The American Spectator

Did this strike anyone as unhinged? Yesterday, in her much cited column urging Miers’s withdrawal, Peggy Noonan offered the following as one of the things the White House might do to change the story:

The full Tim McCarthy. He was the Secret Service agent who stood like Stonewall and took the bullet for Ronald Reagan outside the Washington Hilton. Harriet Miers can withdraw her name, take the hit, and let the president’s protectors throw him in the car….

Remember the liberal attacks on Ronald Reagan for supposedly confusing movie reality with reality? Noonan’s gone one better: she’s taken harsh reality and turned it into a celluloid moment. Agent McCarthy, a young husband and father, took a real bullet, in his stomach. He could have died. One can only imagine the pain and suffering he went through. It was horrible, not a game or clever set-up for throwaway glibness a quarter-century later. “…let the president’ protectors throw him in the car”?! Could Noonan be that clueless? Has she been watching too many Seinfeld reruns? For a former presidential speechwriter, she sure can’t hear herself.