Well, there’s a first time for everything…

I actually agree with George Will.

I’ll give you a moment to recover.

Okay, ready?

Will asks Who Isn’t a ‘Values Voter’? and then responds to his own question in uncharacteristically reasonable style:

This phrase diminishes our understanding of politics. It also is arrogant on the part of social conservatives and insulting to everyone else because it implies that only social conservatives vote to advance their values and everyone else votes to . . . well, it is unclear what they supposedly think they are doing with their ballots.

Wuh? Why, that almost sounds like something I’d write.

It is odd that some conservatives are eager to promote the semantic vanity of the phrase "values voters." And it is odder still that the media are cooperating with those conservatives…

Attempts to assign values-seriousness can get complicated: Freedom and happiness are valuable. Arguably, governmental actions that did much to increase freedom and happiness in the past half-century were state laws liberalizing divorce. These made important contributions to the emancipation of men and especially women from mistaken marriages. Perhaps the most important of these laws -- it was among the most liberal and was in the most populous state -- was signed by a divorced governor, Ronald Reagan. What do socially conservative values voters make of that?

Dearie me. I really do have a case of the vapors.

Of course Will manages to get in a typical dig at liberals by saying we “value equality indiscriminately” (I’ll leave you to parse out the humorous illogic in that one), but remains level-headed enough to acknowledge “they vote their values.” (This is certainly a step in the right direction from claiming that the one great conviction of the Democratic party is that “there aren't enough abortions.”)

I’m rather impressed to see a conservative columnist take on the infuriating—and erroneous—conception that conservatives have the market cornered on values. At the same time, it’s sadly indicative of how lopsided everything has become that a conservative’s willingness to honestly address something so patently obvious has the capacity to impress me.