George Will on Tea Parties and unions

In January, George Will says that those rambunctious Tea Partiers are the standard bearers of a great American tradition of disharmony:

The tone of today's politics was anticipated and is vindicated by a book published 30 years ago. The late Samuel Huntington's "American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony" (1981) clarifies why it is a mistake to be alarmed by today's political excitements and extravagances, a mistake refuted by America's past...

The American Creed's values are liberal, as that term was understood until liberalism succumbed to 20th-century statism. The values, expressing the 18th century's preoccupation with defending liberty against government, are, Huntington said, "individualistic, democratic, egalitarian, and hence basically anti-government and anti-authority." The various values "unite in imposing limits on power and on the institutions of government. The essence of constitutionalism is the restraint of governmental power through fundamental law."...

America is an inherently "disharmonic society" because the ideals of its creed are always imperfectly realized, and always endangered. Government is necessary but, Huntington says, "the distinctive aspect of the American Creed is its anti-government character. Opposition to power and suspicion of government as the most dangerous embodiment of power are the central themes of American political thought."...

"It has been our fate as a nation," wrote historian Richard Hofstadter, "not to have ideologies but to be one." It is an excellent fate, even if — actually, (BEG ITAL)because(END ITAL) — the creed periodically, as now, makes America intensely disharmonic.

In February, George Will says those union demonstrators in Wisconsin are just a bunch of rabble whipped up by outside agitators:

Hitherto, when this university town and seat of state government applauded itself as "the Athens of the Midwest," the sobriquet suggested kinship with the cultural glories of ancient Greece. Now, however, Madison resembles contemporary Athens.

This capital has been convulsed by government employees sowing disorder in order to repeal an election. A minority of the minority of Wisconsin residents who work for government (300,000 of them) are resisting changes to benefits that most of Wisconsin's 5.6 million residents resent financing...

A few days after President Barack Obama submitted a budget that would increase the federal deficit, he tried to sabotage Wisconsin's progress toward solvency. The Washington Post: "The president's political machine worked in close coordination . . . with state and national union officials to mobilize thousands of protesters to gather in Madison and to plan similar demonstrations in other state capitals." Walker notes that in the 1990s, Wisconsin was a trend-setter regarding school choice and welfare reform. Obama, he thinks, may be worried that Wisconsin might again be a harbinger.

But he's so erudite, he's convincing even when he's completely contradicting himself!