Ramblings From the Ragged Crumbling Edge Of The Reality-Based Community

Sunday, August 17, 2008

The On-Going Tragedy of Trees Dying For George Will's Opinion 

...I can't really offer any sort of logical explanation or something that even sounds like a good excuse for why I ever read anything that George Will ever writes. I've tried to explain it as the natural product of constant exposure to the right-wing tendencies of my local newspaper, the Bend (Oregon) Bulletin, that primarily offers such nonsense on it's Opinion Page, but that line of reasoning falls apart when I have to admit that I never read any of the constant pipeline of nonsense from lead Hoover Vacuum Cleaner salesman Victor David Hanson...

Today I did it again, courtesy of the WaPo website. Hello, my name is Jack K. and I'm a George Will reader ("Hi, Jack K."). As usual in any instance where Will isn't writing about baseball, today's column starts out with the usual sorts of red herrings; this time, they are about Things McCain Should Say He Will Do and accomplish Will's compositional goal by misrepresenting the whole "secret unionizing vote" issue and demonstrating either a complete lack of understanding or an intentional refusal to acknowledge the fundamental rational behind issuance of broadcast licenses in the whole "Fairness Doctrine" debate...

But that's not the big fish that Will is looking to fry. What he wants to go after is the truly heroic nature of that whole disturbing, possibly Logan Act-violating, faux-Presidentin' act that McCain has been running with all week long regarding the Russian response to Georgia's ill-advised effort to bring the breakaway region of South Ossetia back into the fold by launching a military assault against its civilian population. In the dark world through which most old, wandering, lost Cold Warriors like Will grimly tread, the resurgence of a Russia that bears some resemblance to the late and unlamented Soviet Union is a boon for any Republican candidate - and especially for Huggy Bear - because that is a comfort zone that served them in good stead for several decades. The last two sentences of this excited meditation on the prospect to a Return to Cold Wars Past speaks volumes even though some of those volumes aren't probably intended:
Until Russian tanks rolled into Georgia, it seemed that not even the Democratic Party could lose this election. But it might if McCain can make it turn on the question of who is ornery enough to give Putin a convincing, deterring telephone call at 3 a.m.

Obvious questions come to mind. Given the profoundly overextended nature of the US military machine, just what exactly is the convincing deterrence that Huggy Bear is going to speak into that telephone at 3 a.m. that will make Pootie Poot stay up for the rest of the night, mulling over his new set of choices? Given the fact that Russia is a major supplier of natural gas to both former Soviet satellite nations and the rest of Europe and is the second largest world supplier of oil, just what exactly is the convincing deterrence that Huggy Bear is going to flaunt in Putin's ear, aside from some either lame or - if you think about it - terrifying threat of military action...

What George Will seems to be suggesting - maybe or maybe not - is that John McCain will deal with that 3 a.m. phone call by saying "Vladimir, you better head to the basement, 'cause the missiles are on the way". There isn't any other suggested response that would make any sense in the construct of those two sentences. Russia is a redeveloping power in its own right because of its energy wealth and the influence that this particular wealth has on the rest of the world. The US in a John McCain world sees all international problems as nails in search of the American hammer. George F. Will has just ratified that jingoistic militaristic world view - indeed, Will longs for the implementation of this particular world view - and the first depressing thing about this is that trees have had to die so that a desperate desire for a new Cold War in the cause of winning an election can be expressed as a respectable point of view...
Posted by: Jack K. / 7:31 PM

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