George Will's Triumph Of The Wallace
Submitted by Rick Perlstein on June 25, 2007 - 8:06pm.
A sickening man named George Will has just laundered the historical reputation of a monster. His new column affects to analyze the varieties of third party candidates in the wake of Michael Bloomberg's suspected entrance into the presential race. Exhibit B: "A candidate can succeed in giving an aggrieved minority a voice—e.g., George Wallace, speaking for people furious about the '60s tumults," he writes in his new Newsweek column.
Of course this is nonsense: the people he was giving voice to was an aggrieved majority--e.g., white people. Media Matters gives us the beginnings of an explanation, quoting Wallace organizer Tom Turnipseed--
Race and being opposed to the civil rights movement and all it meant was the very heart and soul of the Wallace campaign. I mean, that's what it was all about.But I'd like to fill in some details from Wallace's 1968 campaign. Aggravation at those responsible for '60s tumults was indeed part of the appeal. You know, the people who, "when someone goes out and burns down half a city and murders someone, swaydo-intellectuals explain it away by sayin' the killer didn't get any watermelons to eat when he was ten years old."
Wallace's proposed solution was to murder them.
In one of his applause lines, he brought up the story of the demonstrator who laid down in front of President Johnson's limousines: "I tell you when November comes, the first time they lie down in front of my limousine, it'll be the last one they'll ever lay down in front of because their day is over!" This often got a standing ovation. He also addressed the subject of race riots: "We don't have riots in Alabama. They start a riot down there, first one of 'em to pick up a brick gets a bullet in the brain, that's all." He suggested antiwar be forced into combat in Vietnam: "I wish they'd organize that brigade and get all the dirty beatniks that march in these shindigs and get 'em over there and let 'em do a little fightin' and get rid of 'em." He didn't much care for professors, either: "I would drag some of these professors by their beards." "Hell," he would say, "we got too much dignity in government now. We need some meanness."
Or, in other words, fascism. The New Republic described Wallaceites and anti-Wallaceites at a Madison Square Garden rally: "Never again will you read about Berlin in the '30s without remembering wild confrontation of two irrational forces." .......(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://commonsense.ourfuture.org/george_wallaces_triumph_will?tx=3