What George Will left out:

Today George Will has an Op-Ed where he defends himself from the charge that he gave Reagan a Jimmy Carter "briefing book" prior to a presidential debate. What really happened? Hard to say. But there was misbehavior by Will at the time. From Paul F. Boller's book, Presidential Campaigns:

Willgate

About the time Debategate [the briefing book affair] began making headlines it was revealed that the usually thoughtful conservative columnist George Will had coached Reagan just before the Carter-Reagan debate and then appeared on ABC's Nightline afterward and praised Reagan's "thouroughbred performance" without mentioning his own role as coach. Will, said the New Republic reprovingly, "posed as a referee without ever making it clear that he had been one of the seconds." "He impersonated a reporter," wrote Mary McGrory in her Washington Post column. "What he did was to work out in the gym with the challenger and then, without mentioning the fact to readers or reviewers, reviewed the fight on television." Will wrote a long column of his own in the Post defending what he had done, but admmitting he would never do it again."

Never do it again? Well, maybe not exactly that, reviewing a performance he coached. But he has played a behind the scenes role since then. From fair.org:

Will suffered another ethical lapse in the 2000 campaign when he met with George W. Bush just before the Republican candidate was to appear on ABC's This Week. Later, in a column (Washington Post, 3/4/01), Will admitted that he'd met with Bush to preview questions, not wanting to "ambush him with unfamiliar material." In the meeting, Will provided Bush with a 3-by-5 card containing a crucial question he would later ask the candidate on the air. Though strongly resembling his coaching of candidate Reagan in 1980, and in strong contrast to his treatment of Jesse Jackson in 1988, this extraordinary admission received little media mention.

posted by Quiddity at 8/11/2005 10:13:00 AM