What's wrong with Will?

For an allegedly brilliant and independent intellect, George Will certainly makes himself easy pickin's.

Actually, it's his latest appearance on television, as opposed to one of his syndicated columns, which prompts this entry. Yesterday, amid a panel comprising Katrina vanden Heuvel, Fahreed Zakaria, and host George Stephanopolous,  Will exhibited delusional thinking by denying the - ready? - phenomenon of global warning.

That's correct, reader. The same genius who insists that the answer to "What's the Matter with Kansas?" is a smug, curt "not much," based on his rationale that "values voters" were not duped by bait-and-switch corporations which enticed them into voting against their economical well-being. The same principled conservative who fawningly interviews Tom DeLay, admiring his ability to reward faithful constituents with home-grown goodies while barely alluding to charges that the guy is as corrupt as it gets.

The same discerning journalist who positively makes liberals giggle as he inadvertently concedes our altruistic instincts in his elaborate essay defending "happy" (never mind ignorant) conservatives.

Yet I was jolted when, on This Week, he questioned the existence of global warming with supplementary skepticism of human behavior accelerating it. In challenging the scientific consensus, he mentioned something (I'm being as vague as he was) about the climate 200 years ago. Without blinking, and simultaneous with my response, Zakaria retorted: "George, there was no record-keeping 200 years ago." To which I would have added: "While there are no available official statistics, there are anecdotal accounts of frigid winters that would put my own encounters with frostbite, dead batteries, and keys breaking off into locks 20 years ago to shame."  Which still would have failed to address the rather dramatic increase and severity of acts of nature that apparently haven't been phasing the supercilious one.

Undaunted, Will persisted with another vague reference, this time quoting a prediction from the 1970s until vanden Heuvel, with the observation that he was merely making her case for her, effectively shut him down, and Stephanopolous, whether or not as stunned as I was, rescued his ass by switching the discussion to another topic.

Since Will often draws upon his spoken remarks for his op eds, I'm left anticipating his inevitable column disputing the "liberal scare tactic," immediately followed by one ridiculing the "gravity myth."  At which point, as his accuser, I'll advise him to locate the nearest roof, then climb on it and jump off. And apologize profusely when gravity acquiesces to his assertions by demonstrating that it doesn't believe in him.

George Will. Global Warming. Coincidence of initials? Actually, I think it is.