George Will's mental breakdown continues

George Will continues to wallow in the partisan mud.

Check out this segment of the roundtable discussion on ABC's This Week today. Will was asked to comment on film of Sen. Evan Bayh's announcement that he would not run again for this Senate seat. Here's a partial transcript:

Bayh: There is much too much partisanship and not enough progress. Too much narrow ideology, and not enough practical problem-solving. Even at a time of enormous national challenge, the peoples' business is not getting done.

Moran: Is he right, George?

Will: Well, it's hard to take a lecture on bipartisanship from a man who voted against the confirmation of chief justice Roberts, the confirmation of Justice Alito, the confirmation of Attorney General Ashcroft, the confirmation of Condoleeza Rice, the Secretary of State. Far from being a rebel against his party's lockstep movement, Mr. Bayh voted for the Detroit bailout, for the stimulus, for the public option in the health care bill. I don't know quite what his complaint is.

Will's response to Bayh's criticism of the Senate is to claim that Bayh is just as partisan as anyone else he might be criticizing. That is, in answer to Moran's question whether Bayh's claims about the Senate are correct, Will attacks Bayh—not what Bayh said, but Bayh himself. Now, I loathe hypocrisy as much as the next person, but this is a freaking fallacy, plain and simple. They call it an ad hominem, or attack against the person, in rudimentary critical thinking textbooks. Rather than address the truth or falsity of Bayh's criticism, Will simply attacks Bayh. Even if Bayh is guilty of the very partisanship he decries, his diagnosis of the gridlock in Washington may be entirely correct.

So what explains Will's intellectual lapse? Well, what choice does he have? Bayh is right; it is abundantly clear that Republicans are to blame for the gridlock; Will is allied with the Republican Party. So the only thing he can do is distract you by bringing up something completely irrelevant.

Hey, George: that shit belongs on Fox. Stop ruining my Sunday morning show, all right?