Whose king, whose horse? And did Chait corral the G, or cheat on the 2nd pass?

Ah, public ed.

Conservative columnists have always had trouble with facts (as do some some on the left), and this will only get worse as the facts surrounding (in Will's case) global warming or the economic crisis etc become increasing damaging to their narrative mantras.
Look for Will, Kristol, Rove, Brooks and co to publish pieces that are further and further removed from any factual basis, until they resemble rightwing wish lists rather than commentary on anything real.

Facts are stupid things. This and the post below portray our MSM as soldiers for the status quo.

What's wrong with that?

wow. What a pathetic and impenetrable passage from Will about "bloggers". The wonderful thing about the internet is that it puts "truth" and reliance on the facts in the hands of the masses. If you write something false it will be found out and written about almost immediately whereas with the dying newspaper industry if you write something patently untrue and it gets published the correction if there is one happens days later and is buried somewhere that you can't easily find.

I've written this many times on this blog when Will's name has come up. THere is a passage in his obtuse and moronic baseball book where he equates umpires with judges and goes on to say that sometimes they'll get a call wrong in a person's favor but eventually they'll get a call wrong against a person's favor so it all even's out in the end.

"Hey don't worry, we put you on death row and you're innocent, but eventually we'll let someone off that should be. It all evens out in the end"

It's also ironic that a supposed free marketeer would be intrinsically against the level playing field of the web.

It's been lies from the Right for a long time-- the deliberate strategy was to get the sound bite out there, and dominate the news channels, and facts be damned. The difference now is that the Liar-in-Chief is no longer there to screen attention from unter-liars like Will.

It's actually the internet and bloggers, with much more rapid-response factchecking, that has exposed pompous condescending hacks like Will for what they are--which explains why he doesn't like bloggers.
A hack with a Ph.D and a thesaurus is still a hack. He could get away with it before the internet, but not now.

-->"Look for Will, Kristol, Rove, Brooks and co to publish pieces that are further and further removed from any factual basis, until they resemble rightwing wish lists rather than commentary on anything real."

For example, did you know that cancer didn't exist until FDR invented it as part of the new deal?? I heard that on Hannity last night.

She said, "Well, the editor mentioned it to Will and he's having a tantrum; they decided they can't run it."

So the editor didn't have any qualms about letting the falsehood stand? That suggests that, for Will, et al, there are no reigns on veracity -- few means of control and direction.

Gripe: "Reins", as correctly used by Will and Chait, are the things on a horse. "Reigns" are of kings and such; why misspell it when already given the correct spelling? Hrumph! :(

Regarding Will, the late R. David Cox wrote 10 or 15 years ago:

"In fact, I think most of the media bend over backwards to at least reflect conservative views, else we'd never have heard of George Will. We would have heard of William Buckley, Jr., though. He can write."

does geo will have to emit a stench with every word he writes before he's NOT TAKEN SERIOUSLY.

this guy has been around since forever, and has never been anything but a stinky, prissy, asshole.

good on baseball, tho, well kinda...

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall for his tantrum! I wonder if it was as pompous as the rest of the drivel that comes out of his mouth?

I am positive I heard him use the global cooling myth in the early 1990's - I am not sure if it was in his column or on This Week with David Brinkley. I remember it because I remember making an angry post about this on a message board.
Bender

Can we get a fact-checker on the title of this story, please? "Where there's a Will, there no way" - surely that's not what was intended?

[Fixed. From the moderating screen it trailed off at "the..." and the error wasn't seen until you pointed it out and I clicked on it. Apologies. --Mod]

When Will throws a tantrum it is probably like a snit or getting the vapors.

"Reigns" are of kings and such; why misspell it when already given the correct spelling? -Theo

I thought it was intentional; a homonym pun based on the paper's behavior toward Will: they treat him like royalty.

Hey, mod--close your italics.

[Thanks, and apologies. I see more coffee is going to be required. --Mod]

"Where there's a Will, there's a relative," was how the old saying went. Maybe George heard that and took it to heart so that everything is relative for him.

And there could be three realities:
Faith based
Opinion based
Fact based.

Media liars are terrorists. Arrest them all!

This reminds me of that Don Henley song the Garden of Allah. And these lyrics.

Today I made an appearance downtown
I am an expert witness because I say I am
And I said gentlemen, and I use that world loosely
I will testify for you, I'm a gun for hire,I'm a saint, I'm a liar
Because there are no facts, there is no truth
Just data to be manipulated
I can get you any result you like
What's it worth to you?
Because there is no wrong, there is no right
And I sleep very well at night
No shame, no solution, no remorse, no retribution
Just people selling t-shirts
Just opportunity to participate in the pathetic little circus
and winning, winning, winning

There are, however, essentially no reins on the Web -- few means of control and direction.

Um, what about that magical market conservatives are always touting? Look at Nate Silver -- FiveThirtyEight was indispensable reading during the election because of the quality of his analysis, which far surpassed that of pundits like Will.

True, there's also a market for conservative blogs to push comforting lies, and no amount of debunking causes them to lose credibility with their readers, but the rise of lefty blogs like Talking Points Memo, Daily Kos and yes, Steve's various venues have everything to do with quality and credibility -- two factors Will doesn't have and never did.

Oops sorry that last line in Will's case should have been:
Whining,whining,whining

As Jonathan Chait noted, "If by 'no reins,' Will means that bloggers can publish outright falsehoods without consequence, then he's correct. But he might not be the best person to make this point."

I think Will more likely means that the problem is that bloggers can publish the truth without consequences imposed by the corporate oligarchy that constitutes media owners and advertisers that provide job security to hacks like Will whose schtick is misdirection to keep the public complacent for their corporate overlords.

Will ... "a tantrum" - what an asshole along with his Editor/s. No good Editor lets writers' "tantrums" get in the way of correction.

Building on grinning cat's comments --

Blogs are much better than newspapers, merely for the comments section. If someone makes an innocent mistake of fact or interpretation, it gets called out in the comments. On a reputable blog, there is an update.

THe other interesting thing about blogs, especially for opinion pieces, is the contrary opinions given. SOmetimes the opposing side is so scandalously bereft of a good argument, I'm almost positive I'm getting the full story.

Consider George Will and the film titled "The China Syndrome."

First, the movie. This is from, of all people, Amity Shlaes: "The China syndrome has nothing to do with China. The name comes from Fonda's 1979 Columbia Pictures film about a massive meltdown at a nuclear power plant, in which a reactor core burns deep into the earth, or "all way to China" (hence the title, "The China Syndrome"). The film featured Fonda with bright red hair and the giant hoop earrings that were popular that year— a year when there was a revolution in Iran and the gasoline price soared. Two weeks after "The China Syndrome" opened in New York theaters, there was a genuine nuclear accident at Three Mile Island, outside Harrisburg, Pa."

Now George Will. This is from "Conglomerated Baddies: The 22 Most Evil Corporations in Movie History, Part 2" by Peter Smith: "When the movie opened, George Will wrote a column in Newsweek denouncing the filmmakers who, driven by sheer greed, had slandered an important American institution so carefully managed that no serious power plant accident could ever, ever happen. Twelve days after the movie opened, and with the magazine containing Will's column still on newsstands, it was announced that the nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island had experienced a "partial core meltdown." Perhaps the major accomplishment of the movie was to establish that God likes dull movies a lot more than he likes George Will."

Actually, my memory of the film is that is was quite good. Or perhaps, even then, I just liked seeing Will embarrassed.

Will has run this same global-cooling bit not just this past Sunday and in 2006, but in 2008, 2004, 1997, and twice in 1992.

Links to those columns (except for one of the 1992 columns that didn't seem to be on any free databases) here: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10829915&postcount=1

So on top of being a liar, Will is also thin-skinned.

LOL

Reminds me of something his WaPo colleague Richard Cohen said in his Feb. 3 column:

"Abolish tenure. There are other ways to ensure that teachers are fairly treated without guaranteeing the jobs of the inept. (Cops don't have tenure, and neither do columnists.)"

Italics mine. With idiots like Broder, Will, and Cohen seemingly 100% secure in their prime real estate, no matter what idiocy they spew, it's hard to see how their job security resembles anything else besides tenure.

"Abolish tenure. There are other ways to ensure that teachers are fairly treated without guaranteeing the jobs of the inept. (Cops don't have tenure, and neither do columnists.)"

It's worth noting, in addition to low-tech cyclist's comments, that this is generally wrong with regard to cops in many, if not most, places; as is fairly typical of civil servants, they quite often have tenure-like protections that prohibit dismissal but for good cause (and law enforcement unions are, in general, at least as effective as, and often far more effective than, teachers unions and other public-sector unions in making sure that these protections are substantive, effective guarantees rather than ineffective formalities.)

As Jonathan Chait noted, "If by 'no reins,' Will means that bloggers can publish outright falsehoods without consequence, then he's correct...."

Sure bloggers say lots of nutty things. But then that's the Republican trolls.

I suppose George Will is just an earlier example of what is common now: popularity over truth.

Many years ago Saturday Night Live did a skit with former U.N. Ambassador Jean Kirkpatrick wherein they tried to lampoon everybody in the world but her by asking what the 'common sense' answers were to questions. She gave precise correct answers, but was always "wrong".

Now we have Republicans taking the opposite tack: everything they say is bizarre and beyond lying. I guess Ms. Kirkpatrick was just not appealing to the electorate.

Maybe it goes back to Ronald Reagan who said it was best not to check the facts on a good story or risk ruining it. Or it could go back to "I am not a crook" Richard Nixon.

The Republican credo these days seems to be "If you can't win elections by telling the people what you are and what you would do in office, then lie lie lie and don't stop lying".

Of course, there appear to be many who really believe all the crap. That's where they enter into the surreal Bushie world. The people who think Obama isn't American and that he's a Socialist or the Republicans in California who don't believe in paying their bills, but sure like the services. The denial of Truth goes on and on.