George Will Wants To Stop the Coronation

George Will, when he gets very motivated,actually channels the fine writer he once was. Today's column in the Washngton Post, "Romney and Gingrich, from bad to worse" is a return to form.

Will already sliced and diced Mitt Romney in a scathing column recently but couldn't help himself from returning to the scene of the crime. he says that Romney's main objection to contemporary Washington is that he's not the one currently administering it. Will claims, without much conviction, that Romney's "conservatism-as-managerialism" would be an improvement upon today's "bewildered lberalism", wherever that is.

But Will lets his verbal skill soar on the subject of Newt Gingrich. "Gingrich, however, embodies the vanity and rapacity that make Washington repulsive." Will knows that Newt's bombast as a "transformative" person is high enteraintment. Will says that Newt would have made "a marvelous Marxist,believes everything is related to everything else and only he understands how." Quoting Churchill about John Foster Dulles, he alludes that Newt "is a bull who carries his own china shop around with him."

At another section of the piece, Will quotes Genesis,"Unstable as water, thou shall not excel."

Money quotes: "There is almost artistic vulgarity in Gingrich's unrepented role as a hired larnyx for interests profiting from such government follies as ethanol and cheap mortgages. His Olympian sense of examption from standards and logi allowed him fresh from pocketing $1.6 million from freedie Mac ( for services as a"historian"), to syay,"If you want to put people in jail,"look at "politicians who profited from" Washington's environment.

Will likens the GOP's desire to nominate Mitt Romney to their folly of nominating an able Tom Dewey to run against Harry Truman. The voters basically disliked Dewey as they do Romney.

Will then makes a weak pitch for Rick Perry, who is advised by his wife, and then touts the conservative credentials of Jon Huntsman. This is the most expansive section of the column, which recaps Huntsman's opposition of corporate welfare, his desire to privatize Freddie Mac, repeal No Child Left Behind, Paul Ryan's budget proposals (which disappoint me) and his nuanced understanding of foreign policy.

Will is not alone in recognizing Huntsman's qualities. Christy Todd Whitman urged Huntsman yesterday to run as a third party candidate since she has despaired that the Republicans can ever return to sanity. Former Governor Tom Ridge has also voiced support for Hunstman. Ironically, he is doomed because he agreed to serve as President Obama's ambassador to China, a move which early in the Obama administration I noted in this blog was a stroke of genius on the President's part to negate the one possible Republican who could defeat him.

While Will stresses Huntsman's conservatism as the world used to know the term, Huntsman was a successful two-term Governor of Utah and the greatest job creator running for the Republican nomination outside of Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico. He also was rational on subjects like same-sex civil unions (remember we're talking Mormon Utah here),climate change and the environment where he worked with governors of surrounding states on cap-and-trade proposals. Huntsman comes from a very rich family and has possessed the good grace to enter public service as an ambassador under three Presidents. Besides riding a motorcycle, Huntsman listens to Captain Beefheart, which probably disqualifies him from the Republican Party.

Huntsman is literally not registering on the polls. He has concentrated his efforts on an intensive ground game in New Hampshire with the awareness that independents can vote in the primary. If Huntsman disappears after New Hampshire , his campaign will have made a lasting contribution in their brilliant attack ads against Mitt Romney.

But George Will's column reflects the very widespread discomfort among Republicans and "normal" conservatives about the current Republican presidential contest. They are asking, "Where's the Beef?"