Here’s the nastiest bit I’ve come across in a long time. This effluvium emanates, you will be less than bouleversé to ascertain, from the Sultan of the Supercilious, the CEO of Self-satisfaction, the Prince of Pretension, the Poobah of Pomposity, the High Priest of Preciosity, the King Kong of Kondescension, America’s Avatar of Affectation, ladies and gentlemen, give it up for — GEORGE F. WILL!
[Obama] and John Edwards, flaunting their histrionic humility in order to promote their curdled populism, hawked strikingly similar messages in Iowa, encouraging self-pity and economic hypochondria.
To follow this thought to its endearing conclusion, Will feels that the poor, the sick and the homeless have no one to blame but themselves and if they had any gumption at all they’d do like he did — get born to a professor of philosophy, learn loads of loquacious locution at Princeton and Oxford, and then pimp his prissy wee pen out to the power.
I think a modern day HL Mencken was reborn in this posting.
As an aside, notice how Will doesn't mention that his so called statistics on income don't appear to have been adjusted for inflation. If they had, if he was honest, he'd be talking about a drastic change in income.
Posted by: Buck on January 7, 2008 8:48 PMMy letter to George Will:
You wrote:
"Economist Stephen Rose, defining the middle class as households with annual incomes between $30,000 and $100,000, says a smaller percentage of Americans are in that category than in 1979 -- because the percentage of Americans earning more than $100,000 has doubled from 12 to 24, while the percentage earning less than $30,000 is unchanged. "So," Rose says, "the entire 'decline' of the middle class came from people moving up the income ladder." Even as housing values declined in 2007, the net worth of households increased."
Without being adjusted for inflation, these statistics are meaningless and dishonest. Well, no, actually they prove the opposite of what you are trying to prove once we do the proper adjustments. If they were adjusted for inflation, there's no excuse for sloppy writing.
Posted by: Bruce on January 7, 2008 8:55 PMYour protracted, uncensored, sincere description of George Will is positively orgasmic!!
Posted by: Patticakes on January 8, 2008 1:25 PM