George Will Sept 6^th

George Will’s column today is titled, “Out with the Redskins…and everything else.” He is taking issue with the perennial attempts to change the name of Washington D.C.’s football team because it might offend Native Americans. Mr. Will is clearly unconcerned with the feelings of Native Americans…and who should be surprised about that?  But then since 2009 this team has lost two-thirds of its games; if you were a Native American wouldn’t you be embarrassed by having this miserable excuse for a football team named Redskins? Will never even considers this possibility.

His concern is not with the Redskins of course; it is with the recent politically correct unhappiness with the country’s tendency to revere its slaveholding former heroes. He is sure there will be moves afoot to change the name of Washington and Lee University, Jacksonville, Florida, San Francisco, and on and on.

This strikes me as a very curious column because this ground has already been plowed and harrowed thoroughly. On July 10 South Carolina took down the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia (which, incidentally, had never been anywhere near South Carolina), and many voices then raised these same issues: Confederate monuments would be destroyed. The statue of Nathan Bedford Forest would be torn down and other sacrilegious politically correct activities would surely occur.  None of that has happened, but now, nearly two months later, we have George Will finally taking notice of these possibilities. Of course he knows perfectly well that the name of the Capital will not be changed and neither will San Francisco be renamed; so what’s his point? Maybe it’s just a need to write a conservatively correct column about political correctness.

That’s too bad because if Will had been willing to exert a little effort we could have had his views on taking just 1500 refugees, apparently our current limit, from the 800 thousand streaming into Europe from Asia Minor. He might have given us his views on global warming, the result of which is now beginning to flood islands in Northern Alaska requiring the relocation of entire communities. We might have heard him comment about the famous Kim Davis, darling of some in the fundamentalist set, for refusing to abide by the SCOTUS decision and issue marriage licenses to same sex couples.

I’m now going to guess the reason for this very strange column; perhaps George Will wrote it about July 12 when the clamor to lower the battle flag was at its height. After all the murderer of nine church goers had a picture of himself cradling his weapon with this flag conspicuously in view. This produced unhappiness with all symbols of the antebellum south. Now, when George wants a head start for Memorial Day weekend fun, he pulls out this column and sends it off to his editors. No? Well I don’t really believe that’s what happened either, but it’s the best I can come up with. If you’ve a better explanation leave a comment.