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For reporting that is an embarrassment to the profession of journalism, and for being beholden to corporate paymasters rather than the citizens of America.
We've been meaning to get around to presenting
the weekly BuzzFlash Media Putz award to this conservative
pinhead for some time.
BuzzFlash reader Terry Adcock of Austin, Texas, finally gave
us the kick in the butt we needed:
"George Will is Rush Limbaugh on a diet. Will's exchange [on
ABC's "This Week"] with Sam Donaldson over
global climate change is just ONE example of his repeating
conservative talking points over and over again without the
necessity of thinking.
In contrast to Limbaugh, George just uses more erudite-sounding
words and looks serious. George Will has been a media putz
for YEARS.
Now is the time for you to recognize him!"
Will, who is still pining for the Reagan White House days when
he met Nancy Reagan once a week or so for lunch at the famed
Jockey Club, has been opining for years against doing anything
to reduce global warming.
Of course, being George F. Will, he does it in a style that
parodies itself, as if he had just emerged from some academic
Victorian drawing room of addle-brained retired professors.
What can you say about a media pundit who begins his latest
column in favor of doing nothing about global warming: "Economics
is 'the dismal science,' in part because it puts a price tag
on the pleasure of moralizing. This is pertinent to the crusade,
often masquerading as journalism, aimed at hectoring developed
nations into taking 'strong' actions against global warming."
Dismal is having to read a George F. Will column from beginning
to end. Now that is dismal, indeed.
But, dutifully, we grabbed a glass of sherry, put on our smoking
jacket, lit a cigar, and read Will's entire Newsweek essay.
And then we repeatedly gagged. It was like walking through
the rubble of a university library that had just burned down;
nothing but scraps of high-sounding language that didn't make
much sense.
Take, for instance, Will's concluding sentence: "If nations
concert to impose antiwarming measures commensurate with the
hyperbole about the danger, the damage to global economic growth
could cause in this century more preventable death and suffering
than was caused in the last century by Hitler, Stalin, Mao
and Pol Pot combined. Nobel Peace Prize, indeed."
Whoa, talk about hyperbole! How about jealousy, Mr. Peeps?
Al Gore getting the big one really got to you, eh?
In fact, Will mocks the notion of any effort to cool down the
Earth by sardonically proposing a 5 MPH speed limit around
the world.
Then Will responds to his own cynical proposal with this witty
riposte: "The costs of such global slowing would be the
medievalization of the world, so the world accepts the costs
of velocity."
Good grief.
We couldn't imagine a more pompous, smug windbag to sit next
to at a dinner party. Not only is George F. Will the BuzzFlash
Media Putz of the Week, he is a danger to the future of our
planet. The only award he'll get is the IgNoble Prize, which
he'll have to share with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
George, you have a long history of reminding us how easy it is to separate
journalism from the truth.
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