31 Facts About George Will

1. In 1976, George Will became a regular Newsweek contributor, providing the backpage essay twice a month.

2. George Will was a member of the Fox Lake American Legion Post 521.

3. George Will was born Oct 23, 1939, in the village of Fairwater, the son of Myron and Leona Stelter.

4. George Will was occasionally lampooned in the comic Doonesbury, particularly in a December 1980 sequence of strips in which several characters attend a party hosted by Will for the Reagans.

5. George Will was one of the interview subjects for Ken Burns's PBS documentary series Baseball.

6. George Will went on to praise Reagan's "thoroughbred" performance, saying his "game plan worked well.

7. George Will 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.

8. George Will criticized Palin's understanding of the role of the Vice President and her qualifications for that role.

9. George Will criticized the Bush Iraq policy, and broader White House and congressional foreign and domestic policy making, in his keynote address for the Cato Institute's 2006 Milton Friedman Prize dinner.

10. George Will eventually criticized what he said was an unrealistically optimistic set of political scenarios.

11. George Will was opposed to both George W Bush and Barack Obama's stimulus plans.

12. George Will thinks that higher incarceration rates make the populace safer.

13. George Will criticized the Bush administration for engaging in warrantless surveillance, and supported trials for detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

14. George Will joined The Washington Post Writers Group in 1974, writing a syndicated biweekly column, which became widely circulated among newspapers across the country and continues today.

15. George Will was lampooned in a skit on an April 1990 episode of the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live.

16. In 2014, George Will claimed that Ebola could be spread via sneezing, contrary to widely accepted evidence which says that Ebola can only be spread by direct contact with infected bodily fluids.

17. George Will responded in a column that he accurately reported the Center's information and the challenge was mistaken.

18. In a 2005 syndicated column, George Will called his role in Reagan's debate preparation "inappropriate" but denied any role in stealing the briefing book.

19. George Will helped Ronald Reagan prepare for his 1980 debate against Jimmy Carter.

20. George Will criticized Trump again, saying Trump was a bigger threat than Hillary Clinton.

21. George Will has argued against campaign finance reform as "a euphemism for controlling free speech.

22. George Will was a harsh and early critic of both Sarah Palin and John McCain's 2008 election campaign.

23. George Will described the optimistic assessments delivered from the Bush administration as the "rhetoric of unreality".

24. George Will was hawkish in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and he expressed reservations about Bush administration Iraq policies.

25. In February 2013, George Will wrote in support of a proposal by "relentlessly liberal" Sherrod Brown to break up consolidated banks and finance industry conglomerates, ending "too big to fail" by restoring the Glass-Steagall Act.

26. George Will supports abolishing the minimum wage and creating voluntary personal retirement accounts in order to reduce the federal cost of Social Security.

27. George Will once proposed that the United States withdraw all troops from Afghanistan, and defended Barack Obama's response to the uprisings after the 2009 elections in Iran.

28. On May 8, 2017, George Will was announced as an MSNBC and NBC News political contributor, a paid position in which he is expected to provide regular political input on shows such as Today, Morning Joe, and The 11th Hour.

29. George Will has written two bestselling books on the game of baseball, three books on political philosophy, and has published eleven compilations of his columns for The Washington Post and Newsweek and of various book reviews and lectures.

30. George Will won a Pulitzer Prize for Commentary for "distinguished commentary on a variety of topics" in 1977.

31. George Will served as an editor for National Review from 1972 to 1978.