Before Rush was a colossus. Before Powerline and Instapundit. There was George Will.

Will played politics, but not necessarily as a team player. Years ago, seeking legitimacy in the mainstream media, he joined ABC News’ Sunday show to serve as the “conservative voice.”

Most recently, he took time away from his schedule to introduce Rudy Giuliani at CPAC, to great cheers. Today, Will slammed former Sen. Fred Thompson for his support of campaign finanance reform.

Does anyone see a problem here? Will openly supports a pro-abortion, pro-gay, liberal Republican, and then he attacks a pro-life, pro-family, fiscal conservative who isn’t even in the race yet?

Thompson has been pretty forthright about the campaign-finance issue. He led the investigations into Clinton and Democrat Chinese fundraising scandals. He saw the seedy underbelly of where the Democrats were trying to take fundraising, and supported what at the time some folks thought was a good idea. Not a perfect idea, but a step toward putting the Democrat idea of donor outreach out of reach.

In public statements he’s recently made, Thompson has made it clear that that good idea has gone wrong. Will doesn’t bother to deal with that little fact.

Will appears to be another victim of getting into the 2008 race a bit too early. Instead of keeping his powder dry, he has thrown his support behind a candidate who is no doubt a good leader, but who is a liberal leader on just about every count. Now he had to defend him.

That’s fine. He should stick with Rudy and see how far that takes him. But he should at least be intellectually honest enough to give readers of his column – the few who read it on a Saturday, no less – the full story.