I know about George Will too. I'll agree with you that he is a smart guy
and
very knowledgable. But he's got his head so far up the ass of the
republican
party leadership that his "insight" about republicans is worthless. He's
one
of those guys who very cleverly finds every minute flaw with Democrats
but
finds nothing to complain about when it comes to his beloved
republicans.
No
credibility on republicans from him because of extreme bias, sorry.



It appears you're confusing him with someone else. He's often quite
critical
of Republicans, especially Dubya, and most especially on his policies in
Iraq.

I've observed George Will for 20 years and have read plenty of his columns
too so I know where he stands, and you're right, he has been critical of
Bush at times. But come on, how in god's name could one not be? Believe me,
he doesn't want to be critical of Bush but with Bush mucking things up so
badly even Will has to say something if he wants to stay credible. How could
one not criticize Bush's Iraq policies?



As to Reagan's intelligence it's not a matter of what "leftists" say.
You
can discount them all you want. The fact is that like George W. nobody
ever
went around bragging about how smart and well educated Ronald Reagan
was.
Except for his mindless followers who did see him as a diety. Oh, by the
way, Will is one of the Kool Aid drinkers when it comes to Reagan.

I don't know what you mean by that expression. He knew and advised Reagan,
and, as I said, Will thinks Reagan was underestimated. The jury is out as
far as I'm concerned.

Kool Aid drinkers? Jim Jones? Jonestown? They are mindless followers who
drink poisoned Kool Aid if their leader tells them to. So Will, an avid
conservative, who once worked for Reagan, and is a true believer, thinks he
was underestimated. I'm so surprised he came to that judgment! Like I said,
I saw Reagan for years and years and he did not have a reputation for his
intellectual capacity. He was known for his looks, his speaking ability, and
his ability to lead right wing folks. Nobody said he was bright. This
underestimation thing is just another ploy to make him seem better than he
was in this dept. too. He had some definite political strengths but his
brain power was not one of them.



Like you, most of Reagan's detractors have been leftish and I question how
informed they really are. Your estimate of George Will, if it's equal in
quality to your estimate of Reagan, is not something I'd put stock in. As
I
said, I knew George Will. He was my professor and academic advisor; he got
me my opportunity to study international politics at the University of
Lausanne. I have high regard for the clarity of his vision and his
judgment,
even though I often disagree with his politics.

Here is where your analysis goes wrong. Tell me of some right wing or
conservative detractors of Reagan. You can't do it. There aren't any. Reagan
has assumed a mantle of divinity among republicans. That leaves only
"leftists", your word, to bring up his weaknesses. I hate to tell you this,
but people who don't see Reagan as a god aren't all leftists. But you could
ask Ron Reagan, his son about him if you want to know the truth about him.
Would you believe him if he said his dad was cold, distant, aloof, and
didn't know that much about a lot of things? The problem is that there is
this group that adores Reagan so much that they make him a god and accuse
anyone finding his weaknesses as biased against him, which makes drawing a
true picture difficult. Just trust me on this, Reagan was a good politician
but not all that smart. That's a true picture not a biased one. If it was
the other way around I would have no problem saying that either.

Will is different from Reagan but also similar. Both were true believers in
conservative ideology but Will is very smart, and well educated. That sets
him apart from Reagan and it's not hard to see that Will is the smart one of
the two. By the way, Reagan was the good looking one. I give Will his due
where it's warranted. My problem with him is his predictability. He's like
clockwork. You can always count him to have a very conservative opinion on
everything. To me that says his judgment is clouded when it comes to many
issues. I trust those who don't have such consistent views on everything.
You can't fit life into a pidgeon hole but people like Will try to make it
so. For example, Will is going to vote for McCain (I predict). Will ought to
know McCain isn't the guy to step into the White House next but his ideology
prevents him from voting for anyone else. I voted for Nixon and I voted for
Reagan. Both were big mistakes due to my youth and inexperience, but I voted
not on party but on the man. Guys like Will can never go outside the box so
I don't have much faith in him except in strictly academic areas.


Aha. Is this anything like you knowing all about the Surpreme Court
justices? g

Kind of.

Then you have a problem here. d8-)

I finished the "Nine" by the way. No insights there other than that
justice Thomas likes to RV. It did confirm what I said earlier about
the
court, it's not a legal body. It's a political one. Which is why the
presidents pick the justices they do, they know ahead of time the way
the
judges will rule, except when they get an occasional curveball. It
doesn't
take a genius to know why Thomas, Roberts, and Alito were chosen. They
were
chosen because their politics is perfectly in synch with republican
politics. What I learned about the Supreme Court I learned in Grad
school.
I
learned about Reagan by living under his governing for too many years.
Both
were good learning experiences. Living under Reagan as a leader was not.

You can spare us your idea of what the Court should be as a "legal body."
There are various doctrines of jurisprudence, and the Justices reflect a
broad spectrum of those doctrines. Even at the most conservative end, for
example, you have two "originalists" -- Scalia and Thomas -- who have very
different views of precedent.

Did you see Leslie Stahl's interview of Scalia on 60 Minutes a few weeks
ago? I did. It just confirmed my view that as smart as he is he can't get
past his political programming. Do you watch Book TV on CSPAN? An author
named Michael Meyerson was on yesterday and was talking about "originalist"
views. He shredded them as being patently stupid. I agree. Too bad you
didn't see it. Coincidently, he mentioned the founding fathers and the 2nd
amendment too, in passing. He was talking about the Federalist Papers as
well. His point was that it would have been anathema to them for Americans
not to have the right to individual ownership of weapons even though they
didn't go around saying so. He based this on his reading of the primary
sources. He's a law professor but I don't remember at which school.



And I think you're too quick to cross-identify those jurisprudential
doctines with politics. Politically conservative judges tend toward more
originalist interpretations of the Constitution, but not always. Some
favor
states rights, but not all of them. They *often* surprise, and anger, the
presidents who nominate them, with their decisions in particular cases.
And
so on.

Supreme Court justices can always be counted on to "anger" the presidents
who pick them. Except maybe for Clarence Thomas. That's because once they
get the job they are no longer beholden to the president and they get to do
what they want. You want to see the law as something greater than it is so
you minimize the political angle of it. I see it from an individualistic
view and from a psychological view. The legal part is just windowdressing.
Being human beings these people on the court can surprise you at times but
it's like a batting average. You can count the liberals to go one way most
of the time and the same for the conservatives, but even more so. They just
use the law to cover their political positions. Undertand that I don't apply
this view to all the other justices in all the other courts. This view is
about the SC, which is a branch of government not a court of law, and that
is what makes it very different.

Hawke