George Will's Transition

George Will had been a reliable conservative, not shaping modern doctrine like William F. Buckley, but reflecting the reasoned positions of the right as one of the all-too few voices from my side on network television. My how George has recently changed. While he is not yet leading the leftists that populate ABC's news division in a rousing chorus of "The Internationale", he now joins the leftist rag, The Nation, in advocating withdrawal of our forces from Afghanistan. The consequences of such a retreat would be devastating, completely eroding our friends' faith in the US, as we have asked our allies to sacrifice their own blood and treasure to assist us there, to then simply abandon the effort ourselves. A nation must be credible in her commitments to allies and must inspire fear in enemies. The US lost the quality of fear in the Blackhawk Down incident in Mogadishu that led us to leave Somalia with our tail dragging and allowed Osama bin Laden to dream he could perpetrate a 9/11 and get away with it. George Will used to be a hawk. With age and the ravages of time, like one of the fathers of American conservatism, Barry Goldwater who in his dotage, favored gays serving openly in the military, saying "I don't care if they are straight, so long as they shoot straight", George Will has morphed into a shadow of his former self. Whether Will is posturing for a new contract with ABC, trying to regain relevance as the FOX news crowd passes him by, feeling his last drop of testosterone drip away, or simply a victim of poor reasoning, we can only speculate, but it is sad to see a bird who once soared with the eagles, scratching around the barnyard with chickens.