Obama voter Peggy Noonan pens another trademark column of the obvious and the treacly and some conservatives waive it around as exoneration of, well, anything they wanted exonerated. Really? From Peggy in pearls, who called Sarah Palin part of the new vulgarization of politics? Because politics was so refined in the oral sex era of Bill Clinton? MC is afraid that if conservatives are taken in by this tripe there is no hope for our side, no matter how excellent the results may be for the GOP come November 2nd.The title of her most recent, moist, missive is: "Tea Party To The Rescue." How *does* Peggy do it, staying this far ahead of the curve? If she had written this months ago MC might not be so hard on her for it would have taken some smidgen of courage to have done so. Courage, however, is not her metier. None of the alleged observations in her most recent column can be vaguely said to be fresh or new. She writes as if the rest of us have been cut off from news and developments. She even goes so far as to opine that 11/2/10 will be a good night for republicans. Alert the media!
Peggy (the name puts us in mind of "Mad Men," not "What I Saw At The Revolution." How times change) says that the Tea Party movement released the GOP from Bush. Perhaps and so far so good. But she then goes on to say it released the GOP establishment as well. Not so fast: weren't they as complicit as W in straying from conservative principles? Did we miss something?
Earlier this week the "establishment" talked about compromising with Obama after the election, counting unhatched chickens. The base recoiled from the supine position of the Professional Right, to steal a phrase. To feed into a narrative, this came along and with Rush Limbaugh calling them out. All this work only to see the sellout this far in advance? No, but people like Peggy think it's this easy, couched, of course, in upper-eastside speak.
"We are a nation in crisis," observes Noonan. Phew, thank god someone diagnosed the situation at long last. Why are we, though? Crickets from the sensitive one, the one who took to praying the rosary on the subway after she left the Reagan White House and during which she was, by her own admission, not a particularly devout Catholic. MC knows the feeling but we're not trying to pull a fast one on conservatives. Peggy Noonan is. Peggy Noonan is trying to stay relevant to a base with which she long ago lost touch and to which she has condescended in order to stay in the good graces of MSNBC with which she, to steal another phrase, pals around with.
Peggy borrows credibility from someone who really did take a chance, Moe Tucker, drummer for the legendary Velvet Underground. Most of us knew of her involvement and support of the Tea Party long before Peggy cut short a ladies-who-lunch appointment in order to make deadline. Say this for Peggy: if she doesn't possess integrity, she is still able to recognize it in others.
Appallingly, she moves on to quote Fareed Zakaria! MC has been accused of snobbishness (we are not save when it comes to food and chocolate) and one friend of the blog suggested we were trying to be The Claremont Review of Books in blog form. Neither is true but we choked when we saw Noonan quote the deeply flawed Zakaria in approving form. Was she trying to shoe-horn some multi-culti nonsense into her column? Had Zakaria provided an approving blurb for a forthcoming Peggy book? We know the Affirmative Action President has read Zakaria. Was it cat-nip for him to read her column? Who knows; we wondered how many readers on the right knew Zakaria for what he is instead of as the innocuous observer she presents him. (Born in India: be impressed whitey!)
Noonan concludes---are you ready?---that the upcoming election is about Obama. Gadzooks, what brilliance, what insight, what a penetrating understanding of the American human condition. What lameness.
MC is afraid that people who betrayed the cause are now racing to catch up with the group that made them wealthy, bought their books, paid attention to what they proffered as ideas. That Peggy can throw a few sops to the Tea Party and some locals in Minnesota think that that is peachy is an equal concern.
Peggy Noonan voted for the worst President ever. If you're a conservative, instead of an ideologue, she has nothing to say to you.
