Vive la libération: St. Louisans celebrate as their city is declared a George F. Will-free zone

"Indignation is the default position of certain people in civic discourse. They go from a standing start to fury in about 30 seconds."

-- George F. Will, responding to the public furor in response
to his syndicated column in defense of college rapeboys

"The change has been under consideration for several months, but a column published June 5, in which Mr. Will suggested that sexual assault victims on college campuses enjoy a privileged status, made the decision easier. The column was offensive and inaccurate; we apologize for publishing it."

-- from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's editor's note announcing
the shitcanning of our George F.'s syndicated column

by Ken

Earlier this week, as you've no doubt heard, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch dumped our George F.'s stinking butt. Here's how Politico reported the story (links onsite):

After uproar, St. Louis paper drops Will column

By KENDALL BREITMAN

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has dropped columnist George Will and told readers that his provocative column on sexual assault on college campuses was a factor in the decision.

“The change has been under consideration for several months, but a column published June 5, in which Mr. Will suggested that sexual assault victims on college campuses enjoy a privileged status, made the decision easier,” the editor’s note read. “The column was offensive and inaccurate; we apologize for publishing it.”

The newspaper also used the note to announce that it will be replacing Will’s spot with Michael Gerson, a Washington Post columnist and former speechwriter and top aide to former President George W. Bush.

“We have heard from both conservative and liberal readers asking for new conservative voices,” the note said. “We believe Mr. Gerson’s addition to our op-ed page will be a refreshing and revitalizing change.”

Will’s column caused an uproar with its reference to the “supposed campus epidemic of rape, a.k.a. ‘sexual assault’” and that universities “make victimhood a coveted status” that “confers privileges.”

Groups such as The National Organization for Women slammed the columnist for his opinions and a hashtag, #SurvivorPrivilege, began as a result where people would tweet sarcastically on privileges they were given for experiencing sexual assault.

The Washington Post defended Will, calling his column “well within bounds of legitimate debate.”

Our George F. thinks the column was "well within bounds" too. As Erik Wemple reports on his washingtonpost.com blog, in a taped CNN interview "Will argued that writing about sexual assault on campus makes sense for him as a columnist: "This is my job, is when dubious statistics become the basis of dubious and dangerous abandonment of due process, to step in and say, 'Take a deep breath, everybody.' "

And we've already seen, at the top of this post (again courtesy of Erik Wemple), our George F.'s response to the furor unleashed by his idiotic column: "Indignation is the default position of certain people in civic discourse. They go from a standing start to fury in about 30 seconds."

He's kidding, right? Does he really not see the irony? This is a man who lives, at least publicly, in a permanent state of indignation. Just to be clear, and hard as it may be to believe, our George F. was not speaking into a mirror when he made his comment about the "default position" of indigation. So it's not like J. Pierrepont Finch in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, whom you may remember we watched and heard just a short while ago, in the person of Bobby Morse, singing:

You have the cool, clear eyes of a seeker of wisdom and truth.
Yet there's that up-turned chin and the grin of impetuous youth.
I believe in you!
I believe in you!

And so on. The kicker here is that Ponty is singing to himself in a mirror. Whereas our George F. really does seem to think of himself as a cool, clear seeker of wisdom and truth -- the wisdoms and truths not even sought let alone found by rival, merely mortal scribes. It's a delusion of a piece with Bill O'Reilly's that he's a "journalist" -- the very thing he isn't, being merely the purveyor of imbecilic and/or insane propaganda points he gets from . . . well, as far as I can tell it's all blown out of his stinky butt.

As best I can puzzle our George F. out, his career is based on the premise that in the Kingdom of the Zero-Functional-Brain-Cells Life Forms, the single-functional-brain-cell life form is yo mama. Unfortunately, the only uses to which he puts that single functional brain cell are: (1) self-promotion and (2) spreading poison via whatever obfuscation and lies the situation calls for.

I think the timing was unfortunate for our George F., coming so soon after the public spectacle of lunatic gun-blasting woman-loather Elliot Rodger. There is undoubtedly something to be said about unjust accusations of rape, but that can't even begin to be discussed by a lying scumbag who, in the heat of his ever-burning indignation, has just let the world glimpse his inner Elliot Rodger.

One interesting thing about the Post-Dispatch's "So long, George F.!" editorial note is the information that "the change has been under consideration for several months." Several months? Well, I suppose better late than never, P-D.

Meanwhile, as so often in life, you win some and you lose some. The price Post-Dispatch readers get for being spared our George F. is the arrival of another blind horse from the WaPo syndication stable, Michael Gerson. But at least Gerson is merely a pathetic stooge of the oligarchy, and as we've noted, there are even occasions when his ties to the oligarchy lead him to try to spread some sense. Unlike our George F., whose goal is always to spread poison.

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