Will helped Ronald Reagan prepare for his 1980 debate against Jimmy Carter. Immediately after the debate, Will—not yet a member of the ABC News staff—appeared on ABC's Nightline. He was introduced by host Ted Koppel, who said "It's my understanding that you met for some time yesterday with Governor Reagan", and that Will "never made any secret of his affection" for the Republican candidate. Will did not explicitly disclose that he had assisted Reagan's debate preparation, or been present during it. He went on to praise Reagan, saying his "game plan worked well. I don't think he was very surprised". In 2004 and again in 2005, Carter accused Will of giving the Reagan campaign a top-secret briefing book stolen from Carter's office before the 1980 debate. In a 2005 syndicated column, Will called his role in Reagan's debate preparation "inappropriate" but denied any role in stealing the briefing book.[31] In response to Will's column, Carter wrote a letter to the Washington Post retracting his accusations. Carter apologized to Will for "any incorrect statement that I have ever made about his role in the use of my briefing book...I have never thought Mr. Will took my book, that the outcome of the debate was damaging to my campaign or that Mr. Will apologized to me".[32] In a Washington Post column which expressed doubt over the effects of global warming, Will stated that: "According to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979".[38] This and several other claims attracted the attention of environmentalists, such as British author and activist George Monbiot.[39] Asked to respond, the website of Arctic Climate Research at the University of Illinois states that: "We do not know where George Will is getting his information, but our data shows that on February 15, 1979, global sea ice area was 16.79 million sq. km and on February 15, 2009, global sea ice area was 15.45 million sq. km. Therefore, global sea ice levels are 1.34 million sq. km less in February 2009 than in February 1979".[40] Will responded in a column that he accurately reported the Center's information and the challenge was mistaken.[41] This drew a second response from George Monbiot, who insisted Will had not accurately reported the Center's information.[42] The debate continued in several forums, including a subsequent op-ed by Chris Mooney published in The Washington Post challenging Will's assertions.[43] Will's 6 June 2014 newspaper column about "the supposed campus epidemic of rape" was widely criticized,[44] with U.S. senators and feminists taking Will to task. Wrote Will, "...when [colleges and universities] make victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges, victims proliferate."[45] Will's column sparked an outcry on Twitter, with rape victims recounting their stories of sexual assault and violence.[46] "It takes a particular kind of ignorance to argue that people who come forward to report being raped in college are afforded benefits of any kind," wrote Jessica Valenti in The Guardian."[47] In an open letter to Will, Senators Richard Blumenthal, Dianne Feinstein, Tammy Baldwin and Bob Casey wrote, "Your column suggests that we — including some of us who have worked on this issue for many years -- all have missed a subculture on college campuses where survivors of sexual assault are inducted into a privileged class. The culture you described is so antiquated, so counter-intuitive and so contrary to anything we heard that we hope you will make an effort to hear the stories survivors bravely shared with us about the struggles they face in addressing what has happened to them — often with little meaningful assistance from authorities expected to help them." The St. Louis Post-Dispatch dropped Will's column from its pages as a result of the column. "The column was offensive and inaccurate; we apologize for publishing it," editor Tony Messenger wrote. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Will

• published: 10 Aug 2014
• views: 157