Feb 17th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
George Will Loves Recycling
Brad Johnson notes that the core of George Will’s sloppy, error-ridden column on climate change is an almost exact repeat of a tendentious article he wrote in April of 2006. What he had back then was a very misleading account of the “global cooling” controversies of the 1970s. What he seems to have added since then is zero actual knowledge about the issue, but a couple of additional factual errors.
43 Responses to “George Will Loves Recycling”
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February 17th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Brad Johnson notes that the core of George Will’s sloppy, error-ridden column on climate change is an almost exact repeat of a tendentious he wrote in April of 2006.
Just a thought: if you’re going to accuse someone of being sloppy, don’t drop words from the sentence making the accusation.
February 17th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
George Will is obviously not a stupid man. So I am just asking: is it conceivable that Mr. Will is in some kind of economic trouble, or somebody in the oil industry or other anti-global warming industry camp has something on him? Maybe he’s been PAID handsomely to write these things. It cannot be just smug hubris, can it? As Matt notes, you would at least expect him to cite new to support his contrarian view, something reliably valid. That would be news and worth considering. George’s views are usually worth considering. But in this case, what is going on?
February 17th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
So, not only was it factually wrong, bogus and unpleasant, but motherfucker phoned it in, too, right?
February 17th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
This is a great opportunity to destroy one of the icons of the destructive, incompetent class that is the Washington, DC media establishment.
February 17th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
5 will get you ten that somewhere in what Will cites they do say what he says they said.
Ripped from context? Maybe…
Selective quotation? Almost guar-un-teed…
Intellectually dishonest? Ha ha ha…
But then what to expect from the Lizard Queen of Tendentiousness?
The only surprise is that anyone would think this newsworthy.
Musta been a yawner of a day, huh?
February 17th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
Meanwhile, Oh look see there!
The Stimulator gets passed and whas up?
The stock market nose dives (guess they believe what the CBO says even if “progressives” don’t)and Detroit announces a 50K layoff as we give ‘em Billiion$$$$.
But my goodness, why should some EconoObaGuy note these things when he can beat up on some poor old doddering fool for being an old doddering fool?
February 17th, 2009 at 8:31 pm
George Will is a know-nothing. That is all.
February 17th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Like Stalin, George Will forgets nothing and learns nothing.
February 17th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Well, JT, there is your key to financial independence. Short the stocks everytime Obama signs a bill (all of them i guess). Write the idea up as a prospectus and get all your similar minded brethren to invest and start a hedge fund. You’ll rule the decimated landscape in no time.
February 17th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
That isn’t clear, your strategy should be to short the Dow whenever Obama signs something you think is harmful.
February 17th, 2009 at 9:55 pm
“George Will is obviously not a stupid man.” Well, much of stupidity is just a kind of intellectual laziness. You don’t have to be sitting in front of the TV over a lousy meal for that. The whole point of his ideology is that, knowing the answers, he can just serve up whatever fits it.
February 17th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
I am of the opinion that opinion writers are not accountable for their opinions. They already hold their own opinions of themselves in a very high regard. They get a lot of face time on cable, they have paid positions in visible media, and usually have syndicated distribution. No one who watches the latest episode of Lost questions the science. It sells ads and entertains. Science is not the issue. Will can sit next to a Nobel Prize winnder and spew unsubstantiated assertions without a moment’s hesitation. And certainly not feel the slightest compunction to confess ignorance.
February 17th, 2009 at 11:18 pm
Don’t forget Will’s classic 2004 tirade against “environmental hysterics” in which he bases his whole “argument” on a Michael Crichton novel. No, really:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20998-2004Dec22.html
February 17th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Maybe so, but The SURGE changed everything.
February 18th, 2009 at 12:39 am
George Will should stick to writing about baseball. But then again he should stick everything he writes about baseball up his ass, because none of it is particularly interesting.
February 18th, 2009 at 1:19 am
Can’t you just look six posts down and change the title of this to “Matt Yglesias Loves Recycling”????
February 18th, 2009 at 6:00 am
April of 2006, sure. And in 2008, 2004, 1997, and twice in 1992. Serious recycling: seven uses of the same “global cooling” BS that I was able to find in 20 minutes of searching, early Sunday morning.
Links to all of the above (except one of the 1992 columns, which I couldn’t find a free link to) here: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10829915&postcount=1 .
I’d post them directly here, except I get tired of that “this comment has been held for moderation by the blog owner” nonsense that seems to happen whenever I include a bunch of links in a comment these days.
February 18th, 2009 at 7:06 am
Kind of reminds me of college. I had some professors who had been tenured for years but still rewrote every lecture because they believed in teaching, and I had others who trotted out their notes from the first draft they had written when they were babies hoping to be tenured, and their busy outside lives prevented them from additional thought and they got paid as long as they turned up to read their old lectures to the class.
George Will hasn’t had an original thought in years, which I guess is a feature, not a bug.
February 18th, 2009 at 8:47 am
George Will hasn’t had an original thought in years, which I guess is a feature, not a bug.
His Fairness Doctrine fetish (yes, he was the guy who got the current episode of Fairness Doctrine Paranoia rolling) also goes back years. Googling for his older columns on the subject is kinda difficult for it right now, though, on account of his columns on it last August, September, and December.
February 18th, 2009 at 8:51 am
It should also be noted that wife swapper Will was also a great supporter of term limits for congresspeople until 1994 when the Rethuglicans took over Congress. Subsequent to that occurrence, one never heard boo from the wife swapper on the subject.
February 18th, 2009 at 9:13 am
I heard George Will say the same thing on TV or in a column in the early 1990s – unfortunately I do not remember exactly when. Zombie lies never die
Bender
February 18th, 2009 at 9:31 am
I disagree. Will is not lazy. He is a well read and, from his many appearances and columns, reasonably hard working man. From those many appearances, it is also quite clear that he is very narrow-minded and not very smart. I suppose the glasses and the schoolboy schtick fool some people, and the many quotes fool others, but he really is not capable of thinking on his feet or grasping difficult subjects. His capacity for logical argument is virtually non-existant. He is a plodding, slow-witted, disdainful, faux upper-class, curmudgeon who has read all of the books that he’s been told to read but doesnt’t understand them very well.
He probably does not understand how he is wrong about his belief that there was a scientific consensus about global cooling. I doubt he understands the difference between Science Digest* and a peer reviewed journal. I doubt there is any legitimate avenue by which he could possibly learn the difference. Unless you put it in a forged diary of Winston Churchill, he would be unreceptive to it.
*One of Will’s fine sources for the Global Cooling Scientific Consensus
February 18th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Be fair; he’s had to devote more and more of his time to George F. Will’s Sports Machine.
February 18th, 2009 at 11:00 am
It was an eye-opening moment, back in 1984, when Will tried to spin Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” as a Reaganesque work. Sophistry has rarely been as nakedly and stupidly paraded.
February 18th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
jeer9:
George Will is a know-nothing. That is all.
My God, he’s ant-Catholic too?
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