Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 20, 1993 TAG: 9301200205
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LEXINGTON LENGTH: Medium
COLUMNIST DISDAINS ELECTION
Syndicated columnist George Will appeared grateful Tuesday to be away from the nation's capital during the inaugural festivities.When Washington and Lee University's president, John Wilson, apologized for pulling Will away from D.C., the conservative writer looked up in disbelief.
"Deterring me?" he asked, gazing at the audience in historic Lee Chapel. "I am in flight."
Will, known for his thoughtful commentary and political analysis, told the Founder's Day crowd he was going to talk more about leadership than political leadership, but something kept him turning back to the White House.
"It serves the vocational interests of the political class and . . . journalists echo this, that the most recent election is the most important since who knows when," he said. "Not this time. This is the least important election in 192 years."
America is safer now than it has ever been, Will said. And the deficit will give the government less latitude for action than in centuries. In many ways, he said, the president's hands are tied.
This year on Election Day, he said, people gave "the outsiders" the benefit of the doubt. Some believed change itself could solve some of society's ills.
"Bill Clinton is trying to rewind to . . . the glamour of the Kennedy years. What he'll discover is a radical decline in the prestige of government itself."
The romance of government is gone, he said, and gone for good. "The euphoria and prestige began to evaporate with Vietnam and Watergate."
As a result, in some states, there were more votes for term limits this year than there were for Clinton.
What remains, he said, are realities. He spoke of American families in distress, of schools where 85 percent of the students were growing up in single-parent homes, and where the teachers don't give homework because "all of the students go home to be parents of their siblings."
It is family disintegration that is affecting the poverty rate, he said, and a breakdown in civil order.
Until it changes, he said, "things will get worse."
Will talked, too, about an aging population where by 2080, more than a million Americans will be 100 or older.
He talked about health care, the need to grow and work and be sensible.
"If we lived as sensibly as trout or beaver, we wouldn't have half of our problems," he said. "We are the only animals who drink too much, smoke too much and don't use seat belts."
"These are the problems Mr. Clinton will face."
Sen. Edward Kennedy once said change in America begins at the ballot box.
Wrong, Will said. It begins with people.
"It begins when a man named Eli Whitney invents a machine that separates cotton fibers from cotton seeds."
It begins with people like the Wright brothers and Henry Ford and Mark Twain, he said.
"We need to be freed from the idea that fate begins with politics," Will said. "The health of America depends on a growing impatience with being slipshod or second-rate in all aspects of life. Let people know: High standards are expected."
Will spoke for about 30 minutes in the ivy-covered chapel. Behind him, a wreath stood near a statue of Robert E. Lee, in keeping with a 123-year tradition to remember the founders of the university.
Memo: Shorter version ran in Metro edition.