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Eminentoes
Obama, Noonan, and Blarney
Despite some misgivings about the president, the gifted Peggy Noonan cannot help but regard him as someone special.
(Page 2 of 2)
So I am now in a pickle: As a junior member of the Irish-American Pundits Guild, it is not my place to suggest that well-placed cynicism could shield Noonan from future remorse. Fortunately, P.J. O’Rourke has already said much the same thing, and he writes with a muscular disdain foreign to her experience, as a comparison of similar passages in their respective essays makes clear.
While claiming that Obama had “donned the presidential cloak” near the end of a speech delivered February 24, Noonan wrote, “Every president has a moment when suddenly he becomes what he meant to be, or knows what he is, and those moments aren’t always public.” Her criticisms of the economic recovery plan were muted. President Obama was throwing everything he could against the wall to see what would stick, she noted, but it was hard to criticize him for reminding her of the spaghetti-cooking technique she claimed to have learned from an old Italian woman.
Well, I have Italian friends, too, and mine know that any spaghetti that sticks to the wall is overcooked. Is it churlish to say that to a woman whose writing evokes images of Anna Magdalena Bach at the harpsichord, all perfect posture and moderate volume while plinking skillfully at one of her husband’s compositions, or is this another case of “many a thing you know you ought to tell her; many a thing she ought to understand”?
A few days after Ms. Noonan filed her “presidential epiphany” column, Mr. O’Rourke also wrote about Obama, but he bypassed Bach to thunder like Beethoven at a grand piano: “When a Democratic president goes from being wrong to being damn wrong is always an interesting moment,” he wrote. “Barack Obama condemned himself (and a number of human embryos to be determined at a later date) on March 9 when he signed an executive order reversing the Bush administration’s restrictions on federal funding of stem cell research.”
As the jury foreman for this study in contrast, I think a harder tone is more appropriate than a softer one. While Noonan described Obama as showing “welcome modesty” at the G20 summit, I heard our president congratulate himself for “not having to drag the French kicking and screaming into Afghanistan.”
Frankly, from where I sit, it looks like the First, Second, Tenth, and Twenty-Second Amendments are being undermined by initiatives from a president who thinks pulling other countries into conflicts is an American prerogative. Whether Peggy Noonan sees the same thing would be hard say. But God bless us, every one. God help us and forgive us, too.
About the Author
Patrick O’Hannigan is a writer in North Carolina.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (100) | Leave a comment
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TennesseeVolunteer| 4.9.09 @ 6:27AM
Like most other adults, lessons learned during your life usually come at great cost. One of the most important lessons in my life was when I learned "when you aren't sure if you can trust someone, watch what they do, not what they say, and you'll know their true intentions.
In the case of our President, Ms. Noonan has not learned this particular lesson yet.
Gene Brennan| 4.9.09 @ 6:53AM
Great article. It appears Noonan has had her 15 minutes of fame.
I stopped reading her about 2 years ago . She's done. Obama is destroying this beautiful country minute by minute.
God Help Us All.
Appleby| 4.9.09 @ 6:57AM
I have had it with Ms. Noonan. She has taken up residence on Fantasy Island.
WeatWright| 4.9.09 @ 7:03AM
You are too kind to Peggy Noonan. She needs a lot of help, someone should suggest she sees her Doctor about her post mensual flights of insanity. Please write the WSJ and tell them to get some help for this pitiful Peggy.
drudge ette obama| 4.9.09 @ 7:11AM
Noonan has been perfectly defined here. As a Charles Krauthammer fan, I no longer need the emploring, soft-spoken emotionalism the Noonan gives.
In the past years, she has been labeled nonconservative. How can someone who worked with Reagan be nonconservative?
I so enjoyed her columns during 9-11, which often gripped my heart. My husband even bought me one of her books for Christmas. I then found myself wondering where she sits on the fence because her columns didn't always seem like they were written by the same person. She seemed inconstistent. Perhaps I was duped by her emotional approach to think that she had a similar approach to the world as I. She obviously had broken support with President Bush. Fair enough.
Now I may glance at her columns, but I don't have the patience to read the first half of rambling to get to whatever meat is on sale that day at the Noonan Market.
Noonan runs 100% on emotion. These times require more grist. This is why Charles Krauthammer is so absolutely the commentator of the times. He is angry about what Obama is doing to this country and I am angry with him.
Kitty| 4.9.09 @ 7:17AM
The subject matter is a waste of good TAS space.
...
Grant Johnson| 4.9.09 @ 7:18AM
I too stopped reading Noonan some time ago.
She seems to imagine herself an analyst and Reagan policy insider, when the truth is she was just a speech writer adding polish to the ideas of others.
Unable to think deeply about ideas and consequences, she has no defense against the Obama "mystique".
John| 4.9.09 @ 7:26AM
I am a Noonan fan. The Peggy Noonan that I spent my 20's and 30's reading. The gifted writer whose grace with the written word was difficult for anyone to match. I am a fan of that Peggy Noonan.
I have seen this phenomenon time and time again. The culture of the Northeast Elites is breathtaking poison. Conservative writers and thinkers are starved of strength, denied social access and refused any sort of connected feeling by a world controlled by the Radical Chic.
At some point in 1995 the old Peggy disappeared. She evaporated into the ozone of former greatness, lost of spirit, heart, and faith.
What was left was the Northeastern Elitist who feels above the masses. "Graced" by accident of geography and privilege of the "right" education, the shell proceeds, devoid of any soul.
Peggy was seduced and won over by the "Dark Side" to use a trite analogy correctly. The question will remain, can she be saved?
Maybe the lovely Miss Peggy needs to move to a place less toxic to the soul. Perhaps if she spends some time contemplating a free world of property owners and self-reliance, she will recognize her torpor. Maybe with some air, she will breathe again.
Her pennance should be to do that time with Sarah Palin; Alasaka. Maybe instead of being negatively judgemental, the once powerful Miss Noonan can find a voice assisting Governor Palin in crafting speaches and talks.
She was great once. She could be again. I am Catholic. I do believe in the power of redemption.
r/John
Judith| 4.9.09 @ 7:31AM
She waxed eloquent over Reagan, had an epiphany on 9/11, suffered BDS, and now has a teenager's crush on obama, it is hard to get old.
John| 4.9.09 @ 7:43AM
She did have a flash of brilliance after her tour in the dower (1995 - 2001) after 9/11 but that faded. Sort of like a glowing ember that finds a tad more gas before fizzling out.
:-\
John
whiterb| 4.9.09 @ 7:52AM
In Hollywood they call it " jumping the shark ", and once upon a time I'd have called her a spaces hot. The term " moon bat" in vogue with the Boston talk radio crowd also seems apt. When is the last time she's written a memorable sentence. Her appearances on msnbc and Imus were enough for any alert person to realize she was gonzo. Note to Wall Street Journal, because of her I no longer buy your paper. Bet I am not the only one. Fire the ditz or end up like the Boston Globe.
Millie Woods| 4.9.09 @ 7:52AM
Patrick unfortunately does not have the experience of having lived in an all female residence. If he had he would have known that Peggy displayed her true colours when she trashed Sarah Palin. The bitchiness of spite and jealousy was all too obvious and it indicated that au fond the empress had no clothes. Were Barack Obama to shed his non-white skin she would see him as the arrogant ignoramus he is, Fifty-seven states, Afghanistan's coastline, the Austrian language, his sloblish gonnas, wannas, couldas and shouldas. This individual is a disaster and definitely not ready for prime time.
ame| 4.9.09 @ 8:04AM
Why is Peggy Noonan considered such a remarkable and respected writer? Personally, I do not like Noonan's writing for three reasons: 1. Noonan's vanilla posture on almost everything of any import (her Sarah Palin article was nothing more than the usual low-life nonsense opinion trash) - Noonan is always "maybe yes" or "maybe no," and any idiot can write that. What is particularly annoying about Noonan is her refusal to take a stand based on morality and/or ethics and educate the public through that lens - Noonan always opts to walk the line and her refusal to commit to what she believes is right smacks of cowardice. One thing the United States does NOT need in the media is another wimp who cannot take a stand that is true and educates the public, which is both Noonan's duty and her responsibility given her media exposure. 2. Noonan's ridiculous yet universal acceptance of the "civility" in politics and in critical assessment because Noonan's priggish attitude toward that accepts and promotes one of the most dangerous premises of liberalism: politically correct language, which, ironically, denies us our first amendment right to free speech that Noonan should cherish, protect, and most importantly promote since her "position" as a "writer" for major publications gives her the advantage of doing so, much less the obligation. Politically correct speech shuts people up and as any one with even a shallow understanding of literature and history will confirm - shutting people up is the first rule of dictatorship: in essence, silence is death. The current media hype concerning the fact that people don't like "negative" campaigning, when, in fact, negative campaigning is a perfect way in which to tell the truth about an opponent, is yet another attempt to silence those who do not agree with the prevailing idiocy of the media to which Noonan belongs. When has Noonan ever written a slam against the "Fairness Doctrine" that drips with Pelosi's and the Left's saliva? Camus warned of language that was so dissembled and so equivocated (Clinton and Obama) that the truth could never be told, discussed, revealed, acted on because under those conditions language could not be trusted and, therefore, men could not be trusted. Noonan's writing mimics Obama's dissembling in its see-saw emptiness. 3. Noonan's absurd contention of civility in politics and its longing for bi-partisan working also bodes death for a democracy. Democracies thrive on contention and standing your ground and partisan backbone for what you know is right and the refusal to concede just to co-operate. "Going along to get along" is always annihilation, always concession, and always deadly, and Noonan is ceratinly that when it comes to Obama. What we always get from Noonan and a host of other spineless "journalists" is expediency - a lot of damn claptrap tripe piffle newspaper article not worthy to wrap a sardine in. What Americans desperately want, need, desire and have a RIGHT to expect and get is insightful vision based on sagacity. Noonan should heed Cicero: the function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil. What Noonan writes is neutral gray - that's not wisdom. That's cowardice. Noonan reminds me of Obama - a facilitator who doesn't want to get his hands dirty - a sham poser - a "blank slate" on which, in essence, NOTHING is written. Jan LaRue stabs the heart of Noonan, and the reason why Noonan's writing is nugatory - "Noonan echoes ... cliched sound bites from the upper chamber of political punditry."
Noonan is so typical of today's valueless, inconsequential, null and dull reporting, which allows so perfectly an adjustment to Mark Twain's observation that "It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress" AND THE MEDIA AND OBAMA "I WON" ADMINISTRATION. The only criterion for a "journalist" today is to wear an elitist leftist equivocating sickeningly biased yellow stripe down the back. The stuff that Noonan "brews" tastes of sycophant obsequious capitulation to the Nope and Dope Fascism of the Affirmative Action president and his "remaking destruction" of our beloved country. Noonan, another pedestrian Black Hole of "journalism."
Pingback| 4.9.09 @ 8:12AM
The American Spectator : Obama, Noonan, and Blarney « Obamabidenforchange.com links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
P. Aaron| 4.9.09 @ 8:22AM
Noonan is a speechwriter; they play both sides of the aisle as evidenced by that guy John Fund(?). They want to appear thoughtful, but fail to recognize their own surrender of principled policy-philosophical positions.
Be suspicious of any wonk-always looking for work.
JackWoodson| 4.9.09 @ 8:41AM
Who is Peggy Noonan?
John McGuinness| 4.9.09 @ 8:48AM
A good article and fitting epitaph to a graceful and lame-brained writer. I quit reading her after finishing “The Case Against Hillary Clinton.” Anyone needing a dream sequence to portray Hillary is too lazy and self-indulgent to be given the reader’s trust. I read perhaps two of her essays each year, looking for a return to common sense. No luck yet.
Don L| 4.9.09 @ 8:56AM
If Noonan understood her faith, she wouldn't be writing confused essays about Obama. She could benifit from discernment, and serious admonition of the pro-infanticide, anti-conscience, master of self-agrandizement.
Stephen Pangborn| 4.9.09 @ 8:56AM
I wouldn't waste time reading anything by Peggy Noonan anymore. She wrote good speeches for Ronald Reagan. That doesn't make her an expert. When you write baloney it's still baloney no matter how prettily it's written. (That goes for Kathleen Parker too)
Matt| 4.9.09 @ 9:00AM
Agreed with the above comments! Noonan's lived off her "Reagan speechwriter" credentials far too long. Even before her recent Obamania, her writing was confused, contrarian and smug, and for all her religiosity she seems embarassed by politicians who are overt in their traditional faith.
Laney B| 4.9.09 @ 9:01AM
Peggy Noonan has revealed herself to be one who reflects the glory of whomever is currently in power. She shows no originality of thought, just the ability to elaborate and create memeorable phrases based on the thoughts of others. Her WSJ columns are tedious and rambling, and leave one to wonder what point she is trying to make or what lofty thought she is tryting to capture. How she ever became a literary luminary is baffling. Ultra-Catholic, wedded to nothing solid other than a reverance for her religion, she brings nothing to the party of ideas, rumination, and explanation. It is time for Peggy to let her pen dry and retreat to the closed arms of those who cling to the East Coast elite as intellectual poseurs.
pennband| 4.9.09 @ 9:10AM
Peggy's writing still shines; contrast even her most blather-filled WSJ piece with, for instance, Mr. O'Hannigan's torpid and tortured prose. (Note to Patrick: cool it with the metaphors, they are not helping.)
But style is not enough. Declarations has become All About Peggy:" This morning I was walking down Madison Avenue and I noticed a recently closed dress shop, and here's what it told me about the world today . . ." Who cares?
What made Peggy so great a speechwriter was her yearning for beauty, transcendence, meaning, communicated with the perfect turn of phrase, the most arresting image, the most sparing and careful use of words. Her "To Touch the Face of God" speech for President Reagan after the Challenger explosion remains one of the most perfect speeches ever written.
But those were the days when she had something to write about. Now she's just another lady of a certain age on the Upper East Side with a $300 haircut and really nice shoes. Peggy's still big; it's her world that got small.
Let's hope that one day soon she can again find the passion, the ideas, and the subject matter worthy of her extraordinary gifts.
Jim| 4.9.09 @ 9:11AM
Gergen in drag. 'Nuff said.
Terry Saulsbury | 4.9.09 @ 9:11AM
I am also disappointed in Ms Noonan. What really turned my wife and me off was her obvious jealousy of Sarah Palin.
Motown Mike| 4.9.09 @ 9:11AM
I, too, at one time was a Peggy Noonan fan. Now, if given a choice, I'd rather read Camille Paglia, even though I disagree with many of the things for which she stands. At least I know where Ms. Paglia is coming from and what she says demonstrates some sequential thinking, even if I believe it's wrong.
Ms. Noonan, on the other hand, reminds me of Harry Truman's desire for a one-armed economist because he got tired of continually hearing "on the other hand..."
I agree with John who posted earlier. Peggy Noonan needs to move to Kansas City or Tulsa or Wichita for awhile and see life beyond the Hudson River.
That was part of the greatness of broadcaster-turned-actor-turned-governor-turned-president, Ronald Reagan. He remained the Midwestern lifeguard from Eureka College.
Jeff | 4.9.09 @ 9:29AM
I, too, used to like Peggy Noonan, but that ended during the election. For reasons I cannot begin to understand, she was taken in by the Obama charm and snake oil. How anyone could be so easily duped by a demagogue is beyond me.
I think Peggy has been in New York too long, and has no idea of what goes on in the United States.
She, like many New Yorkers, is incredibly narrow and provincial. That explains her loathing for Sarah Palin, who did not meet Peggy's affected approval. After all, Sarah Palin is so common, and Peggy is so refined.
I am glad someone took her to task. Maybe she can get her nose out of the air long enough to open her eyes and see how easily duped she was.
But I do not hold out much hope. Peggy sold her soul to the mainstream media, and devoted what was left of her mind to adoring Obama.
owyheewine| 4.9.09 @ 9:36AM
Noonan's love affair with Obama stems from their mutual admiration of their own rhetoric. Alas, the words are mutually empty.
Evelyn| 4.9.09 @ 9:36AM
Thank you for focusing for me what had been bothering me for months about Peggy Noonan's essays. Her work would fit better in the pages of the New York Times.
Sayit | 4.9.09 @ 9:43AM
I agree with MoTown Mike-- While I can disagree with Maureen I know where she is coming from. I like others was introduced to Peggy's writing after 9-11 . At that time , at least for me , reading her writings felt like a mother hand stroking the head of a frightened child- soothing, comforting , clarifiying that all would be well ... Now her writing feels and reads like her stroking my head with a porcipine - it is just damn irritating .
Not Chicken Little| 4.9.09 @ 10:02AM
Words do have power, and Peggy worships at that altar. But words are not deeds. And lying words have the power to deceive and mislead - but the listener first has to accept them as truth.
I wonder why so many people like myself are NOT taken in by lying politicians (excuse me for being redundant). Are we just better judges of character or terminally cynical or just realists? We do not swoon over dulcet tones and polished deliveries but instead look at their actions. Why are other people including Peggy so easily fooled?
Kelpius| 4.9.09 @ 10:03AM
Dammit Jim @ 9:11am, I was so ready to compare her to Gergen, in her boring puffiness. Who issues these Wise Man certificates, btw?
DCodevilla| 4.9.09 @ 10:04AM
Pennband nails it. Ms Noonan lives in an upper Manhattan echo chamber; she's happy there, but her languid observations betray a growing ignorance of the grim and very hard-edged realities in the rest of (what used to be) the United States of America. I read her musings only because of one brilliant piece she wrote in the latter Bush II years, which explained how and why she broke with him on the day of his grotesque 2005 Inaugural Address. I remember painfully where I was that day, and how I had to (too obviously, I'm afraid) leave a crowded law firm conference room in disgust, to start on the hard whiskey early. But Bush II's Wilsonian foolishness, which paved the way for the self-styled messiah, pales in degree of danger against what the current "president" and his ilk have in mind for us. Ms Noonan, note well: the nation you profess to love is gone; your schoolgirl "excitement" over Obama has blinded you to the reality that what formerly was America has skipped quickly over the Canada and France stages, directly to Argentina, now is between there and Venezuela, soon to "progress" towards Zimbabwe. That's why guns and ammunition are so hard to find these days--many, many Americans are preparing for war, like the Rhodesians in 1975. They know what is coming; they know their children will be in upstairs windows and along garden fences, shooting whatever they can handle competently against Obama's Praetorians, trying to protect their little brothers and sisters whom Obama has marked for destruction, equating them to so many undesirable embryos. The war is on, Ms Noonan, and it's not in Iraq or Afghanistan. By the time your Manhattan salon folk realize what is happening in flyover country, you'll be on a cattle car on the way to a domestic Buchenwald--your brilliant prose won't save you. Wake up. Spend some time outside the upper East Side. Regain your perspective on reality, or prepare to die without even the honor of a fight.
stmichrick| 4.9.09 @ 10:06AM
I've been turned off by the pomposity of Peggy Noonan for some time. Her peak was Reagan's Normandy speech. For an informed person, being in any way enamoured with the potential (style) of Obama shows a major disconnect with reality.
I regard her writing now as just a report card from the salons of Manhattan.
Turk| 4.9.09 @ 10:07AM
Never have I seen such a phenomena in the Spectator site. The unanimity of the responders to this writing warmed my heart. I, at one time, was erroneously enamored with this snobbish woman. I guess I fell for the "Reagan speech writer" gimmick. What I missed was the reality that an average high school student could have been his "speechwriter". More than one published book of Reagans writings has recently put the lie to the leftist myth that he was a dunce. Just seeing him run rings around gorbachev in Iceland should have been enough. He spoke HIS line at the Berlin wall over the wailing of his "advisers" (and speech writers ?). Noonan has a nose problem and arrogantly is in denial of the fact that but for her brushing Reagan coat-tails she is just another unappreciative manhattan snob. (While I'm at it, so was Bush 1 with his Inaugral "kinder gentler" nonsense! I wonder if she wrote THAT line?
Once upon a time I treasured my Wall Street Journal. Last year I cancelled it. Noonan and that leftist child spewing his nonsense every day was just too much.
Congratulations to all responders on Mr. O'Hannigans piece!
Dan| 4.9.09 @ 10:09AM
A very trenchant and didactic piece. I am in agreement with ame above. Noonan's effusive worship of the idea of Obama is chimera of biblical proportions. Any sagacity that this woman may have once had is long gone. She has truly lost her mind.
Her pedestrian use of milk toast in her columns is senescent, and even National Review appears to have had enough of the vacuousness of the Noonan.
The woman desperately needs a drink.
Steve| 4.9.09 @ 10:23AM
Allow me to pile on. Jim's comment: *Gergen in drag* is wonderful and pithy. Dan's comment that *the woman desperately needs a drink* is also most apropos. Noonan is a dolt, guided by vague, tribal, Northeast RINO-ish emotions. To the outer darkness with her and all her kind!!!
SukieTawdry| 4.9.09 @ 10:44AM
Whatever mojo Peggy had was lost post 9-11. She's been barely readable since. Her attraction to Barack Obama was (is) that of a pseudo-intellectual easily distracted by a shiny object. The WSJ should dump her at their first opportunity.
Delia Sanchez| 4.9.09 @ 10:45AM
I'm sorry but no one writes better about her faith and the Popes than Alicia Colon who wrote at the New York Sun. She also never fell for Obama.
loulou| 4.9.09 @ 10:45AM
Peggy Noonan is a bore who is in love with her sachaarine prose in the guise of lyrical rhetoric.
She is not a conservative and has never been a conservative. She says nothing of substance and is a "no go" as far as I'm concerned. Obama can have her.
Thomas Paulick| 4.9.09 @ 11:29AM
The number of harshly negative comments about Noonan was a surprising and encouraging sign that a lot of people have caught on. Like so many of the others, I was once smitten by her writing, but sometime in 2001 she developed a snarky edge toward President Bush that soon degenerated into vile nastiness. I believe that she never forgave him for not employing her as a wordsmith, or for being younger and less polished than the "love of her life" 20 years earlier.
Bob| 4.9.09 @ 11:40AM
Enough with Noonan.
Dave| 4.9.09 @ 11:49AM
Mr. O'Hannigan, thank you. Your piece is exactly why I love the American Spectator. An excellent subject discussed in a substantive yet entertaining manner. Man, I wish I could write like that.
Christopher Ludwig| 4.9.09 @ 11:49AM
Ms. Noonan is a classic example of what happens to someone when they suspend reality and follow their emotions rather than their intellect. People suspend all reason when the want something to be true, but it isn't. It's sort of like thinking you're in love with someone who isn't in love with you. Then you find out that that person is not only not in love with you but he/she hate your guts. That's the stage that Ms. Noonan is in right now. My prayers go out to her and I hope she recovers.
RM| 4.9.09 @ 11:52AM
Motown Mike had a great idea - what about an occasional Paglia column in the WSJ? She actually makes arguments for her side, unlike that odious Frank person who mistakes bashing conservatives for "argument."
The WSJ could get "points" for publishing a liberal viewpoint, and the readers could get some reasoned arguments, rather than just more liberal attack journalism.
DKA| 4.9.09 @ 12:09PM
As young kids would say"she is sooo over". Stopped reading this old lady a long time ago. Never gets to the point, just dribbles along. Perhaps it's her age, but she has nothing of relevance to state. Years a go I watched her on some TV program. Had no idea who she was. After all, she was a speech writer NOT a president. Good God, hearing her prattle I thought she had left a country club 'institution'.
How a so called Catholic could crawl after this president I know not. But I guess her God is $$$$$$$$ and she will sell herself anywhere where they will still read her rubbish.
Pingback| 4.9.09 @ 12:37PM
Daily Pundit » Peggy Blew It - and Him, Too links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
whiterb| 4.9.09 @ 12:38PM
Betting the only book at her bedside is the social register.
Joseph | 4.9.09 @ 12:56PM
Regarding this old, self-assuming and relevance seeking windbag, Ms. Noonan, it would be most to state the obvious: In the absence of greatness, mediocrity will stand in good stead.
Pingback| 4.9.09 @ 1:10PM
Grant Writing Classes Film Studies For Free: Added Sting: New Film-Philosophy Out Now links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Irish Spectre| 4.9.09 @ 1:16PM
Ms. Noonan would do well to save this as a highly compelling letter of recommendation to the next limpwristed American Catholic bishop who has a speechwriter opening!!
Gregg Patten| 4.9.09 @ 1:36PM
Golly gee; I thought I was the only one who found Noonan to be nuts. Add Kathleen Parker and Jeffrey Hart to the list of the living dead.
Diamon| 4.9.09 @ 1:55PM
Everybody is special. But everybody knew this already.
Helen Donnelly| 4.9.09 @ 2:05PM
Peggy Noonan has been disappointing me more and more over the last couple years. Great speechwriter for Reagan. A couple of grand books about John Paul and The Gipper. Whomever that person was has disappeared. She does have that air of superiority about her these days. One of the commenters was absolutely right - she is all emotion. We need tough, straightforward, take no prisoners leadership in these times. Not wishy-washy and pie in the sky....
Bill in NJ| 4.9.09 @ 2:51PM
I, too, used to think highly of Peg Noonan. But that was also true of my opinion of Arianna Huffington. My liking of Arianna was based on her insight and willingness to expose the lurid Picasso. Since then, I can't find a scintilla of that woman. My liking of Peggy was based on her championing RR. Again, I haven't found where THAT woman is anymore.
Maybe Peggy will start a BLOG now...
Jack| 4.9.09 @ 2:59PM
I used to think Noonan, like Kathleen Parker, was a sensible, reasonable conservative. Boy, have I been shocked by the drivel they've peddled since last summer. Apart from Noonan's sappy, sickening puppy lover for Dear Leader, the most stunning thing is the unbelievable contempt they show for ordinary people like me and Sarah Palin. According to them, we're unwashed, stupid, and good for nothing. I'm sick of hearing that stuff from the liberals, those hypocrits who have elevated intolerance to an art form, but having it come from someone who is supposed to be on our side is infuriating.
PCP Smoker| 4.9.09 @ 3:20PM
The subject is a bore and the article reads like something Noonan would have written. Here is the idea, pull back the article, insert John| 4.9.09 @ 7:26AM comment and call it good
Hugh Glass| 4.9.09 @ 3:49PM
Noonan has become the katie couric of print media. She is the poster girl for yesterday.
MT| 4.9.09 @ 3:58PM
She does sound confused. Perhaps it's advancing senility.
Oregonian| 4.9.09 @ 4:00PM
I second the comment by PCP Smoker: 7:26AM John's piece about the inevitable corruption of conservative columnists by the culture of the Northeast Elites is a classic. Peggy Noonan is just the latest sad example!
JP| 4.9.09 @ 4:18PM
I too have become a frustrated Peggy Noonan fan (or perhaps former fan). She does have wonderful prose, but like others, I find her at times too emotional, too stuck in the Upper Westside haughtiness. I couldn't believe how savage her attacks were on Sarah Palin, nor how she gushed over Obama. However, to be fair, here are a few points which I credit her:
1)Very early on, before it was popular to say so, she saw and wrote what she preceived to be the Bush WH greatest failings. Before Katrina, and before the 2004 elections, she wrote that the President's management style was too insular, and too disconnected. She would continue this theme well after it became obvious that President Bush was in trouble. As far as I know, Noonan was a Bush Insider, and she came up with those observations by her reckoning.
2)The other thing that I credit her for, is her perception that the last economic bull market was built on thin ice. Back in 2005, she wrote about a vague disquiet that was permeated The Wall St crowd. "Get your money while you can, because when its over, good times will not return any time soon", just to paraphrase her column. She wrote this 2 years before the real estate bubble burst, and at a time when even executive secrataries on Wall St were pulling down $75,000 christmas bonuses. Perhaps it was her Irish blood, but she sensed doom when everyone else was partying.
Perhaps Noonan's background in television and image making has gotten the best of her. Perhaps she is just too enamoured with the entire Obama creation that she forgets that in the end, he is just a politician. Perhaps it is just the professional image maker in her that fails to see the bumbling, egosit behind the teleprompters and speechwriters.
FMJ| 4.9.09 @ 4:23PM
Obama's arrival served to pull back the curtain and reveal nothing more than an ardent fan of self, Miss Peggy... Swoonin'.
Her perspective became toxic when she started believing her press releases.
MarioG| 4.9.09 @ 6:32PM
Peggy Noonan's descent into obsequiousness and cluelessness mirrors that of her ultra-liberal counterpart Camille Paglia. As a melanin-infused new American, who doesn't cut either white nor black Americans any slack, I think they both suffer from the same deep-seated white guilt over the discovery of this continent and subsequent era of slavery - which had more to do with convenience than color or race - that I see from every white liberal that I am sorry to know. How else does one explain how these normally perspicacious women can see and comment on the new president's serious - even dangerous - flaws and yet sympathize with and support him?
Carolyn E| 4.9.09 @ 7:03PM
Noonan's hit piece on Palin had all the subtlety of a bratty twelfth grader (who'd just picked out a Prada in order to run for Prom Queen) throwing a fit because an exchange student had just shown up wearing jeans, packing a box lunch and wowing every guy in sight! Noonan was Valley Girl with a Park Avenue sniff!
From the comments on here, it's apparant everyone else has sniffed her stink. I pray for the day the WSJ takes a sniff at what she costs their circulation and gets rid of this rat.
aphadoc| 4.9.09 @ 7:36PM
I hope the WSJ stops carrying her tired confused ramblings. Sadly, she's probably stopped her estrogen (politically correct) and has cerebral atrophy. Brain shrinkage=liberal thinking...
Linda | 4.9.09 @ 7:58PM
Noonan has become extremely annoying. I've stopped reading her in the Journal or listening to her rantings on MSNBC.
bill | 4.9.09 @ 8:05PM
Her picture , trying to look sincere and concerned to cover up the nothingness within.
"Gergen in drag" sums her up so perfectly there's no point in going on. Adding that to caption the photo would be her perfect epitath.
Aquariusstar| 4.9.09 @ 9:49PM
She lost me after her sneering performance when the cameras were rolling unbeknownst to her and she could barely contain her disdain for Palin or the Republican ticket.
I found her sneering attitude immensely off-putting.
Her best days are behind her.
Angel| 4.10.09 @ 12:33AM
It was an ugly spectacle, indeed, to see so many female journalists get hit by the green-eyed monster last year. I'd never seen so many extended claws on display until Sarah Palin's dramatic entrance. Turf wars?
P. Aaron| 4.10.09 @ 7:42AM
[SARCASM] You know we're not done here until that D. Mathews guy says somthin' about this.[/SARCSM]
Bob K.| 4.10.09 @ 10:36AM
All this analysis of Ms. Noonan has been interesting. In truth, rather more interesting than reading her columns.
But no one has mentioned Mr. O'Hannigan's comments in the last paragraph of his essay about repealing the 22nd amendment to give Obama a 3rd term.
Bob K.| 4.10.09 @ 10:48AM
One of the best responses to END22.com would be END17.com!
I could live with that. It would shut up people like Spector and Schumer in a hurry by reminding them on a daily basis of who they really represent and strengthen the 10th amendment thereby.
Jim McCarthy| 4.10.09 @ 12:39PM
Come on! She's hopeless in love with Obama, which makes her as irrational as everyone in love gets.
bitterweed| 4.10.09 @ 1:40PM
Peggy who?? That woman is a twit, a pathetic twit at that. She's on my David Brook's list..shall I go on.
I am so fed up with all of these media types who run off at the mouth thinking they are going to enlighten the masses.. by their expulsion of hot air into the atmospere..or the felling of trees to print their ramblings on. I don't give a tinker's damn for what you think..tell me something you KNOW!
I suggest one of the biggest problems this great nation has is too many wordsmiths, too many academics and too many politicans.
They neither sow nor do they reap..they leech off of the rest of us. Get a job..break a sweat..make something!
Michael Tomlinson| 4.10.09 @ 3:22PM
Peggy Noona is a shallow style over substance conservative who is now really nothing more than a brainless brown nosing liberal. Like all so-called Obamacons they're mindless dweebs worshiping their neo-fascist messiah. To hell with her.
Catherine| 4.10.09 @ 11:30PM
Like so many here, I used to enjoy Noonan's columns, especially around 9/11. But last year, her viciousness towards Sarah Palin which revealed her contempt for ordinary Americans sealed it for me.
Precious Peggy is passe; a has-been who is desperately trying to appear relevant, like a faded flower that stubbornly clings to the stem, but should allow the wind to blow her shriveled petals away.
james| 4.11.09 @ 10:16AM
Those people or institutions not expressly conservative become liberal over time.
Hey there, Peg.
JewishOdysseus| 4.11.09 @ 10:35AM
I understand that Peggy and Kathleen Parker have already booked next weekend at a Vermont B&B to become pronounced wife and wife.
William| 4.11.09 @ 1:16PM
I have said it before and I will say it again.
She has become a kapo.
There is no going back for her.
Mark| 4.12.09 @ 2:15AM
I thought it was just me, and I'm satisfied to see so many others in agreement.
I gave up on her during the campaign. Did you see her appearances on 'Meet The Press' where she was the supposed-conservative to balance the 3 or 4 liberals? Not only was she clearly on Obama's side, but she spoke with that slow, smug, condescending style, drawing out words and tilting her head - as though she were reading a story to children. Brokaw, Doris Goodwin, Carville, Dowd, etc. warmed to her and she became their regular "conservative" token.
.
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poptropica | 4.9.10 @ 10:44PM
I’ll have a Poptropica full written walkthrough very soon, but in the meantime, here are some answers to some of the frequently asked questions about Mythology Island. Having trouble? Post a question in the comments and I’ll try to answer it!
Getting Hercules to Help You
Hercules won’t help you until you have all five items from Zeus’ quest. Once you have the five items, bring them to Athena. Zeus will appear and steal them. The big jerk! Once this happens, talk to Athena and she will tell you that Hercules will help you. You’ll need to have the magic mirror from Aphrodite because Hercules doesn’t want to have to walk. He’s so lazy!
Getting the Hydra Scale
You can see how to do this in the videos, but basically you need to jump up when the Hydra is about to strike. He will rear one of his heads back to attack and his eyes will bulge out. When this happens, jump up in the air and then try to land on top of his head. That head will get knocked out. When all five heads get knocked out, the Hydra will be asleep and you can click on him to get one of the scales. I’ll have a full written walkthrough very soon, but in the meantime, here are some answers to some of the frequently asked questions about Mythology Island. Having trouble? Post a question in the comments and I’ll try to answer it!
Getting Hercules to Help You
Hercules won’t help you until you have all five items from Zeus’ quest. Once you have the five items, bring them to Athena. Zeus will appear and steal them. The big jerk! Once this happens, talk to Athena and she will tell you that Hercules will help you. You’ll need to have the magic mirror from Aphrodite because Hercules doesn’t want to have to walk. He’s so lazy!
Getting the Hydra Scale
Poptropica You can see how to do this in the videos, but basically you need