More From the Department of Conservative B.S.

[UPDATED BELOW]

This morning in my local paper, I was greeted by a column written by George Will titled Nation Needs a Divided Government. I assume George expresses that sentiment because the divisions in our government have worked so well for us for the last 8 years. Perhaps I assume too much. Perhaps George isn't talking about this nation. He's so very clever you know.

Let me give you a sampling:

WASHINGTON Man is in love and loves what vanishes. What more is there to say?

– William Butler Yeats

Conservatives, who reputedly have lumps of coal where their hearts should be, have fallen in love. So have many people who are not doctrinal conservatives. The world is a sweeter place because Sarah Palin has increased the quantity of love, but this is not a reliable foundation for John McCain's campaign.

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Palin is as bracing as an Arctic breeze and delightfully elicits the condescension of liberals whose enthusiasm for everyday middle-class Americans cannot survive an encounter with one.

Now, these passages are just the lead-in to Will's primary point. However, why should I continue to read something so inherently shoddy when it comes to reasoning?

Not only does Mr. Will resort to unbelievably sweeping generalizations at every turn, firstly in order to mock what he assumes all liberals assume about all conservatives ("lumps of coal where their hearts should be"), but then he deftly demonstrates his own inability to think beyond labels: Palin "elicits the condescension of liberals whose enthusiasm for everyday middle-class Americans cannot survive an encounter with one." Not "some liberals;" no names of any specific liberals; no direct reference to any specific manifestation of this condescension; but, hey, he's George Will, so you can take his word for it.

Yes, the "brilliant George Will" wrote those passages. The brilliant George Will wants you to know that "middle-class Americans" and "liberals" are mutually exclusive. There are no middle-class American liberals. Oddly, his reference to middle-class Americans and "encounters with one" makes him sound like he's the old guy in the Geico commercial, complete with accent, surreptitiously observing the lizard ... and we middle-class Americans are the lizard. Yes, the so very down to earth George Will wants me to know that I could not survive an encounter with myself. That's the same George Will who began his column with a quote, not from an American poet, but from an Irish poet who was born into privilege and whose poetry (some of it) has been described as "elitist."

It's really very simple, George. Maybe the simplicity of it explains why your complex brain is having difficulty grasping it: Perhaps Sarah Palin elicits condescension because she is utterly unqualified, and apparently not self-aware enough to realize it. Couple that lack with the fact that the office she seeks has been transformed into some kind of power-wielding hybrid Fourth Branch by its current occupant. Perhaps, you've had some "encounter" with Palin that makes you more comfortable about the prospect of her vice-presidency than I am. You'll have to forgive us every day Americans who have not been privileged enough to observe Palin in her natural habitat, thanks to the McCain campaign's sequestration of her.

But you're so smart, George, it's hard to believe that your irony isn't intended; therefore, maybe you're just about the best satirist alive today. Beats me.

Update: It occurred to me after I published this post and thought about it some more that, perhaps, Joe Biden is the best example of an American Middle Class "Liberal" (and if Will considers Palin to be middle-class, I don't know why he would not also consider Biden to be middle-class) who, according to Will, just doesn't exist. Of course, to say that Joe Biden doesn't exist is just wishful thinking on George Will's part.