Someone Must Stop George Will

For some reason I watch This Week on Sunday mornings. Sometimes I watch Meet the Press, but I really dislike David Gregory. I'm not sure I like Jack Tapper but I do really like their new formal arrangement, THIS WEEK Joins With Politifact to Fact-Check the Newsmakers. It didn't do Gregory good to not want to do the same.

I was surprised This Week had Bill Maher on the show on Sunday. Now I like Bill Maher, I watch his HBO show weekly. He does ok with facts but I'm always annoyed that he often cuts off interesting conversation for (often prewritten) jokes. He also doesn't manage to get enough Republican guests to go before the staunchly liberal audience. Still, it's fun. But really, why is a comedian on a Sunday morning news show?

Maybe to offset George Will. Will comes off as sounding reasonable, but often takes crazy positions. His position as a global warming denier is just offensive. This Week Bill Maher complained about how the US should have been working to reduce US oil consumption since the 70s, if we had, we could have gotten off oil like Brazil. After the conversation moved on a little, George Will brought it back asking Maher just what he's talking about that Brazil got off oil? It's a fair question but it's kind of uncommon on this show and it came off as a tiff between them, especially as they went back and forth on it a bit. Maher was obviously referring to Brazil's production of ethanol and Will knew that, but they still use a lot of oil which Maher should have known, but he's a comedian so I forgive this. It's fine for his show but not for This Week.

So here's the PolitiFact check on the question. "aher was likely remembering Brazil's aggresive efforts to promote ethanol, and certainly Brazil has outpaced the United States in getting flexible fuel vehicles on the road. But Maher said, "Brazil got off oil in the last 30 years." Actually, Brazil still consumes a great deal of oil. It's also embarking on more offshore drilling in some of the deepest waters for exploration. Brazil is hardly "off oil." So we rate Maher's statement False."

But there was another statement by Will that makes me write this post. Will said regarding the oil spill, "By the way, wind farms kill a lot more birds daily than are probably going to be killed in this oil spill." Now PoiliFact didn't come to a conclusion saying it's far to early to estimate the number of birds killed by the spill. "The ultimate truth of Will's comment will be decided by the currents, the winds, and the extent of the damage."

However, Media Matters for America did it's fact-checking and says George Will's wind energy claims are for the birds First off they used a more complete quote written by Will in an April 9th Newsweek column, the important part being "And birds beware: the American Bird Conservancy estimates that the existing 25,000 turbines kill between 75,000 and 275,000 birds a year. Imagine the toll that 186,000 turbines would take."

"According to the most recent figures provided to Media Matters from the American Bird Conservancy, whom Will cited in his Newsweek column, the number of birds killed in the United States every year because of striking windmills is relatively small compared to other causes:"

Building strikes: 100 million - 1 billion
Car strikes: 200 - 300 million
Communication towers: 4 - 50 million
Power lines: ~75 million
Cats: 365 million (1 million per day)
Wind farms: 100,000 - 300,000

and moreso, "In a May 3 interview, Bob Johns, American Bird Conservancy director of Public Relations told Media Matters: "We like wind energy. We think it's clean. We're saying just do it right, get it right, and we'll be singing your praises."

So really, Will is just distorting facts and reports to make his own point. This is dishonest and shouldn't be tolerated on news shows. And Will has his system down, he throws in such randomly seeming facts that his debaters can't really prepare for (though perhaps if they had read his column...) so they sound fine for the length of the show and are then forgotten. Krugman, when he's on does ok, at refuting Will's incorrect economic claims, but rarely does the show go back to him for his comment on being called wrong.

So, I applaud This Week for having some formal fact-checking. It would be more useful if it were live, but after-the-fact is ok. What I really want is for This Week to start each show with a review of the fact-checking of last week's show. Maybe then Will's pattern of deceptions will be dealt with.

Wouldn't it be nice if there were some political show that could build on an ongoing conversation instead of having to start from scratch every show and never having time to cover anything in depth. Now that Bill Moyer's Journal is off the air, we need something else even more.