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CONVERSIONS OF CONVENIENCE. How stupid does George Will think his audience is? He writes:
The journalistic rule is that conservatives pander, liberals "grow." When Al Gore, Dick Gephardt, Jesse Jackson and Dennis Kucinich changed from being pro-life to pro-abortion, their conversions, a price of admission into Democratic presidential politics, were often described as conscientious "growth." But when McCain, who opposed President Bush's tax cuts, concludes on the basis of the humming economy that they should be made permanent, it's called pandering.He apparently thinks they're too stupid to remember 2004, when the entire media spent nine months parroting the charge that John Kerry was a flip-flopper. Was the word "growth" ever used to describe Kerry's position shifts -- most of which were simply poor explanations of nuanced opinions? Anyway, that's a surprising amount of contempt Will evinces for the sort of people who buy his paper. As is his defense of Mitt Romney, in which he says, "Romney, however, is criticized by many conservatives for what they consider multiple conversions of convenience -- on abortion, stem cell research, gay rights, gun control. But if Romney is now locked into positions that these conservatives like, why do they care so much about whether political calculation or moral epiphany moved him there?" Will must again believe his readers flighty or dense, as he clearly doesn't expect them to recall the ultimate paragraph of his 2004 endorsement of George W. Bush. "Bush sometimes confuses certitude with certainty," wrote Will, "but he understands that to govern is to choose, and that some choices must make one lonely. Kerry constantly calls to mind a three-time Democratic presidential nominee, William Jennings Bryan: "The people of Nebraska are for free silver and I am for free silver. I will look up the arguments later."' That is Will's graf, the judgment upon which his endorsement turned. You cannot trust John Kerry, he argued, because Kerry's record shows conversions of convenience. When it comes to Mitt Romney, however, to govern is apparently not to choose, and it is perfectly fine if his convictions wobble and warp in the political winds. As, apparently, do George Will's. --Ezra Klein
