George F. Will

Clearly George W. Bush finds Pennsylvania's Gov. Tom Ridge congenial company. "Two minds with but a single thought, two hearts that beat as one," is perhaps how Bush puts it when waxing poetic.

What is called the national pastime operates 30 teams in 28 cities from April through October. Another national pastime is much more ubiquitous and constant--it goes on everywhere, year-round.

The Clinton administration, which thinks it takes a village to raise a child, knows that a masked SWAT-type team with battering ram, automatic weapons and pepper spray suffices to snatch a child, terrified, in a predawn raid.

Phoenix--If George W. Bush wins, conservatives will be glad they failed to abolish the Department of Education. Surely he would have the wisdom to make Lisa Graham Keegan, Arizona's superintendent of Public Instruction, secretary of Education.

Tampa--want to see the face of baseball? turn to the back of this page. What? You expected the sunburst smile of Ken Griffey beneath a backward-turned Reds cap?

Measured in terms of America's traditional causes of discord--antagonisms arising from class, race, ethnicity and religion--there never has been more domestic tranquillity.

John Mccain is no doubt not the first person who, late at night after a long day, has said something strange in the convivial atmosphere of the NASCAR cafe in Myrtle Beach.

Although the democratic convention in Los Angeles is still six months away, it is not too soon to start yawning. But when Republicans convene in Philadelphia, brotherly love may be as scarce as it was when last a party convention was held there.The Democratic nomination contest is all but over because Bill Bradley has difficulty attracting Democrats.

After months of bounding off buses and into gaggles of strangers, the presidential candidates should by now feel much as Job did after he lost his camels and acquired boils.

Imagine 40 million orphans in sub-saharan Africa by the end of this decade, many of them organized into "kid armies." Does this grotesque recasting of "Lord of the Flies" in real life get your attention?

Nineteen ninety-nine was a suitable exclamation point for a century that would like to be remembered more for its wealth than for its wars. America's prodigious wealth-creation threatened to deprive Americans of the delights of complaining, at least other than as Gilbert and Sullivan did:Some baseball fans grumbled: a Los Angeles TV sports anchor said, "Dodgers and Angels highlights at 11.

An American revolution in child rearing has tiptoed in on little cat feet. One sign of it is the locution "quality time," by which busy and uneasy adults tell themselves that the diminished quantity of time they are spending with their children is redeemed by its quality.

A published list of prudential maxims (e.g., "Never give your wife an anniversary gift that needs to be plugged in"; "Never order barbecue in a place where all the chairs match"; "Never buy a Rolex from someone out of breath") could have included this one: Never extrapolate February politics from November polls.John McCain, uppermost underdog in the competition to deny George W.

America had seen something like Vince Lombardi's Chiclets-teeth grin before. His face often radiated competitive fury, but when it crinkled with happiness, you saw the visage--and spirit--of Teddy Roosevelt, apostle of the strenuous life, who could have said, as Lombardi did, that fatigue makes cowards of us all.

President Clinton, whose cynicism never loses its power to astonish, put on a long face and, with that tone of sincerity that betokens his tendentiousness, lamented that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty had become tangled in "politics." Indeed it had, but long before last week.The treaty purports to ban all nuclear explosions.

At a stroke, Bill Bradley recently refuted the bromide that he is boring, and in doing so he usefully illuminated the upcoming Senate debate on campaign finance reform.

With almost insolent ease, Bill Bradley has gained much ground on Al Gore without burdening voters with much information about what he would do with power.

Princeton, N.J.--The university's motto, "Dei Sub Numine Viget," does not say, as some Princetonians insist, "God went to Princeton." It says, "Under God's Power She Flourishes." As the academic year commences, Peter Singer comes to campus to teach that truly ethical behavior will not flourish until humanity abandons the fallacy, as he sees it, of "the sanctity of life."He comes trailing clouds of controversy because he argues, without recourse to euphemism or other semantic sleights-of-hand,...

Brooding, sphinxlike Iowa is about to speak. Well, maybe as much as seven tenths of 1 percent of Iowa's voting-age population will speak in Ames this Saturday.

Prof. Harvey Mansfield is Harvard's conservative. Well, all right, he is one of Harvard's handful of conservatives, a.k.a. The Saving Remnant. A few years ago he received a call when a distinguished colleague retired.

Hillary Clinton is a leading cultural indicator, and New York politics, with enough variables to induce vertigo, illustrates the definition of politics as the organization of animosities.

Republicans in the House of Representatives are putting a cheerful interpretation on events, in the manner of the communique issued during the Spanish Civil War: "The advance was continued all day without any ground being lost." Their leader, Speaker Dennis Hastert, says, appearances of disarray notwithstanding, all 13 appropriations bills will be passed by the Aug. 7 recess.

Granted, G.F., as the Supreme Court calls him, was even more vulgar than many fifth-grade boys occasionally are. His sexual misbehavior, which continued for five months and eventually required him to plead guilty to sexual battery against his classmate LaShonda, was directed at others as well.

Meg Greenfield said that one thing she especially liked about her friend Daniel Bell, the distinguished sociologist, was that he was so smart he made her feel like a dumb blonde.

All of us have seen lots of them, those words of warning or instruction that appear on products we buy. "Do not eat this sled." "For best results do not apply this floor wax to your teeth." "This antifreeze is not intended for pouring on breakfast cereal." We hardly notice them, let alone consider what they say about the times in which we live.

Mark McGwire's biceps symbolize big bang baseball. Rickey Henderson's thighs, which are responsible for what still may be the quickest first step in baseball, are the key to this: baseball's history is written largely in numbers, and numbers say Henderson's may have been the most impressive all-round career in the last quarter century.His gaudiest number--1,299 stolen bases, and counting--is a record you will never see broken.

Instead of reflexively invoking the specter of Adolf Hitler whenever they are confronted with a troublesome tyrant, American leaders should take seriously one thing Hitler said.

With the Dow average nearing a fifth digit, Americans are cheerful. However, soon the women's division of the Great American Grievance Industry will weigh in, saying women remain trapped beneath the "glass ceiling" and in the "pink ghetto." Brace yourself for a blizzard of statistics purporting to prove that women are suffering a "wage gap" primarily caused by discrimination that requires government actions like affirmative action, quotas and set-asides.But a counterblizzard has blown in from...

Joe DiMaggio was the first Michael Jordan, the first athlete who transcended his sport, and sport generally, to become his generation's archetype of a gentleman.

Given the compression of the presidential-primary calendar, both parties' nominees may be known a year from now, on the evening of March 7, the day voting occurs in California, New York and a slew of other states.