for the office he won’t stoop to ravage his political
enemies, as Obama does routinely. Trump
is the Republican antidote to Obama, and a heaping dose of their own medicine
is what the Democrats, and the American body politic, need in order to bring
the tribal extremism in Washington to a close.
All of this, Will misses. A sad
state of affairs for a once-great mind.
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