If you watch This Week...

...with Christiane Amanpour as regularly as I do, you may agree that George Will's best days are behind him. Remember how he used to dazzle everyone during the Reagan years with his tightly-reasoned arguments? Will's was definitely one of the brightest conservative minds when it was Morning in America.

But lately, if you read his column or watch him on Sunday mornings, Will seems old, tired and cranky (still); and his opinions just aren't that compelling. Railing against the evils of Soviet Communism back in the 1980s was a lot easier than debating economics today with a Nobel Prize winner like Paul Krugman. (It's almost painful to watch sometimes; kind of like the class nerd with glasses -- which Will still resembles -- picking a fight with the neighborhood bully.)

This morning, in his Washington Post column, Will is at it again, putting in a good word for the presidential candidacy of Rick Santorum, the former Republican senator from Pennsylvania.

This is after flirting with Representative Mike Pence of Indiana in December, who has since signaled he is more likely to run for governor of the Hoosier state. You know Pence; he's the tea partier who describes himself as "a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order." Great. Pence also voted against TARP, wants to make the Bush tax cuts permanent, is against stem cell research, against immigration reform, doesn't accept evolution, is opposed to closing Guantanamo Bay, and stands for, well, just about every other far right position you can think of. In fact, last September Pence was the top choice for president in a straw poll conducted by the Value Voters Summit. What does that tell you?

In his piece touting Pence, Will notes that the six-term Congressman's district borders Ohio, which gave us James Garfield, the only president who came directly from the House. Also, Will enlightens us, Indiana has provided only one president so far, Benjamin Harrison. (Now while all this is fascinating -- and kudos to whomever on Will's staff that furnished this research -- it really doesn't shed much light on Pence. But that's the kind of fluff that used to impress people about Will back in the '80s; now it's just his worn-out schtick.)

So now that Pence has decided against a 2012 run, Will has moved on to ... Santorum? This is the same guy who lost his senate seat in 2006 by a whopping 18 points, also doesn't accept evolution and is an outspoken homophobe. Oh, and Santorum is an employee of Fox News. Get the picture? He's on the far, far right. And this is George Will's candidate for 2012?

My response to Mr. Will (and anyone else who's "excited" by the prospect of a Rick Santorum candidacy) is: take a good, long look at him. Because after the Iowa Caucus, Santorum will be gone.