"A Word Fitly Spoken...

...is like apples of gold in pictures of silver".

This is a saying that I somehow remember from a style manual that somehow found its way into my possession when I was quite young, maybe 9 or 10. I didn't understand its meaning at the time, but I do now.

From a quality of writing standpoint, George Will is probably the best political commentator we have. He's consistently able to transmit thoughts to words (often long strings of words), clearly, intelligently and with a good deal of wit.
Writing on the subject of baseball, Will often emphasizes the professionalism and the "craft" of the players. It's clear he takes his own craft very seriously.

Some elegant phrasings from his latest column on Obamacare.

As America's teetering tower of unkeepable promises grows, so does the weight of government, in taxes and mandates that limit investments and discourage job creation. America's dynamism, and hence upward social mobility, will slow, as the economy becomes what the party of government wants it to be -- increasingly dependent on government-created demand.

I particularly like the following sentence.

Because logrolling is how legislative coalitions are cobbled together in a continental nation, the auction by which reluctant House Democrats were purchased has been disillusioning only to sentimentalists with illusions about society's stock of disinterestedness.

I'm one of those disillusioned sentimentalists, by the way.

Besides, some of the transactions were almost gorgeous: Government policy having helped make water scarce in California's Central Valley, the party of expanding government secured two votes by increasing rations of the scarcity. Thus did one dependency lubricate legislation that establishes others.

During the Democrats' health care monomania, the nation benefited from the benign neglect of the rest of their agenda. Now the nation may benefit from the exhaustion of their appetite for more political risk.

http://townhall.com/columnists/GeorgeWill/2010/03/22/searching_for_obamacares_silver_lining?page=1