Where There’s a Will

With his beloved Cubs (next year!) having played in baseball’s wild-card game a night earlier, George Will was free to devote all of his attention to the crowd at his speech to kick off this year’s President’s Speaker Series on Oct. 8—also the opening night of SCU’s Grand Reunion weekend.

The nation’s leading conservative commentator delivered “The Political Argument Today,” a sweeping discussion that ranged from Medicare to welfare—stuff of national discourse he has covered in 40-plus years in writing (for the Washington Post, Newsweek, and other publications) and television (first for ABC, now for Fox News). His writing has earned him awards and renown. And it has provoked anger—as when he wrote dismissively in 2014 of a study purporting to show broad occurrence of sexual asssault on college campuses; or when he lambasted Donald Trump or the pope. “There is no reason in the world why the bishop of Rome should be exempt from criticism,” he said here.