Peggy Noonan is one of the most influential and well-read conservative writers around. She wrote the "evil empire" speech for Ronald Reagan. Conservatives just flock to her. But why is she not on T.V. touting conservatives this cycle? Answer: She wants the GOP to lose.
Why? Bush is too arrogant and doesn't listen, she reasons. I saw the beginnings of her rupture with Bush when he gave the "burning fires" of democracy 2004 inaugural speech. Too much God, Noonan reasoned. Now her new Wall Street Journal Article dumps big-time on Bush.
Here is Noonan's article
Check out these quotes:
This is two weeks ago, from a Bush appointee: "I hope they lose the House." And one week ago, from a veteran of two GOP White Houses: "I hope they lose Congress." Republicans this year don't say "we" so much.
What is behind this? A lot of things, but here's a central one: They want to fire Congress because they can't fire President Bush.
And this:
Republican political veterans go easy on ideology, but they're tough on incompetence. They see Mr. Bush through the eyes of experience and maturity. They hate a lack of care. They see Mr. Bush as careless, and on more than Iraq--careless with old alliances, disrespectful of the opinion of mankind. "He never listens," an elected official who is a Bush supporter said with a shrug some months ago. Along the way the president's men and women confused the necessary and legitimate disciplining of a coalition with weird and excessive attempts to silence Republican critics. They have lived in a closed system. They now want to open it but don't know how. Listening is a habit; theirs has long been to suppress.
More:
The administration tries to get around this, to quiet the unease, with things like the Republican National Committee ad in which Islamic terrorists plot to kill America.
They do want to kill America, and all the grownups know it. But this is a nation of sophisticates, and every Republican sipping a Bud at a bar in Chilicothe, Ill., who looks up and sees that ad thinks: They're trying to scare the base to increase turnout. Turnout's the key.
Here's a thing about American politics. Nobody sees himself as the base. They see themselves as individuals. And they're not dumb. They get it all. They know when you're trying to manipulate. They'll even tell you, with a lovely detachment, if you're doing a good job. (An unreported story this year is the lack of imagination, seriousness and respect in the work of political consultants on both sides. They have got to catch up with American brightness.)
Noonan will never be a Democrat. But what she does is understand the "gut" of the average Republican better than anyone else, and her writing is a well-crafted reflection of that. She is a brilliant GOP propagandist whom many GOPers follow.
Folks, the GOP base is dispirited if Noonan says so. This is very, very bad news for the GOP.....
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UPDATE: InsultComicDog provided this link to the very good article by Glenn Greenwald on this Noonan article.