With no malice intended, I feel a need to comment on a recent piece here by Kathy Kattenburg regarding George Will’s recent comments on the situation in Iran and President Obama’s response to them. You can take what you will from the discussion and form your own opinions on the Iran situation, but what caught my attention was Kathy’s characterization of Mr. Will’s remarks as being from the “credit where credit is due” department.
Every time I hear this from a liberal, (and it’s often) I grind my teeth at the implication that George Will, being a conservative, must generally be full of crap, but “even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while.” Here’s the secret for most of you who are now nodding their heads in agreement. It’s because George Will says things on a regular basis which anger not only the political Left, but the Right as well. Why? Because he is now, and has always been, an intelligent, independent thinker.
If I had to make a list of the great political writers of my time, very near the top you would find – in no particular order – George Will, James Kilpatrick, James Wolcott, Molly Ivins and Christopher Hitchens. For a long time our local paper ran their Sunday op-ed page with opposing columns from George Will and Molly Ivins. (Until we lost her in 2007.) It was a wonderful pairing. They were both gifted thinkers and writers, though Will takes the ribbon between them as a master wordsmith and architect of the language. The other three on my list are also classic masters of English and critical thinkers. You may not agree with their opinions, but their facts were rarely in dispute and their reasoning was unassailable.
The idea that George Will should be shelved as some sort of doctrinaire Republican mouthpiece is offensive. He angers his own party as well as his opponents on a regular basis. If you take some time to read his body of work you will find a well reasoned, agonizingly researched intellect with much to say and ideas for you to chew on at length whether you wind up agreeing with him or not.
There are few in each generation with the ability to write, speak and debate on Will’s level. I grow weary of hearing him so casually trashed by people who – if you’ll pardon the phrase – couldn’t carry his jockstrap when it comes to mastery of the English language. And I gladly, wholeheartedly include myself in that pack. George is getting on in years, and the literary world will be shockingly poorer when we finally lose him.