Wednesday, October 05, 2005
George Will - Is it "Tinny Arf" II?
It was said that Lyndon Johnson knew his Viet Nam policy had lost the support of the American people when Walter Cronkite announced his opposition.
President Johnson was wrong in trusting the opinion of a new anchor as a barometer of public opinion even if it was Uncle Walter. If it wasn't clear then that Walter Cronkite nurtured his own peculiar biases, it certainly has become clear in the years since he stepped down as the CBS anchor.
Yet, the critique of one current day opinion leader in the media is a different matter. Certainly one who has more intellectual heft than anyone else in the media. And certainly one who serves as a beacon for much of the conservative community.
Today, George Will published a stinging critique of President Bush's choice of Harriet Miers to fill Justice O'Conner's seat on the Supreme Court. President Bush's recent slide in the polls is not so much a sign of people increasingly siding with his liberal critics. The slide has much to do with conservative disenchantment.
George Will famously characterized the President's father as having the "tinny arf of a lap dog." Is today's Will critique the equivalent of that famous Reagan-era column?
President Johnson was wrong in trusting the opinion of a new anchor as a barometer of public opinion even if it was Uncle Walter. If it wasn't clear then that Walter Cronkite nurtured his own peculiar biases, it certainly has become clear in the years since he stepped down as the CBS anchor.
Yet, the critique of one current day opinion leader in the media is a different matter. Certainly one who has more intellectual heft than anyone else in the media. And certainly one who serves as a beacon for much of the conservative community.
Today, George Will published a stinging critique of President Bush's choice of Harriet Miers to fill Justice O'Conner's seat on the Supreme Court. President Bush's recent slide in the polls is not so much a sign of people increasingly siding with his liberal critics. The slide has much to do with conservative disenchantment.
George Will famously characterized the President's father as having the "tinny arf of a lap dog." Is today's Will critique the equivalent of that famous Reagan-era column?
