George Will
George Frederick Will is an American libertarian conservative writer and political commentator. He writes columns for The Washington Post on a regular basis and provides commentary for NewsNation. In 1986, The Wall Street Journal called him "perhaps the most powerful journalist in America". Will won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1977.
A former member of the Republican Party, Will was a close ally of Ronald Reagan during his presidential campaign in 1980. He assisted Reagan with debate preparation and was later falsely accused by former president Jimmy Carter of providing Reagan with a top secret briefing book in a scandal known as Debategate, an allegation Carter later retracted.
In later years, he became a critic of Republican politicians, including Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and Donald Trump. Will's disapproval of Trump's presidential campaign led him to become an independent in 2016, and he subsequently voted for Joe Biden in 2020, and stated in September 2024 he would be voting for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.
Early life and education
Will was born on May 4, 1941, in Champaign, Illinois, to Louise and Frederick L. Will. His father was a professor of philosophy, specializing in epistemology, at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Will attended University Laboratory High School of Urbana, Illinois, where he graduated in 1959.After high school, Will attended Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, graduating in 1962 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in religion. He then went to England and attended Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied philosophy, politics and economics and received a bachelor's degree. Will then did doctoral study in political science at Princeton University, receiving a PhD in 1968 with a dissertation entitled "Beyond the Reach of Majorities: Closed Questions in the Open Society", alluding to a famous phrase from Justice Robert H. Jackson’s majority opinion in the landmark 1943 Supreme Court case West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette.
From 1970 to 1972, Will served on the staff of Republican senator Gordon Allott of Colorado. Will then taught political philosophy at the James Madison College of Michigan State University, and at the University of Toronto. He taught at Harvard University in 1995 and again in 1998.
Journalism career
Will served as an editor for National Review from 1972 to 1978. He joined The Washington Post Writers Group in 1974, writing a syndicated biweekly column, which became widely circulated among newspapers across the country and continues today. his column was syndicated to about 450 newspapers. In 1976 he became a contributing editor for Newsweek, writing a biweekly backpage column until 2011.Will won a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for "distinguished commentary on a variety of topics" in 1977. Often combining factual reporting with conservative commentary, Will's columns are known for their erudite vocabulary, allusions to political philosophers, and frequent references to baseball. Will has also written two bestselling books on the game of baseball, three books on political philosophy, and has published eleven compilations of his columns for The Washington Post and Newsweek and of various book reviews and lectures.
From 2013 to 2017, Will was a contributor for Fox News. Prior to joining Fox News, beginning in the early 1980s, Will was a news analyst for ABC News and was a founding member on the panel of ABC's This Week with David Brinkley in 1981, now titled This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Will was a panelist on This Week until his departure from ABC News. Will was also a regular panelist on television's Agronsky & Company from 1977 through 1984. On Sunday, March 19, 2017, Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd welcomed Will back as a panelist, stating he had been absent from the program since 1981 and that his return would mark his 52nd appearance.
On May 8, 2017, Will was announced as an MSNBC and NBC News political contributor, in which he provided regular political input on shows such as Today, Morning Joe, and The 11th Hour. On December 3, 2020, Will received the National Society for Newspaper Columnists 2020 Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award, in partnership with the Society of Professional Journalists. Since January, 2022, Will has been a senior political contributor at NewsNation.
1980 Ronald Reagan presidential campaign
Will helped Ronald Reagan prepare for his 1980 debate against Jimmy Carter. Immediately after the debate, Will—not yet a member of the ABC News staff—appeared on ABC's Nightline. He was introduced by host Ted Koppel, who said: "It's my understanding that you met for some time yesterday with Governor Reagan", and that Will "never made any secret of his affection" for the Republican candidate. Will did not explicitly disclose that he had assisted Reagan's debate preparation, or been present during it. He went on to praise Reagan's "thoroughbred" performance, saying his "game plan worked well. I don't think he was very surprised."In 2004 and again in 2005, Carter accused Will of giving the Reagan campaign a top-secret briefing book stolen from Carter's office before the 1980 debate. In a 2005 syndicated column, Will called his role in Reagan's debate preparation "inappropriate" but denied any role in stealing the briefing book. In response to Will's column, Carter wrote a letter to The Washington Post retracting his accusations. Carter apologized to Will for "any incorrect statement that I have ever made about his role in the use of my briefing book... I have never thought Mr. Will took my book, that the outcome of the debate was damaging to my campaign or that Mr. Will apologized to me."
2009 global sea ice level
In a Washington Post column that expressed doubt over the effects of global warming, Will stated that: "According to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979." This and several other claims attracted the attention of environmentalists, such as British author and activist George Monbiot. Asked to respond, the website of Arctic Climate Research at the University of Illinois states that: "We do not know where George Will is getting his information, but our data shows that on February 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79 million sq. km and on February 15, 2009, global sea ice area was 15.45 million sq. km. Therefore, global sea ice levels are 1.34 million sq. km less in February 2009 than in February 1979." Will responded in a column that he accurately reported the Center's information and the challenge was mistaken. This drew a second response from Monbiot, who insisted Will had not accurately reported the Center's information. The debate continued in several forums, including a subsequent op-ed by Chris Mooney published in The Washington Post challenging Will's assertions.Column regarding campus assaults
Will's June 6, 2014, newspaper column about "the supposed campus epidemic of rape" was met with substantial criticism on Twitter, with Democratic U.S. senators and feminists also highly critical of the article. Will wrote, "...when make victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges, victims proliferate." Will's column sparked an outcry on Twitter, with professed rape victims recounting their stories of sexual assault and violence. In The Guardian, feminist blogger Jessica Valenti wrote: "It takes a particular kind of ignorance to argue that people who come forward to report being raped in college are afforded benefits of any kind." In an open letter to Will, Senators Richard Blumenthal, Dianne Feinstein, Tammy Baldwin and Bob Casey wrote:The St. Louis Post-Dispatch dropped Will's column from its pages as a result of the column. Editor Tony Messenger wrote: "The column was offensive and inaccurate; we apologize for publishing it." Will responded to the senators in his blog, saying his article was based on "simple arithmetic involving publicly available reports", and that sexual assault "should be dealt with by the criminal justice system, and not be adjudicated by improvised campus processes."