The Final Repudiation

No, George, you should re-ponder the implications of Obama's election yourself. The Framers' purpose for the Electoral College was to prevent the election by popular vote of a demagogue. A demagogue is one who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power. Your piece makes sense only if you are implying that Obama did that during the nomination/election process. But that would be rather presumptuous of you, wouldn't it? Your entire point rests on the false premise that a majority of Americans elected Obama, not because they agreed with his moderate message or position on issues, but because they simply believed he was a better campaigner or orator -- which you claim is "virtually the entire validation of his candidacy." I doubt the Framers would have accused Obama of demagoguery in this election (notwithstanding his race), or that Obama would have felt compelled to have changed the substantive message of his campaign if this past nomination/election process had been conducted exclusively under the the Framers' original plan for presidential elections. If anything, this election proves that democracy (i.e., popular elections) is quite able to produce moderate leaders.

No, George, you should re-ponder the implications of Obama's election yourself. The Framers' purpose for the Electoral College was to prevent the election by popular vote of a demagogue. A demagogue is one who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power. Your piece makes sense only if you are implying that Obama did that during the nomination/election process. But that would be rather presumptuous of you, wouldn't it? Your entire point rests on the false premise that a majority of Americans elected Obama, not because they agreed with his moderate message or position on issues, but because they simply believed he was a better campaigner or orator -- which you claim is "virtually the entire validation of his candidacy." I doubt the Framers would have accused Obama of demagoguery in this election (notwithstanding his race), or that Obama would have felt compelled to have changed the substantive message of his campaign if this past nomination/election process had been conducted exclusively under the the Framers' original plan for presidential elections. If anything, this election proves that democracy (i.e., popular elections) is quite able to produce moderate leaders.

in their favor. Witness the loss of the cloddish McCain campaign or the continual beatings being taken by the Palestinians. It could not be more obvious that Jesus is siding with the Democrats and Allah with the Jews.

I'm a Conservative sans religious belief who happens to think that Obama's victory is a triumph over the sanctimonious god-bothering too often indulged in by the Right. A person's religious beliefs, if they have any, should be as personal as their sexual practices...end of story! Conservatism is not going anywhere in this country until Conservatives realize that they could gain a lot of converts to their otherwise correct beliefs about the operation of a Constitutional Republic by simply getting off the sanctimonious bragging about how GAWD-FEARING they are.

I have never understood why militant Muslims or Republicans cannot get the very clear message that the actions of any GAWD they might consider in extant are definitley NOT

The founders of whom Mr. Will seems so fond, were all white, propertied, males whose vision and intent seem, by today's global standards by which a nation's degree of free access to the political process is judged, quite restrictive, and anti-democratic. Under the founders' intent, Mr. Obama would not have been 'free' to run (pun intended), and even if he had not been enslaved, he would hardly haved stood a chance in 18th Century America. I tire of honorific reference to the founders who, like elites everywhere, set up a system to benefit themselves and their progeny, and exclude others: women, non-Europeans, the non-propetied classes. The 'greatness' of the founders' achievement is more than moderately diminished by the narrowness of their definition of who deserved to participate in the political process and the participation of many of them in the slave system. The present system is degraded by the power of money, perverted by a rapacious and intrusive press, and further dimished by the intellectual apathy of the body politic. What would DeToqueville say of our experiment today?

Mr WIll makes some interesting points, rooted in the undeniable evolution of the mechanics of the Presidential selection process. But what's the cash value? Possible answers (1) We've come a long way from the Founders' intent and hence (1a) we're in for it (1b) ? (2) Mr Obama's resume is thin, iteration #32 and therefore (2a) we're in for it (2b)? However, (A) it is not actually clear that the older mechanisms resulted in the selection of superior people (B) the contrasts between then and now can be overdrawn (cf: the comparisons that have been drawn between Mr Lincoln's thin resume at the time of his nomination & election (under selection process 2.7 or whatever it is according to Mr Will) and Mr Obama's)

Where was George F. a little over a year ago?

What I'd like to know and never heard nor read LINE ONE about is:
that in the week leading up to the New Hampshire Primary, a couple of days past a year ago today,
Ron Paul was ahead of Rudy Giuliani BOTH in the polls and in fundraising for THAT week.
Yet, Ron Paul was "not allowed" to participate in "the debate" that was hosted and broadcast
on ABC NEWS, but Giuliani was. WHY was Ron Paul not allowed to participate,
and WHO decided not to allow him? WHO?! WHY?!
I don't recall EVEN ONE so called "journalist" from ANY news organization OR network
doing a story on it, let alone screaming "BLOODY MURDER".
So much for the Constitutional Amendment that affords you "journalists"
the means of making a living. Where was the "free speech"? Where was the "democracy"?
Where were Ron Paul's First Amendment rights? It was as if the collective "media" couldn't
"sweep this story under the rug" fast enough. What happened?
The American public deserves, and has a right to know.
Why should "poll numbers" be used as an excuse/litmus test to include
or exclude a candidate to a debate for the highest office in the land?
Sad to say, the idea of an American free press is now nothing more than a memory.
Since this comment isn't really about your idea of "the top ten" under-covered stories,
I'm wondering if you guys will even have the balls to let me post it.
Guess we'll find out... won't we?

The anachronistic punctilious premise of Mr. Will's argument is that it is better to have another George W. Bush than an Obama.

In these times of instant information access through the Internet, where we can learn just about everything about a candidate from many and varied sources, those old ideas are out-dated. We are more informed -- and thankfully the media no longer has the power to control what we learn and their ability to shape our thoughts is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Obama is a product of the masses, not the few. He is OUR president. It's a beautiful thing. Welcome to the 21st Century Mr. Will.

However on this one, I think he IS incorrect.

I generally enjoy Mr. Wills commentary on other matters. However on this one, I think he are incorrect. Mr Obama won not because of how he spoke. He won for what he said. Quite a few people on the far left closed their ears and minds to the content of Mr. Obama's speeches on the economy, housing, health care, purpose in attempting to unite a country severely divided by 8 years of very polarizing politics. The likes of which I've not seen either in my lifetime nor in my study of history.

I think our founding fathers would probably be just sad, america was such a young, energetic and inventive country. Now we are slowing sliding into 3rd world territory. We not longer are on the tech cutting edge, we manufacture very little and what we do is not very good. In our effort to never make anyone feel bad we have ruined our children schools have been dummy downed and every child gets a trophy so no one has to compete. Well we had a good run I guess.

Obama is a great man, not a perfect one. The extent that he becomes a great president is actually more in the hands of the American people and, specifically, other elected officials in the federal government. Obama's success as a president rests on the degree that other Americans work with him rather than "worship" him or insists on imprisoning him in their stereotypes and prejudices.

I've read a lot of George Will's columns over the year and often when I'm finished reading I feel a lingering sense of confusion. Confusion not at the piece but about the author. I think Mr Will is brilliant and very well informed and yet, and yet ----- I just can't figure out where he is coming from emotionally. After reading "The Final Repudiation" it struck me, like a bomb, that this man is very bitter. Bitterness is the emotion that I sense floating through much of his writing. Bob Saxon

It???s a wonder that so many are so ready to put words in the mouths of our Founders or even be so bold as to divine their intent apart from any direct reference.

I.e., Histprof @ 11/11/2008 12:49:03 PM: "Although they agreed on little, many of the Framers of the Constitution believed in what Jefferson called a ???natural aristocracy,??? ???. Election would not be dependent upon pedigree, socio-economic status, or even resume (i.e., experience in office), but rather character, reputation, and intellect. ... [Obama] most certainly is exactly what the Founders had in mind when they imagined the natural aristocracy."

Oh, really?? By what standard of "character"? And where is the logic of claiming ground laid by the Founders by impugning the Founders and rejecting them as arcane or misguided?

Many who speak of or for the Founders cherry-pick to satisfy a secular impulse or objective. To be honest to the Founders intent, wouldn't it make sense to let your argument be instructed by fact? One would have to consider the full context of their beliefs, which has certainly never been more readily available than in the age of the internet:

Thomas Jefferson:
???God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God????

Patrick Henry:
???Whether this will prove a blessing or a curse will depend upon the use our people make of the blessings which a gracious God hath bestowed upon us. ??? Righteousness alone shall exalt them as a nation.???

John Adams:
???Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone, which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure virtue; and if this cannot be inspired into our people in a greater measure than they have it now, they may change their rulers and the forms of government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty.???

And consider:

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE: A Frenchman who observed and wrote about America beginning in 1831:
???Religion in America...must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it. Indeed, it is in this same point of view that the inhabitants of the United States themselves look upon religious belief.???

???I sought for the key to the greatness and genius of America in her harbors...; in her fertile fields and boundless forests; in her rich mines and vast world commerce; in her public school system and institutions of learning. I sought for it in her democratic Congress and in her matchless Constitution.???

???Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power.???

If you made it this far, good for you; we s

George you are such a pill....yeah, it was just another election cycle, nothing remarkable about it.

Mr. Will's pining for the good old days was an archaic system of slavery and where only the landed makes it to Congress. Mr. Wil, you're conservative leanings makes you blind to the fact that this is progress. This is a march to true democracy of people's will.