7 Great Minutes: George Will and Stephen Colbert

I missed this when it ran, but thank goodness for the internet. Here are 7 minutes and 13 seconds that you want to see go on forever.

Mild-mannered, brilliant George Will manages in one segment to torpedo the whole sterotype of the wild-Christianist conservative trying to control everyone else” and manages to stump, amuse and impress the pretty-bright Colbert in the process.

Doubtless some will nitpick on the imperfections of Will’s 7 minutes (“why didn’t he discuss this, why did he let Colbert get away with that”) but you can only do so much in the time span and I think Will used his time exceptionally well. I loved his calm assertion that “it was his choice,” the quiet affirmation that liberty trumps everything else.

Will is optimistic, “it is morning.” He manages succinct, organized thought, in a calm way:

“Conservatives tend to favor freedom and are willing to accept inequalities of outcome from the free market, liberals are for equality of outcome and are willing to sacrifice and circumscribe freedom in order to get it.”

And who else can extemporaneously use words to combine insightfulness and poetry in the political arena, today, with such seeming ease? I loved this:

“What conservatives say is we will protect you against idealism; we will protect you against the liberal’s faith that they can make something straight from the crooked timber of humanity. We understand that the government’s job is to deliver the mail, protect the shores and get out of the way.”

Pragmatic, but poetic, too. And substantive. Observe that Colbert and the audience are actually listening, because he is saying something worth listening to, and doing it very well.

There is another moment I love, that some might consider a throw-away, but I think speaks volumes: Colbert registers shock to learn that Will is an agnostic:

Colbert: (In disbelief) You’re agnostic.

Will: Yes.

Colbert: (sits back, stumped) Wow. And they still let you into all the right clubs?

Will: Of course.

It puts to the knife the whole cliche of conservative/Republican intolerance, and the notion that to have conservative values one must submit to theologies or be cast out.

Colbert, of course, is no light-weight and he challenges but also recognizes substance from dross. Together these two men offer some quick-witted food-for-thought. I have never heard of Henry Adam’s novel “Democracy,” which Will quotes:

Will: “…politics is the systematic organization of our hatreds.”

Colbert: That sounds like freedom to me!

Will: Exactly. That’s because it is. And [political parties] help us to organize our animosities.”

Colbert: So, we’re free to dislike things together.

Will: Outstanding. You’re a quick study.

Colbert: And you sir, are a formidable opponent.

Perfect: that segment was a little gem tossed into a sea of garbage. I hope lots of people get to see it.

If Will and Colbert took this schtick on the road, I’d slap down the cash to see it.

Meanwhile – I have sworn off buying any political books ever since I got disappointed by Novak’s tome and decided then that most of them were basically filler surrounding 40 provocative pages, and that those 40 pages are usually covered in the book tour. I may pick up Will’s though. And Adams’. And maybe Colberts!