The Morning After: American Successes and Excesses 1981-1986, by George F. Will (The Free Press, 417 pp., $19.95)
They have been going after George Will here & there, including mildly hostile social scrutinies in the Washington Post and Esquire, and very heavy going by The New Republic’s standup bore, Henry Fairlie. So? It happens to all important American journalist-pundits with only such exceptions as Walter Lippmann, who was before TV, and who ended his career by becoming progressively more unreadable. George Will is a success as a columnist and as a television commentator and critic, and his manner (superior) invites denigration mostly by those who cannot imitate him but gladly would if they had an equivalent talent—hard to say about anyone in America. This book is a collection of GW’s columns, which stand up well, suggesting the variety of his thought, the range of his enthusiasms, and the resourcefulness of his wit and talent. He is subject to criticism for his failure to explicate those points on which he differs (sometimes a little rancorously) with his brother conservatives.
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