George Will owes his readers an apology

I get Newsweek mailed to my home every week for free (courtesy of my inlaws) and I actually read dishonest hack George Will's latest column this afternoon . . . and nearly threw up halfway through it.

Will's column basically makes the argument that Michael Bloomberg - what has specifically stated he will not run for president next year - is a flip-flopper and has no shot at winning the White House. No argument from me on either of these two points.

But incredibly, in trying to make his case Will states that:

The most consequential American third-party candidate was Ralph Nader in 2000. But for his 97,488 votes in Florida, which George W. Bush won by 537 votes, Al Gore probably would be finishing his second term. But even successful independent or third-party candidates have one thing in common: They lose.

A candidate can succeed in giving an aggrieved minority a voice -- e.g., George Wallace, speaking for people furious about the '60s tumults.

Progressive watchdog group Media Matters points out what anyone who knows anything at all about the Civil Rights Era already knows: Wallace was a hard-core racist whose campaign was specifically built around opposing desegregation and the Civil Rights Acts!

Will and the editors at Newsweek owe all of its subscribers an apology for printing this offensive garbage. For a pundit who prides himself on his precision and mastery of the English language, it is difficult for me to understand how his throwaway sentences on Wallace's legacy are supposed to be taken as anything other than offensive to those who gave their lives fighting for civil rights in the 50s and 60s. I've said my piece on the magazine's website and you can do so as well here.

*This post is the second part in the series "George Will Sucks". (Part one is here)

Media Matters' complete dossier on Will is here.

Update: Courtesy of PBS's website, here are some timeless quotes from that historic candidate who "gave a voice to an aggrieved minority" of racist southerners. A link to the network's excellent documentary on Wallace is here.

Historian Rick Perlstein has a thorough takedown on Will and his ignorant editorial here. I think he really sums it up best: "A sickening man named George Will has just laundered the historical reputation of a monster."