nobody asked…

Anyone who has heard or read George Will (Is there one so chaste amongst us?), and regardless of feelings about him or his political extrapolations, we probably can all agree on one thing: Will is a grand-master word merchant, up there in a class with very few others … only William F. Buckley, Jr. and Frank Paynter come to mind at the moment.

Now George has even outdone hisownself. In The Last Word column of the July 3, 2006, issue of Newsweek, he discusses the insipid fury of the Aug. 8 Democratic primary in Connecticut, a serious threat to Joe Lieberman’s long tenure in that state’s political landscape. Will describes the lack of interest and low-level turnout for summertime elections thusly:

Those most likely to vote in vacation season are disproportionately the ideologically incandescent and seriously annoyed — not Lieberman supporters.

Ideologically incandescent … Oh, how I wish I had said that! What a unique and interesting way to describe the loud minority who trumpet their beliefs, blared so often out of key, with so much glowing fervor.

And then he brings us back from that intellectual sojourn with a dip into the whimsical seriously annoyed.

Thank you, George Will, for the morning’s entertainment here on Independence Day, 2006.

(Editorial emphasis and interpretive remarks by the author with apologies to George Will if his ideas or intentions were in any way hijacked or corrupted.)