The Daily Banter

George Will: #BringBackOurGirls Hashtag Campaign is a Powerless ‘Exercise in Self-Esteem’

I always chuckle a little when I hear people tell me that George Will is one of the smart, reasonable conservatives. While, yes, there are indeed many smart, reasonable conservatives, George Will isn’t one of them. He can occasionally say something that sounds promising, but then follows it up with insufferable nincompoopery about the climate crisis or by suggesting that President Obama only won in 2012 because whites didn’t want to fire the black guy. Yes, he really said that.

And now that he’s a panelist on Fox News Sunday his irascible, post-bow-tie dickbaggery has been cranked up to 11. It’s fertile ground for him to not only tag-team with Brit Hume for the role of the tight-assed High School principal on the show, but now he’s free to let fly with his inner crank without being seriously challenged by anyone else, unlike when he was a panelist on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. No need to soften his crapola with accessible and folksy baseball yarns, Will’s new audience demands fire-eating and fire-eating only. Couple that with the fact that I don’t think Will gives a flying shit about anything any more. He’s not even dying his actual hair to match that hairpiece he likely purchased while on a drunken toupée binge with Sam Donaldson back in 1978 and has been flogging it ever since.

So when he callously insulted the #BringOurGirlsBack hashtag campaign on Sunday, it came as no surprise whatsoever. This is what George Will does now.

In case you missed it, the conversation on Fox News Sunday turned to the crisis in Africa in which 270 Nigerian girls were kidnapped back on April 15 and are likely being sold into slavery by Boko Haram terrorists. Moderator Chris Wallace introduced several Twitter photos, including one of First Lady Michelle Obama, holding up hand-written signs with the #BringOurGirlsBack hashtag.

In response, George Will expressionlessly mocked:

“It’s an exercise in self-esteem. I do not know how adults stand there, facing a camera and say, ‘Bring back our girls. Are these barbarians in the wilds of Nigeria supposed to check their Twitter accounts and say, ‘Oh, Michelle Obama’s very cross with us, we better change our behavior?’ Power is the ability to achieve intended effects. This is not intended to have any effect on the real world. It’s a little bit like environmentalism has become. The incandescent lightbulb becomes the enemy. It has NO effect whatever on the planet, but it makes people feel good about themselves.”

Let’s try to unpack this arrogant, thoughtless horseshit… READ MORE