George Will on Al Gore (WP Editorial): Get yer "silly dichotomies" here!!

[Sparkly]

In his editorial in the WP today, George Will says that if Gore means what he says about climate change ("and he seems painfully sincere"), he must run for president. So if he doesn't run, that means he doesn't mean what he's saying.

After all, Will explains, Gore "says or implies" that this is an urgent issue, and that the position of president is influential. On that basis, he writes:

So much for his silly dichotomy -- his assertion that global warming "is not a political issue. It is a moral issue." Any large policy issue is a political issue, and it is large because it is morally significant. So, having come within 537 Florida votes, or perhaps a 5 to 4 Supreme Court decision, of becoming president, why not try again, particularly with, he says, "Earth in the balance"?

"Silly dichotomy" #1: Either an issue is a moral one, in which nobody could EVER make political hay of it by, for example, disputing science, ordering "new studies," dismissing those studies, disputing science again, and sweeping it under the rug for political gain; OR, it's a political issue that's "morally significant," which is totally different.

"Silly dichotomy" #2: Either Al Gore decides not to run, showing he doesn't believe what he's saying and is just blowing it all out of proportion (does the term "pathological exaggerator" ring a bell?); OR, Al Gore will run, because he can't possibly be effective on the issue otherwise, nor believe that any another Democrat could deal effectively with the issue in that office.

(Gratuitious silly statements: "WITHIN 537 votes?!" Or "PERHAPS a Supreme Court decision?" Puleeeeeze, George!)

If he does (run), he will have to tweak his Cassandra persona. For example, when he said on "This Week" that the Kyoto Protocol "has become the binding law in most of the world," he adopted a, shall we say, broad understanding of "binding": Rapidly developing China and India, with more than a third of the planet's population, are exempt from emission limits, and of the 15 European Union countries committed to hitting certain Kyoto targets, only two are on a path to do so.

"Silly dichotomy" #3: Either we stay out of treaties because we want to get other countries to engage in them; OR, we stay out of treaties because other countries aren't engaged in them.

Minutes after Gore said that "the debate in the science community is over," he said "there is a debate between the American ice science community and ice scientists elsewhere" about whether the less-than-extremely-remote danger is a rise in sea level of a few inches or 20 feet . And he said scientists "don't know what is happening" in west Antarctica or Greenland. So when Gore says the scientific debate is "over," he must mean merely that there is consensus that we are in a period of warming.

This is not where debate ends but where it begins, given that at any moment in its 4.5 billion years, the planet has been cooling or warming. The serious debate is about two other matters: the contribution of human activity to the current episode of warming and the degree to which this or that remedial measure (e.g., the Kyoto Protocol) would make a difference commensurate with its costs.

"Silly dichotomy" #4: EITHER scientists agree on predictions about the rate of escalation of the damage now occuring; OR, they don't agree on anything, it's just normal warming, and nobody knows whether it's about human activity or not.

He ends with the snarky remark:

The nobility of politics, when it is noble, often consists in prudent maneuvering and persuading until an issue is, in terms of public opinion, ripe. A luminous example of the nobility of indirection is Lincoln's protracted and incremental progress toward abolishing slavery. Dismayed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act and then the Dred Scott decision, Lincoln did not exclaim: "That does it! Instead of running for president, I am going to prepare a PowerPoint presentation."

"Silly dichotomy" #5: EITHER you mean what you're saying and try to persuade people to have an effect; OR you mean what you're saying and try to persuade people to have an effect. And, if it involves a run for the presidency, you're "noble;" if it involves a "PowerPoint presentation," you're silly.

:crazy: :eyes: :crazy: :eyes: :crazy: :eyes: :crazy: :eyes:

New "silly dichotomy:" If the WP keeps George Will on their editorial page, they're silly; OR, if George Will stays silly, he'll stay on the WP editorial page.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/09/AR2006060901550.html

[Kutjara]

1. Silly dichotomy #6:

How can you be a respected political commentator while also being a senile nutbag with no certain grip on reality?

[Canuckistanian]

2. Good work

I can't stand reading the guy. He very eloquently and convincingly spouts bullshit most of the time.

Every time I hear him speak or read his article, there's some obvious flaw on which his whole argument is built.

I give up. He's a lost cause.

[NMDemDist2]

3. yeah I saw that in the paper this morning

:puke:

[JeffR]

4. George Will critiquing Al Gore is like me critiquing Aristotle

Pointless and utterly un-illuminating.

ON EDIT: George Will thinking is like me typing. A bloody uphill battle...

[bluerum]

5. George Will >>--> Irrelevant and pompous conservative waterboy.

[hatrack]

6. Some would argue that slavery in the United States was a moral issue

Good thing it didn't get all "political", eh George?

I think Bowtie Bozo's most representative performance came last week, after George Stuffinenvelopes interviewed Gore. Neither Will (nor any of the other panelists, whom we are to believe are the informed insiders with the real skinny on all things Beltway) bothered to mention once, EVEN ONCE the issues Gore raised both in the movie and in the interview.

Instead, what we got once again, world without end, Amen, was the Kool Kids' Klub blathering at painful and wretched length whether or not Gore's running, and what that means for the Democrats' chances in 2008, and how Hillary will face the threat of Gore, and blahblahblahblah.

These overpaid pompous fucks (and Will is merely among the worst of many) aren't even exerting the energy needed to maneuver chairs across the Titanic's boat deck - they're sitting in a circle and whining (as the ship's list increases) that the turtle soup they'd been so looking forward to may run out before dinner service ends the following.

George Will is living proof that, contrary to the rule which prevailed in the music industry for years, that you can indeed polish a turd.

[calmblueocean]

9. "the Kool Kids' Klub" -- exactly.

It's amazing how much these pundits are like self-absorbed high school kids who can only talk about how popular or unpopular someone else is. Barf.

[calmblueocean]

7. George Will is a racist loser.

I've gotten so sick of reading his columns and listening to his "wisdom". He belongs to the snarkier-than-thou pundit class that thinks they're smarter than any other human being in America, the same class of narcissist losers who acted like the 2000 election was about the color of someone's suits instead of the fate of the planet. Not to put too fine a point on it, but fuck that idiot and anything he says.

I'd honestly rather listen to Ann Coulter than George Will because Coulter doesn't try to come off as the voice of sensible moderation. She says what she says, most of America knows it's bullshit. But Will is the kind of mainstream columnist whose bullshit eventually finds its way into lots of regular people's opinions. Because he looks and sounds like your 9th grade Social Studies teacher, people get the impression he's a moderate, when he's really just a racist snarky right-wing fuckhead.

[robbedvoter]

8. I'm with you. I hate lunacy that appears sane to the superficial

It's why I always hated NY Times more than Faux/NY Post.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

10. Silly dichotomy? I gotcher silly dichotomy right here, mister...

Will reports to makeup Sunday mornings at 2:3OAM where 3 technicians work 5 solid hours
on his prep/makeover for ABC's "This Week" Sunday morning talk.