Why is George Will on my teevee?

I admit that some 35 years ago, I kind of liked George Will. He was a young, ridiculously earnest conservative and yeah I was young too. I thought he was so cute in that signature bow tie. But my youthful infatuation faded decades ago, along with Will's acuity. Yet, every single blessed Sunday, he is on the bobbleheads spewing some absurd nonsense, a revered pundit of The Village who reassures them weekly that the conventional wisdom still holds. Small wonder our political discourse is so stupid.

Steve Benen flags Will's latest inanity. Seems Mr. Will thinks "President Obama is 'being unfairly blamed' for the response to the BP oil spill disaster." However, he's very happy that this is happening to our president because it "just strikes at the narrative of competence." Yes, Georgie boy has jumped on the "ZOMG, Obama has failed to stop the gusher in the Gulf so this proves the government can't do anything right" meme.

Steve has the perfect response to Will and the rest of the media desperately trying to give this narrative legs.

Here's an idea for assignment editors: publish a piece with specific steps federal officials should take but haven't. Because at this point, unless we can fix the leak with useless media palaver, there's not much point to the breathless speculation, nebulous criticism, and finger-pointing.

Sadly, I doubt they'll take that message to heart. Have a bad feeling we'll be listening to this sort of meaningless drivel for many weeks to come.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News]