Garry Wills

E.J. Dionne, the liberal Washington Post columnist, and Garry Wills, the author, scholar, and ex-conservative, disagree on whether the “hard right” has more or less permanent control of the Republican party. Dionne believes that so-called reform conservatives such as Ross Douthat, Ramesh Ponnuru, and David Frum might, in Wills’ words, “ride to the rescue.” On the other hand, Wills, assessing…

Last Friday, author and historian Garry Wills, who blogs occasionally at the New York Review of Books site, praised Michelle Obama for challenging, in her recent Tuskegee University commencement address, conservatives’ complacency about race in America. Specifically, Wills approved of the first lady’s “breaking all of the four rules of racial discourse the right wing now wants to enforce.” “The…

In a Sunday blog post on the New York Review of Books site, historian Wills, who’s written extensively about both the United States and Catholicism, rebuked conservative Catholics who’ve “suggested that [Pope Francis] is not truly Catholic,” asserting that such critics of the pope “are right to be in a panic. They are not used to having a pope who is a Christian. They call Francis a radical…

As I noted on Monday, the "On Faith" section at the Washington Post is hard at work attacking faithful Catholics by publishing, bit by bit, excerpts of a Sally Quinn interview with Garry Wills, a critic of the church. Well, on Tuesday -- the day of Pope Francis's installation Mass -- the attack continued with another excerpt in which Wills was given a platform to wish the papacy would become a…

As we've documented time and again, the Washington Post's On Faith section is hostile to traditional religious faith. Section editor Sally Quinn failed to disappoint on St. Patrick's Day with her publication online of an excerpt from an interview with liberal Catholic author Garry Wills, who is promoting his new book, "Why Priests? A Failed Tradition." Coming a mere four days after the…

Newsweek knows who they hate. Its section "The Take" in the March 29 edition begins with a full-page picture of Pope Benedict with this nasty sentence imposed above his head: "I would argue that the pope is already sufficiently tainted to trade his Prada shoes for a hair shirt for the rest of his life." Turn to page 24, and Newsweek religion editor Lisa Miller’s hate-filled column is titled "Save…

A defender of abortion falsely claims in a letter in today's Los Angeles Times (Sat. 11/10/07), "The Bible does mention abortion." The erroneous reader adds that a passage in the Bible, Numbers 5, gives a "a detailed formula designed to end a pregnancy." In fact, the cited passage makes no mention of pregnancy, abortion, or miscarriage whatsoever. The reader's assertions are simply false.Does the…

On Wednesday (10/10/07), Tim Rutten, media columnist for the Los Angeles Times, gave a glowing review to the latest book from anti-Catholic "Catholic" Garry Wills. Wills' new book is Head and Heart: American Christianities. In the book Wills addresses the issue of abortion. Rutten allies with Wills to spread an egregious falsehood about the Catholic Church. Rutten:Once again, Wills' deep mastery…