See, now here's my problem with George Will come full bloom, all his own fault mind you. Because I question his use of the data and facts in this column and this column, as I explained here and here, I now cannot take him at face value when he presents other "facts" in his new column in Newsweek.
If I really want to bother rebutting an otherwise fairly standard 'Can't you people see Obama is a socialist' column, I should take this part:
FDR's Washington was awash in confidence about government's ability to skillfully engineer a proper allocation of production within each industry. Supposedly the government's knack for economic planning would soon have the nation regulated back to prosperity. This would happen by, among other things, replacing competition with cartelization, the sweater cartel being, presumably, a paradigm.
And I should, regardless of arguing whether that was exactly FDR's intention, argue about it's contextual use here and now. After all, it's use implies that he thinks that this is where President Obama is going. Does George honestly think Barack Obama, Tim Geithner and Larry Summers want to do that? Or even anything remotely close to that? Heck even those of us more toward the middle think a government takeover of the insolvent big banks would be good, but only to restructure them and reprivatize them. It's those three that are holding that back! Heck, how about what your old buddy former Treasury Secretary and Secretary of State James Baker said in the FT today:
This is not a call for nationalisation but rather for a temporary injection of public funds to clean up problem banks and return them to private ownership as soon as possible. As president Ronald Reagan's secretary of the Treasury, I abhor the idea of government ownership - either partial or full - even if only temporary. Unfortunately, we may have no choice.
That goes a lot further than what Geithner and Summers seem comfortable with. Do you think Baker is a closet socialist George? He says he's not but you never know nowadays.
I digress. The problem is that the above should be the post I write. Since, however, I no longer trust George Will to give me facts and data unsupported, and since I have never heard this "Sweater fable" story before (and I know a lot of Presidential history off the top of my head), I cannot get past the idea that maybe he might have made the story up just to support the rest of his column in Newsweek.
That is what is truly sad about this whole situation. George Will was not Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly or Ann Coulter. He could be counted upon for relying on actual, undistorted facts to support his conclusions. I don't usually agree with the conclusions but I didn't dispute the facts. Now, I've got a problem with the conclusions and have to do extra legwork to make sure he is even using appropriate facts. We are approaching irrelevancy here. I don't need that kind of crap just to argue with a guy I disagree with anyway. That's why I rarely discuss Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, Coulter et al. in this blog to begin with.
I am, nevertheless, still relatively sure that the story must be true. He can't possibly pull that in a column in Newsweek (can he?). I'm sure I'll be seeing Doris Kearns Goodwin all over the place if it's not true. The point is that I am still angry that one of the last conservatives I had respect for seems to be going down the same low road as the rest of the herd. I hope he doubles back. I'd sure like to argue about just his conclusions and not his facts as well.
One last thing, not for nothing, but I waited eight years for George Will to fire a broadside or two at the USS G.W. Bush. It starts coming a month and a half after he leaves office? Gimme a break.
Comments welcome,
Pat McGovern
It's got electoral votes. It's what politicians crave.
