This is how they do it
by digby
George Will is an ass. But he isn’t a stupid ass, which is why this column today is such a good example of right wing tactics.
We all know that Barack Obama is not a populist. Defend him or criticize him, love him or hate him, it’s clear that he’s a technocratic mediator, a deal maker and an economic centrist at best. This may be pragmatic or ideological — I do not know his heart. But there is one thing that’s quite clear in all this and it’s that he is about as close to being Huey Long as Andrew Breitbart is to being Edward R. Murrow. They sometimes use the same words, but they are speaking a very different language.
Will is doing a political job here, not an analytical one. He is serving the party with which he identifies by drawing a very tortured comparison between a Democratic president who proposed to cut trillions of dollars in spending in an economic downturn, who willingly put the New Deal and Great Society safety nets on the table as negotiating chips and is literally begging the Republicans to take him up on it — and someone most people think of as a power-hungry, populist demagogue. The mere idea of the President using the executive branch for domestic initiatives is portrayed as offensive to democracy and the separation of powers, which is very convenient at a time like this (and a rule only in force during Democratic administrations.)
He is, of course, speaking to the Village, his home and only sphere of influence. Nobody in the country cares what he thinks. He’s helping move the goalposts for the party, but he’s also giving the Village media the way to excuse the insane behavior of the Republicans. This is his job.
There are conservative pundits who think for themselves and answer only to their readers and their consciences. George Will is not one of them. He’s an operative and a very sophisticated one at that. And he’s got his job cut out for him. If he’s reduced to something this surreal and cartoonish it’s a sign that they are truly getting desperate to find a way to explain what’s become a tragic farce.
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