Is George Will Smarter Than a Third-Grader?

Geroge Will has penned some good articles in times past, but he has become somewhat strange in his old age. It happend to Bill Buckley also, and Barry Goldwater. Something happens as we age and we began to leave the here and now for the forever.

It's sad to see it, but at some point it must be said.

George Will offers a perfect example of why I stopped reading George Will years ago. In his latest screed he writes:

From the invasion of Iraq to the selection of Sarah Palin, carelessness has characterized recent episodes of faux conservatism.

As opposed to Real Conservatism practiced by whom? Patrick Buchanan? Andrew Sullivan? Will’s own private fantasies? Will doesn’t say, but he has made it clear over the years that he detests every nominal conservative who has either held or sought the Presidency since Reagan, so with all due respect to Mr. Will (and note that I did say “due”), there can only be so many real world examples of X that conflict with your personal concept of the “real” X before the real world becomes the real thing and your conceptions become faux.

Tuesday’s probable repudiation of the Republican Party will punish characteristics displayed in the campaign’s closing days.

Right, ‘cuz everyone is really itching to elect the real conservative, Barack Obama, not because they buy into Obama’s personality cult, as some do, and not because they are socialists or near-socialists themselves, as some are, but because they all just want to punish John McCain and the Republicans for not being conservative enough. But hey, you never know. If on Tuesday the first candidate in history to win with almost no experience on an essentially socialist platform is swept into office with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate on the side, maybe the Democrats will interpret this as a strong mandate to become the party of Real Conservatism and limited government. And maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt.

It gets better ... read the whole thing.