The Final Repudiation

How does George Will know what the Founders intended if what they wrote insn't what they meant. Has he been listening to Anthony Scalia when he is channelling Thomas Jefferson?

This article was written in November. George Will should have called upon his powers of prescience to see that in the next year President Obama would deal with a faltering economy, withdraw troops from Iraq, start a peace process in the Middle East, tackle climate change, repair relations with our allies, promote health care reform, kill an ineffective missle defense system, effectivrely confront Iran... . It looks like Obama has accomplished a lot in the eight months he's been in office.

And - what has George Will accomplished in the last year? ....

After George Bush's very disastrous presidency, which has ruined and devastated this country, we most certainly contemplated the Picking process and chose wisely!

It is a sad stain on our society that Republicans and some Pundits spend more time in critiscising the President and Democrats than offering solution which help all of us. Most of this critiscism is petty jealousy and does not add to any positive agendas or upliftment. Many pundits spend the time they have nitpicking, picking apart, tearing apart and it is more ugly than contstructive. No wonder we have lost civility in this country. And, then there are those who want him to fear Doing Anything because he might Lose! We would never get anything done, any of us, if we lived by that premise. There will always be times when we do not get what we want, but that does not mean we have to stop trying.

President Obama has to stay in the public domain to continually answer and address the lies pomulgated against him daily. Thank God he is a Symbol of what a 21st President should act like -- able to do more than one thing at a time (multi-tasker) able to communicate, cooperative, inclusive, forward thinking and thoughtful.

the Electorial college is in my opinion one of the most dangerous parts of our constitution! In an age when we are informed at lightning speed of anything we wish to know about, why would anyone think that the american people cant or dont make educated decisions about who we PREFER our leaders to be! The college is not bound to follow any law, reason, or for that matter ethic, it should not exist!

Ben Franklin wasn't called the Great Compromiser for naught. In the present political atmosphere there is no hope for that. Oh that his spirit would somehow enter a willing someone. Common sense is - the truth and somehow we will ALL know it when we actually HEAR IT. Hopefully we will also be listening. One and all.

The Federal Government???s flood of red ink hit another high-water mark as the bama adminstration,Treasury Department quietly reported today that the National Debt hit $11-trillion for time ever. To be exact, the Debt now stands at $11,033,157,578,669.78. Divide it by the U.S. population and it comes up to over $36,000 in debt for every man, woman and child among us.And the government is running up mountains of debt with increasing speed. It took just over 5 ½ months for Uncle Sam Obama to operates in great urgency speed,to retrives the US tainted economy to the right track,which already bright in red ink economy with the previous adminstration. Obama needs another trillion dollars $787 billion as stimulus deeper in debt urgency,since hitting $10-trillion lastSeptember 30th under Bush. It???s the fastest in U.S history.

As for those unpatience,idotics right wing nuts ,whning lies about the obama $787 billion development,shouting more of same under Bush have no economy idea how hard for Obama to convince CHINA to take up US BOND AND NOTES, THIS MONEY still at China Treasury Dept,to be release soon after Obama made a promise to Guarantee China through (US Tax Payers)to Premier Wen Jiabao as China already holding almost One trillion in US BOND and NOTE.

For those do NOT understand about US BOND and NOTE interest,here some light.
The 5 years guarantee payment for any US 27 billion,3 billion as interest payment the holder.The bigger amount issued bigger the quantum interest as payment will be.......SO stop Dreaming,Lets Lives on the real World.!

I voted for Hillary, then Obama. We should all thank committed Americans, like George Will, for being serious about the perils of straying too far from the legitimate intentions of those who conceived and constructed our Republic. The Founders knew a great deal about human nature and political history; they sought to avoid known mistakes of past polities at every turn. Popular arts and brilliant appearances, merely, are not enough. It appears and we continue to hope Mr. Obama is a great deal more, but then Mr. Will has recognized and engaged the Obama presidency patriotically. Thank you, George - this article is a needed and enlightening reminder.

George you are too transparent with your politics. This process seemed to not be adhered to 8 years ago when George Bush was annointed President by the Supreme Court. Also, there is more to leadership than a resume as we are seeing Obama try to bring about change as a leader in a political environment that doesn't take well to change.

George you are too transparent with your politics. This process seemed to not be adhered to 8 years ago when George Bush was annointed President by the Supreme Court. Also, there is more to leadership than a resume as we are seeing Obama try to bring about change as a leader in a political environment that doesn't take well to change.

ojames41--I voted for Obama and I am a Democrat. Whichever candidate made it out of the Democratic primary was always going to be heavily favored in the general election due to Bush unpopularity.

You need to go back and read the rules of the Democratic primary. Neither Obama nor Hillary received anywhere close to enough delegates through the voting process to win the nomination. The nomination came down to superdelegates; and we found out a few weeks ago that Daschle, a man who withdrew his name for a cabinet appointment in disgrace, had been working behind the scenes in order to get superdelegates to support Obama--all the while Obama was campaigning against behavior like Daschle's!! Obama was able to win the nomination, despite receiving fewer popular votes than Hillary, because of Daschle's efforts.

The Democratic nominating process is clearly broken and needs to be reformed. Obama came up with a brilliant strategy to exploit the undemocratic aspects of the primary and executed it nearly flawlessly. Democrats need to get rid of caucuses and superdelegates--both of which are clearly undemocratic. The NY Times (the paper that influenced Daschle's decision to withdraw) wrote an editorial about the reforms that are necessary. The problem with the editorial was that it was published the day after Hillary withdrew. The editorial board waited until she withdrew because the board was clearly in the tank for Obama and did not want to influence superdelegates--this belated action was unethical and irresponsible! So the superdelegates put Obama over the top under the fiction that elected delegates reflected popular will.

Regardless of what we may today imagine the Founding Fathers' "true" intent of the "selection process" for the presidency to be, both Ceaser and Will appear bent on subverting what is clearly a more democratic process than the one they support. Throughout history the intellectual elte and the rich have always attempted to control the electoral process no matter the geography. It is such a pathetic commentary on how they view the ordinary citizen that Will seems convinced that Obama's victory was entirely due to the "popular art" of oratory. In short the "people" cannot distinguish between pure oratory and meaningful substance communicated by oratory. This is, of course, not at all surprising. It would be quite interesting to have Ceaser and Will explain the point of their own oratory.

George should read "Team of Rivals". No one has ever accused Abraham Lincoln of being a lightweight or criticized his incredible speaking skills. He, like Obama, had a true gift of being able to connect with people at all levels of society. From less than auspicious backgrounds, both men rose to the Presidency through their belief systems, consitent message, authenticity, and yes, even their senses of humor and ability not to take themselves so seriously. Will is an all too predictable pundit. No one should be surprised! Best of luck to our new President!

This article should have little to do with Obama, and completely nullifies its own Obama argument by alleging that Jimmy Carter won by these same means (not really).

The founders did not want a popular vote for president because they were afraid that highly unqualified candidates could use things like religion to fool the masses into voting for an idiot, as in the case of George W. Bush.

I once respected the words of George Will. That day is long over.

It's amazing how conservatives like to rewrite the truth.
I can't help but visualize Jack Nicholson delivering the
line, "You can't handle the truth..."

The problems with Will's reasoning run deeper than is mentioned here. The worst of this now-worn argument that Obama masks a lack of ability behind oratory, is not in the point that oratory is not enough: Will, et al, actually pose that oratory is dangerous ( he says we should be "...deeply fearful of leaders deploying popular oratory as the means of winning distinction). How ironic, coming from a man whose made a career of displaying his command of the written and spoken word.

Will has never had a problem with the power of oratory. Indeed, his career blossomed on his boot-licking praise of Reagan as the "Great Communicator." In that time, Will hailed it as a good thing that a President's words were resonant.
The envious and bitter like to say that Obama's appeal is merely in the tenor and cadence of his words. I believe his words resonate because he is offering a path away from the system Will endorses, one in which we are made to discern the truth from a competing set of lies.

No, what "Americans should ponder" - White Americans that is - is that while Bush alienated millions of americans with overly generous give-away programs to the corporate/wealthy class (virtually spitting upon the poor with his arrogant lack of concern for them), a Black man with a relatively meager middle-class background comes along with a totally different attitude and manner of speaking who makes the majority of americans - of ALL stripes and flavors - feel as if their opinions mattered, that if they spoke up their government leaders would listen to them....once again. Nevermind the sophistry and out-dated arguments of how Bush-type snobs centuries ago conspired to keep non-bluebloods out of public office - it's totally irrelevant! Mr Will, you must have lost a lot of money in the 'markets' recently, and you're wise enough to look into the financial future - as most can't - and see Capitalism's end and what that means to your class of people, and you're angry that with Obama in office those who your people deem redundant, or non-productive, or worthless, will become recipients of government largesse - anathema to your way of thinking. Forget your money, Mr Will - it's going down the drain, the same drain most of ours went down a long time ago - and try expressing a little happiness for those who'll feel some temporary relief under an Obama administration. I say "temporary" for reasons you well know why, but what will you do? CC your message to orphanages, enlightening the children by telling them Santa Claus doesn't exist? Lighten up for cry sake!

George, I strongly suggest it is time for you to step away from your detached pedestal and re-enter the fray of reality where Obama and the rest of us live. Newsweek would do well to reassign you to the White House Press Corp so you and this new President can debate the challenges of actually governing in this new century and the true "depth" of the respective debaters.

The Founders of this country found nothing wrong with slavery. They felt that only wealthy and well-born white males should have the right to vote. Both the Senate and the electoral college were designed to prevent the vast majority form having their say. When the founders began the preamble with "We the people..." , only wealthy, well-born white males were considered people. No one else counted. Bear in mind that in the world of the Founding Fathers, Obama would be a slave, always a slave and nothing but a slave.
We have just finished 8 years of rule based on so-called Federalist principles - government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich. Look what we are facing because of this.
I for one do not want to go back to the 18th century. To quote Paul D from Toni Morrison's Beloved, a book that George despetely needs to read, "We got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow."
That's the reason I voted for Obama. George F. Will is no different than William Faulkner's Miss Emily (from "A Rose for Emily.") Like Miss Emily, George is sleeping with the dead,.