George Will wrote an inordinately foolish and dishonest column the other day: http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
As of the morning of 12/1/06, the foolishness and dishonesty of this column has generated over 78 pages of reader comments, overwhelmingly negative.
I'm on page 54 myself.
I wonder what page other folks are on?
I think there will be follow up to this. I would very much like to know:
- What is the record for comments? Because this baby is smoking along in the number count.
- What will Deborah Howell post, if anything, in response to the obvious dishonesty of Will's post, through his selective omission of key parts of Webb's exchange with Bush?
- Will Geo. Will publish a correction, apology, or clarification? (Yeah yeah, I know the answer already)
They really really drop the ball on this, and the Post needs to publish something to clarify they understand the facts were misrepresented. Will is entitled to his own wrong opinions, but he should not be permitted to blatently misrepresent the facts, which he does by omission.
This sort of column should live for a long long time, because now Will has set a dishonest standard that can forever be applied to him. It an anvil around on his neck whenever in the future he comments on civility, honesty, and accuracy in facts. And it's the sort of the thing that can generate some derivative media coverage on its own - which must conclusively conclude he lied and Webb was appropriate, if not laudable in his behavior.
Anyway, it was pretty damn funny scrolling through the comments because of the simultaneously exploding incredulity expressed by all these people at the same time.
UPDATE: Unbelievable. Howard Kurtz, the Washington Post's Media Notes columnist, addresses the Will column, without once acknowledging Will's blatant disregard of what was actually said. It's incredible. Was it laziness, ignorance, incuriosity, what? Whatever the explanation, it's not remotely acceptable for Kurtz to fail to note Will's shocking lapse in ethics. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
His balance is to cite an extract of Ephron's frankly lame "column", which didn't even adequately address the real problem or Will's selective use of the exchange.