This thing just keeps turning inside out, don't it? Peggy Freaking Noonan scored big time today, for the Wall Street Journal.
hehe...
"Sometimes the leak is so bad that even a plumber can't fix it." This was the concise summation of a cable political strategist the other day, after the third and final presidential debate.
And then she rips into John McCain and Sarah Palin.
I just love this stuff, seeing the most clench-toothed Repug writers trying to salvage some sort of dignity after the load of crap they dumped on us before they started losing so badly. The article is actually called Palin's Failin', and this is the subtitle:
What is it she stands for? After seven weeks, we don't know.
Last night on Letterman, while getting skewered beyond all hope, John McCain said Sarah Palin stands for Inspiration. I heard a hissing sound in my head, since all the inspiration seems to be seeping fast from his campaign. Especially with Peggy Freaking Noonan writing stuff like this.
Here is a fact of life that is also a fact of politics: You have to hold open the possibility of magic. People can come from nowhere, with modest backgrounds and short résumés, and yet be individuals of real gifts, gifts that had previously been unseen, that had been gleaming quietly under a bushel, and are suddenly revealed. Mrs. Palin came, essentially, from nowhere.
Dude, wait. What? Peggy Noonan believes in magic? John McCain was trying to pull off some cheap trick? It all makes sense now. Too bad for them it didn't work. Sarah Palin is an illusion that is so obvious that even the conservative fringe sees right through her.
There is little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office. She is a person of great ambition, but the question remains: What is the purpose of the ambition? She wants to rise, but what for? For seven weeks I've listened to her, trying to understand if she is Bushian or Reaganite—a spender, to speak briefly, whose political decisions seem untethered to a political philosophy, and whose foreign policy is shaped by a certain emotionalism, or a conservative whose principles are rooted in philosophy, and whose foreign policy leans more toward what might be called romantic realism, and that is speak truth, know America, be America, move diplomatically, respect public opinion, and move within an awareness and appreciation of reality.
But it's unclear whether she is Bushian or Reaganite. She doesn't think aloud. She just... says things.
And things fall apart. After more than a year of screaming out loud at the biased idiocy of Peggy Freaking Noonan, it is especially sweet to see these fabulous kernels of truth flowing from her own mouth.
No news conferences? Interviews now only with friendly journalists? You can't be president or vice president and govern in that style, as a sequestered figure. This has been Mr. Bush's style the past few years, and see where it got us. You must address America in its entirety, not as a sliver or a series of slivers but as a full and whole entity, a great nation trying to hold together. When you don't, when you play only to your little piece, you contribute to its fracturing.
In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics. It's no good, not for conservatism and not for the country. And yes, it is a mark against John McCain, against his judgment and idealism.
Damn, that's good. Really really good. Coming from Peggy Noonan, it is absolute bliss.
Happy Friday!