The Great Will opens his latest column with its provocative   title , ‘The charlatan’s response to the Tucson tragedy’ followed by his characterization of critics as indulging in ‘sociology’. Sociology being at its root Marxist with its main intellectual thrust a criticism of  Capitalism and therefore not worthy of being taken seriously ,by  thinkers such as Mr. Will and his readers.  This all being an effort to place the critique of  the  eliminationists  language of the No-Nothing wing of the Republican Party under a through going  conservative analysis, and most importantly a sub rosa defense . He speaks: ‘  But respites from half-baked explanations, often serving political opportunism, are impossible because of a timeless human craving and characteristic of many modern minds. The craving is for banishing randomness and the inexplicable from human experience. Time was, the gods were useful. What is thunder? The gods are angry. Polytheism was explanatory. People postulated causations. ’ Perhaps that deliciously complex rhetorical frame is predicated on sufficiently   muddling the issues,  so that Mr. Will can continue his assault on the legitimacy of his fellow Party member’s enemies, of the moment.  Again: ‘ A characteristic of many contemporary minds is susceptibility to the superstition that all behavior can be traced to some diagnosable frame of mind that is a product of promptings from the social environment. From which flows a political doctrine: Given clever social engineering, society and people can be perfected. This supposedly is the path to progress. It actually is the crux of progressivism. And it is why there is a reflex to blame conservatives first.’   Will and his confreres are under concerted attack and he engages with a legitimating political fatalism, duly illustrated with potted history.  The last three paragraphs deserve to be quoted in full:

On Sunday, the Times explained Tucson: “It is facile and mistaken to attribute this particular madman’s act directly to Republicans or Tea Party members. But . . .” The “directly” is priceless.

Three days before Tucson, Howard Dean explained that the Tea Party movement is “the last gasp of the generation that has trouble with diversity.” Rising to the challenge of lowering his reputation and the tone of public discourse, Dean smeared Tea Partyers as racists: They oppose Obama’s agenda, Obama is African American, ergo . . .

Let us hope that Dean is the last gasp of the generation of liberals whose default position in any argument is to indict opponents as racists. This McCarthyism of the left – devoid of intellectual content, unsupported by data – is a mental tic, not an idea but a tactic for avoiding engagement with ideas. It expresses limitless contempt for the American people, who have reciprocated by reducing liberalism to its current characteristics of electoral weakness and bad sociology.

The Great Will a noble combatant in the American Political Melodrama triumphs over the forces of our moral and political decline: until the next episode!