George Will and Santa

Well George, it’s that time of year again. Sleigh bells ring. Are you listening?  When I think of you at this time of year, I can’t help but recall my favorite seat cushion, “Dear Santa, I can explain.” You have a lot of explaining to do this year, and Santa won’t be happy. Perhaps that’s ok with you – after all, there are a lot of desperate people in mid-winter looking for heat, and selling coal by the lump could be quite profitable. And besides, your model for behavior, Ebenezer, never used to think much of Christmas either. Nevertheless, we worry about you.

Some of what you did this year could have been sheer absent mindedness. For example, when you were busy chastising dentists for enforcing dentistry practices the way doctors do, you called it an abridgment of freedom as the evil economic practice of “rent seeking.” The fact that you support rent seeking all the time when corporations do it must surely just have slipped your mind. And the increasing gun volleys outside your windows from the freedom to keep and bear arms you so strongly support must be so far away – you live in the quiet part of town, after all – that you just haven’t noticed yet. I’m sure Santa will understand. He can’t be too happy though that Christmas has become the biggest gun buying time of year: it frightens the children, and some of them miss their parents terribly. Besides, coming down that chimney has become a real hazard.

Santa must have notes on his list though about some of the other things you did this year. Your continuing full-throated opposition to raising the minimum wage is a lot closer to the old Ebenezer than it is to Christmas Present. How do the children get presents? They can’t all come down the chimney. And your opposition to the Justice Department’s insistence on a rule in Wisconsin that would require all schools to provide adequate facilities for disabled children must have upset Tiny Tim.

Your criticism of young women on college campuses who had been raped, for enjoying playing the victim, will really require fast talking when Santa arrives. Everyone noticed that one. However, you are good at fast talking.  Even Santa may admire the way you managed to support your opposition to Obama’s action to prevent children from being separated from their parents in the name of enforcing immigration law. You claimed Obama’s action upset “a planetary balance akin to that of the solar system” between legislative and executive powers. You really know how to transcend reality! But Santa may not be fooled. That balance wasn’t making his job any easier.

So, all in all, it hasn’t been a good year George.  I know you hate to be tethered to mere reality, but try looking around you at what’s actually going on in the world and it may give you some ideas of how to do better next year. Perhaps Santa can arrange a visit from Christmas Future. Have a glass of syllabub and think about it. Merry Christmas!