61 Comments - Anon - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 10:49 am: Exactly why Quinn got my vote, and why Quinn will get my vote. - Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 10:52 am: George Will cannot write without quoting ‘the great authors.’ He gets up every day determined to show his readers (all four of them) how educated he is. - Shark Sandwich - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 10:53 am: C’mon, Roland- if no one else will quote them, George Will. - Wallinger Dickus - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 10:54 am: I once heard said he is an intellectual cub fan, which in his case is not necessarily true. Because only half of that statement is accurate. - Willie Stark - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 10:56 am: And Will is an arrogant man with nothing to be arrogant about. Will denies anthropomorphic climate change in the face of overwhelming evidence, a position that will come to be seen by the pundits and politicians who continue to put forth that view as morally monstrous and a catastrophic error. - Try-4-Truth - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 10:58 am: “Right-wing columnist George Will tries to change his image as a pompous snob by being a big baseball fan…” - Sandy Goodman, Retired Producer for NBC Nightly News. There you go George, a quote right back at ya! - Try-4-Truth - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 10:59 am: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sandy-goodman/george-will-strikes-out-v_b_5301717.html - Upon Further Review - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 10:59 am: Best quotes from same George Will article: “Cleanliness,” says Rauner, quoting former Illinois Gov. Adlai Stevenson, “is next to godliness, except in the Illinois legislature where it is next to impossible.” Governors come and go in Springfield but state legislators linger and real power resides in the speaker of the House, Michael Madigan, who has been a legislator since Richard Nixon was president (1971). - dupage dan - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 11:01 am: Wow, Will must have struck a chord - with most of the above comments reflecting more animus towards him but not much in the way of enthusiasm for Quinn. Perhaps he is just telling it like it is. Hence, Quinn’s campaign theme. - Try-4-Truth - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 11:06 am: Mr. Dan, I just don’t care for Mr. Will. I like Mr. Rauner even less. And, when was the last time someone had “enthusiasm” when they voted for Illinois Governor? - John A Logan - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 11:11 am: I am sure Mr. Will would see the comments on this thread as a badge of honor, if they actually rose to the level of discourse recognized by someone of George Will’s stature. - wordslinger - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 11:11 am: DD, Will was a pompous hack long before he ever wrote about Pat Quinn. - Keyser Soze - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 11:11 am: Jeeze, the haters seem to have hijacked this thread. - Charlatan Heston - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 11:15 am: “Don’t compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative” - Frankly, I believe it is the only reason Quinn has a chance. Despite that chance, there is a growing sentiment among many I know to vote against Quinn…Not so much for Rauner - OneMan - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 11:18 am: Just because they really hate Rauner doesn’t mean they like Quinn…. - wordslinger - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 11:18 am: John, what stature is that? Fox News talking head? - Anonymous - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 11:19 am: the mighty quinn does not mock the almighty, like bruce the illinois savior, my god - wordslinger - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 11:20 am: Adding, I’m sure those in Springfield who knew her back in the day are impressed that George Will has now reached the “stature” of Dana Perino. Some heavy lifting there. - dupage dan - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 11:21 am: T4T, sadly, not in a long time. And certainly not in this election cycle can a thinking person be enthusiastic for either candidate. Sigh. word, even pompous hacks can be right twice a day. Just sayin. - A guy... - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 11:22 am: === wordslinger - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 11:11 am: DD, Will was a pompous hack long before he ever wrote about Pat Quinn.=== Entirely true. Smoke without the bonus of mirrors. That being agreed to, compare PQ and any of them to what we need and what we deserve. This quote came from the IEA Convention (not sure what it was actually called) Pat’s quip really saying- I’ve been terrible for you, I’ll continue to be, but the great unknown could be worse. Illinois is now becoming the State where the majority party promises they’re going to beat you up, and then they keep the promise. According to polls, 1 out of 4 of us like it. - Anon. - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 11:22 am: The Clement Attlee fan club is definitely out in force today in support of his political descendent. - John A Logan - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 11:23 am: Word, I have seen your comments over the years here and I think everyone here respects your perspective. However, I think your google works as well as mine, and a quick search reveals that George Will has accomplished much over his lifetime, much of which I am sure you are already aware of. - Anonymous - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 11:35 am: Sweet two minute hate, but I do have to agree with Will about Quinn. - Mokenavince - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 11:36 am: Quinn will be a hands down winner with the anonymous vote. My feeling about Will is the more the Cubs lose the stuffer he gets. Will will be a Nats fan before you know it. - Anonymous - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 11:39 am: As far as baseball goes…compare George Will as a guest in the Cubs’ broadcast booth to ANY Illinois politician. George really knows his baseball stuff, especially when it cone to the Cubs. Btw- anyone hear Rahm’s trainwreck “Ron Santo” memory?? Jesus…. - Formerpol - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 11:43 am: I doubt that any of the posters here, who so viciously rip George Will, have accomplished as much in their lives as he has. Jealousy is ugly. - CircularFiringSquad - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 11:46 am: Since George was forced to be on FOX everyday to get attention his commentary has slipped badly. Guessing will see a lot of glowing comments about Shakey Mitt Rauner — ignoring Stu, Killing Grandma and Biggest Accounting Fraud - steve schnorf - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 11:54 am: all elections are “compared to who?” - wordslinger - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 12:00 pm: –I doubt that any of the posters here, who so viciously rip George Will, have accomplished as much in their lives as he has. Jealousy is ugly– Viciously, eh? What a delicate flower. Is Will jealous of Pat Quinn? The dude’s made a living for decades subjecting others to criticism. I think he can take a little. - W - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 12:21 pm: I’ll settle for comparing Quinn to the pro-worker, pro-environment liberal he pretended to be before attacking public employees and supporting fracking. - Curmudgeon - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 12:27 pm: Willie Stark: “Will denies anthropomorphic climate change in the face of overwhelming evidence … morally monstrous and a catastrophic error.” Aha! Another Global Cooling Denier! - MrJM - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 12:35 pm: “I doubt that any of the posters here, who so viciously rip George Will, have accomplished as much in their lives as he has. Jealousy is ugly.” Yeah, Will did an absolutely fantastic job when he served Conrad Black on the board of advisors to Hollinger International. – MrJM - Wensicia - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 12:35 pm: Well, I wouldn’t call George Will a modest man, ever. Is this a vicious rip? - Willie Stark - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 12:59 pm: George Will, Princeton PhD and Pulitzer winner, with his bow-ties, patrician tone, and appropriation of lines from Churchill or Edmund Burke certainly looks the part of the tweedy, conservative intellectual. Whether it’s voting rights, climate change or his credulous cheerleading for the Iraq War (not at all redeemed by his much later admission it was a mistake) one ought to consider the caliber of his analysis about any issue in light of his track record of frequently being wrong and ignoring facts in service of ideology. He’s got his niche, is making a good buck from the rubes who like to see their privileged world views affirmed, and unlike the pols who must face voters, bears no responsibility or accountability when he’s wrong. Sweet gig! That said, this election is about least bad choices. But don’t kid yourself. If you vote for Rauner, you won’t be choosing Winston Churchill over Clement Attlee. - I B Strapped - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 1:03 pm: Winston on PQ: ‘Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.’ - Ruby - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 1:11 pm: “Don’t compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative.” I thought that Quinn’s quick-witted answer to the pension question was brilliant and humorous. - Yellow Dog Democrat - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 1:21 pm: @George Will - Every incumbent wants to be compared to their opponent, rather than to the promises they made when we elected them. Some races are a comparison: Obama v. Romney or Bush v. Kerry. On the other hand, Bush lost to Clinton and Gore lost to Bush simply because the voters thought the incumbents did live up to expectations. The good news for Quinn is: he is a Democrat, so pretty much everyone who voted for him expected him to be for a tax hike, and he has always been a bit of a Pooh so no one is shocked about mismanagement. The prisoner release program was totally botched in 2010 and all over the news, yet did not factor into election at all. Bad News for Quinn: Because he is a Democrat, no one probably expected him to side so heavily against unions on pensions. Republicans and independents won’t give him any credit for it, but union Democrats might stay home. Also, while mismanagement from Quinn is no shocker, the alleged ethics violations could be damaging. I agree with those who said Quinn needs to come clean, if he hasn’t already, to get the story out and behind him. - Bill White - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 1:23 pm: At least George Will isn’t as bad as Peggy Noonan. - 'Chancy' Gardner - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 1:26 pm: Gov. Quinn is like a fruit tree that does not bear fruit. If we keep pruning and nurturing him we know what we’ll continue to not get. - Sangamo Sam - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 1:31 pm: Winston Churchill also said: “It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.” - Mighty M. Mouse - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 1:32 pm: ===This quote came from the IEA Convention (not sure what it was actually called)=== A guy… I’d call it a debate, and the more I think about it, the more I think Rauner did PQ a HUGE favor. There is NO other way Quinn could have been SO warmly received, if not completely forgiven, than by having Rauner come with him! Rauner thought he was smart to get it out of the way early and he looked courageous walking into the lion’s den, but Quinn wants that union to be with him as wholeheartedly as possible and PQ sold them on committing to that decision to a degree of certainty in early April he NEVER could have achieved without Rauner being there too and sharing his thoughts. - WAK - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 1:37 pm: Can someone post a link to the George Will column when ever I click the link it comes up 404 not found and then the print box pops up? I would like to read the column or article the quote comes from. - Precinct Captain - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 1:38 pm: If you want to laugh at George Will, read his column on Springsteen from the 1980s. http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2519&dat=19840915&id=RY1iAAAAIBAJ&sjid=uHcNAAAAIBAJ&pg=1334,1660487 - Bill White - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 1:50 pm: @Precinct Captain The political cartoon at your link is pretty good, too. - Yellow Dog Democrat - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 2:01 pm: Schnorf: Not true. Change elections are not comparison elections. In 1976, 1980, 1992, 2000 and 2008, voters wanted Change. Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush and Obama were not winners of some head-to-head comparison. At the same time, I think Will erred in referring to Quinn as “modest.” No one who publicly proclaims “I was put on this earth to…” should be accused of modesty. - 'Chancy' Gardner - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 2:14 pm: YDD, indeed that was not a modest statement from Quinn but he seems modest comparatively speaking to let’s say…..Gov. Christie perhaps. And do keep in mind that Will swims about in the sea of hyperbole that is D.C. - Anonymous - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 2:25 pm: you know there are other political parties to pick from, expand your mind think outside the box - A guy... - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 2:32 pm: Of all the great Churchill quotes that could be celebrated today…we got that one. - Come again - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 2:36 pm: It is easy to deny global warming/climate change because its proponents have never proven the theory. Silencing skeptics seems to be their chief occupation while seeking government grants and subsidies. While George Will may be right of center, he is hardly a rabid partisan. He would be out of place at a meeting where Joe Walsh was a guest speaker. - John A Logan - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 2:43 pm: The comments on this post have revealed the political affiliation of the majority of the people who post here. They are members of the Anti George Will Party. - Tuxedo Junction - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 2:48 pm: Has anyone else ever heard the old adage “never trust a man with a bow tie?” This would go for Paul Simon, George Will, Tucker Carlson and Archie Andrews. Bi-partisan at best; cartoonish at worst. - Calhoun Native - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 3:02 pm: “It is easy to deny global warming/climate change because its proponents have never proven the theory. Silencing skeptics seems to be their chief occupation while seeking government grants and subsidies.” Three hundred plus scientists, hundreds of peer reviewed papers and more that two dozen counties contributed to the UN report linked below. I suggest you read it. http://www.ipcc.ch - Willie Stark - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 3:37 pm: Adding to Calhoun Native’s post: you can falsify a theory (which the global warming ostriches have not), but you can only believe a theory to be true because all of the evidence supports it (as is the case for global warming and the melting of polar regions); scientists allow that theories could be disproved if contradictory evidence (subject to scientific peer review) emerges. Which, again, on this particular issue, it has not. - VanillaMan - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 3:38 pm: Will is right. If he wasn’t then Illinois wouldn’t rank at the bottom of states whose citizens believe their government is most corrupt. - VanillaMan - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 3:47 pm: I survived the “MV Akademic Shokalskiy” which proved concretely that even in the middle of Antarctic summer, the ice was not only not melting, we couldn’t even get out of it and had to be air lifted by helicopters. I think reality got ice bound. - steve schnorf - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 3:49 pm: Dog, we disagree - Willie Stark - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 4:30 pm: Van Man, is that you in the middle waving? http://www.news.com.au/national/aurora-australis-is-forced-to-abandon-bit-to-rescue-stricken-russian-ship-mv-akademik-shokalskiy-from-ice/story-fncynjr2-1226791671102 Did you happen to ask any of the scientists on board their opinion? Maybe since you were trapped so long, you made friends and could email to find out if they accept the evidence that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is melting as we learned just this week? The MV, as you know, was trapped in East Antarctica. And, are you really pointing to a weather phenomenon as evidence that a climate phenomenon is not occurring? Not very scientific! - Mighty M. Mouse - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 4:57 pm: It appears the article Rich was referring to is called “In Illinois, stark choices: George Will” and a link I found that works is: http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2014/05/in_illinois_stark_choices_geor.html - VanillaMan - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 9:22 pm: I took the photo. Everyone on board was super nice. It was very easy to make friends with them. Very thoughtful people too. I brought a scrabble game and I play the ukulele so I led in songs. The worst part was if one of the passengers wasn’t sensitive to gluten, they would be a dogmatic vegetarian. The good thing was I had all the jerky and beer to myself. I couldn’t get my money back, btw. That old guy waving was a loud, but friendly nut bag from some university in Australia. - FormerParatrooper - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 10:01 pm: Who do I trust least? That is the question I will be asking myself when voting for Governor. George Will, in my opinion is a intelligent individual. Yet, I do believe he is part of the beltway talking heads that both parties have that have not a clue of how life is outside the Beltway. - wordslinger - Wednesday, May 14, 14 @ 11:08 pm: VMan, are the navies and shipping companies in the world in on the conspiracy about polar melt? They sure are spending a lot of money staking claims to territory in the arctic, as well. Hope they get stuck in the ice. That would prove your point, whatever you think it might be. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/world/europe/russia-preparing-patrols-of-arctic-shipping-lanes.html Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.