Pick up the phone, Guv. Guess who's on the other end

COLUMNIST GEORGE WILL has been on an odyssey to herald the new generation of conservative governors that could pass a screen test as, say, a presidential candidate. And he is doing it with extraordinary grammar. I know of no other national pundit who would dare begin a column, as he did today, with the word "Hitherto". But that's George Will for you, ramping up the language to charm those who have no clue about the points that he's trying to make. He's lately added Govs. John Kasich and Scott Walker to his honor roll, going so far as to compare Walker to Ronald Reagan. It's a common Republican desparture point in elevating a current prospect to the Reagan legend.

There are instant benefits for guys like Kasich and Walker. As a national columnist,

Will's often inscrutable insights reach readers - at least those who still find their way to an Op-ed page - from coast to coast. With the columnist's endorsement, they might close ranks on a consensus for the next fellow in the White House. He praises Walker for being "serene in the center of this storm" as the governor sits for an interview beneath a portrait of Ronald Reagan. And later he declares being impressed by Walker's "calm comportment" in this crises.

Will's in-and-out visits to crises spots satisfy his pedantic yearnings to create a medieval America in which only the fittest survive. He's attracted to the modern version of Republican governors these days much as hungry sperm whales use echo location to find their fish.

As for Walker's crisis in attempting to dislocate public employe unions, he attempts to create the silly argument that everything in Wisconsin would be fine if those out-of-state union hacks weren't crossing borders to create havoc. As I've previously noted, his own out- of- state sponsors are the billionaire Koch brothers, whose money has been turning up quite often in political campagns. The Koch front group, Americans for Prosperity, has just bought $342,000 worth of TV and radio ads in Wisconsin asking people to "stand with Walker", while bashing unions and President Obama.

But even Walker's crusade, marked by the religious fervency of a man who is a son of a Baptist minister, can run off the highway in times like these.. A New York blogger, BuffaloBeast, tricked him into a 20-minute phone conversation in which the blogger pretended he was David Koch. During the conversation, Walker openly described his plans to crush the union.

To the credit of George Will's brief but studied assessment of the governor, Walker was serene throughout the phone call.