George Will was caught trashing people writing about their inner turmoils and follows it up with an essay that says that Paine's pamphleteering and Franklin's personality were not the same as the present. However the George will of Statecraft as Soulcraft trashes such a statement mercilessly. Since I can find no other more eloquent critic of George Will than George Will, and perhaps the only one he occasionally listens to, I'd like to share some choice points with everyone.

In Statecraft as Soulcraft will wants to build a case for the socially conservative idea that government can, and should, "legislate morality". He begins with reference to Augustine's "The City of God" - that invetor of modern confessional autobiography - and then attempts to build a case that government's primary question is "what kind of people do we want the citizens to be?" Now, this implies that therefore the governing class must listen to the expressions of the citizens, and that the citizens must express themselves in order to form the consensus required to select the right representatives.

Indeed, this is precisely what Will means, he argues that the founding father's philosophized on politics, and that political philosophy is about how people, and not abstractions such as markets, behave. He argues that specialists are often insufficiently grounded with the understanding that morality is the essential task of statecraft.

Will then sites, approvingly, Burke's argument that the most important revolution in politics is:

"revolution in sentiments, manners and moral opinions"

I can't think of any other description of blogging, even in its most common forms, as anything other than a revolution in sentiments, manners and moral opinions, expressed individually. Will argues that Law must be concerned with the "inner life" of citizens, and must legislate morality. And yet the George Will of the present denigrates the very expression of that which he repeatedly affirmed was the most important question in politics - the individual moral fabric of the citizenry.

It seems like George Will's most eloquent debunker is the George Will of Statecraft and Soulcraft. I think he will find his words of old a healthier diet than his more recent ones. That the George Will of old argued that the first question of politics, the only first question, is "the inner turmoils" of the citizens, while the more recent George Will scoffs at the idea.

More over, the George Will of today scoffs at small things, which is exactly the opposite of what George Will the poet of baseball elevates - the small things, and how they are executed. Paying attention to individual tendencies, in baseball, is the key to victory according to Will. But obviously noting the moral tendencies of the inner lives - that arch purpose of politics - is not worthy of note.

It seems as if Will, who has praised to the stars Bush's consistency, is particularly lacking in that inner virtue himself.