Saturday, October 18, 2008
Peggy and Sarah
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? ... She is not as thoughtful or persuasive as Joe the Plumber, who in an extended cable interview Thursday made a better case for the Republican ticket than the Republican ticket has made. In the past two weeks she has spent her time throwing out tinny lines to crowds she doesn't, really, understand. This is not a leader, this is a follower, and she follows what she imagines is the base, which is in fact a vast and broken-hearted thing whose pain she cannot, actually, imagine. She could reinspire and reinspirit; she chooses merely to excite. She doesn't seem to understand the implications of her own thoughts. Rather sad.
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9 comments:
nice
Nice precisely as in the 18th Century.
Peggy Noonan is a gifted writer, despite what JJ says. After all, Reagan could have picked any one of a dozen dozen speechwriters, but he picked her. So OK, she's getting old in the tooth, and kind of wooly in the head sometimes. But she has a knack at judging people. And, she doesn't hate Palin like the Left does. She just takes a dispassionate look, and she finds her lacking. Not as not enough of a blue-blood or something -- let's get beyond all that class thing, if we can. The way I read it (and pretty much the way I've been consistently saying), it's a question of gravitas, of a certain depth -- or, if not, of a certain innate ability to rise to the occasion, to grow. Palin has shown some flashes, but not enough -- not nearly enough. In another election, in another time -- like, say, 1988 -- that kind of thing could have been overcome, with just a bit of luck. But, with the global economy imploding on us, she's just out of depth, and out of place somehow. (Even her strong suit -- "drill, baby, drill" -- has wilted, with oil going from $147 to $72 in a matter of months.) Where's the karma?
I disagree, AI. Noonan's look is not dispassionate. At least it doesn't begin to sound anything close to "dispassionate". Assuming you are correct as to just how gifted a writer she is, then her most non-dispassionate style--when it comes to Palin-- probably does reflect her being far from dispassionate when it comes to Sarah. AI, Noonan's articles on Palin were withering from the gitgo. And I do doubt she had any previous sense of who Palin was and what she is about. Instant Scorn is not a usual indicator of having taken a sober, honest, and thoughtful, look at someone.
For myself, she was clearly a choice to help McCain be elected. A particularly important detail in this Age of Obamacles. It is McCain who has had the awful difficulty in bringing the good fight against the Thug-to-Be, and I am bemused that so many latch onto Palin as scapegoat for the failings of the Republican Party. as if she is to blame for the gripping sands the current campaign keeps finding itself mired in.
I'm just tired enough, right now, to let someone else make the general point for me. So here is Kathy Lopez, from NRO, on this topic:
"But it has become increasingly clear that there are people who just can’t stand Palin, and there are people who simply love her. And the “can’t stand” crowd seems to be dominated by talking-head and editorial-page types, and the “simply love” crowd tends to be regular Janes and Joes (Six-Pack and otherwise), and those — like talk-radio hosts — who hear from them daily.
Another reader tells me that “Palin has been the only really good thing, the only exciting thing for sure,” that McCain has done this election year — besides rising from the political dead, and that was less exciting than it was shocking. “She is, if nothing else, a terrific saleswoman.”
On Rush Limbaugh’s show on Columbus Day, a woman small-business owner and mother of a serviceman bound for Iraq called in and said, “Thanks for giving us a voice.” That’s what it’s all about — that’s what Rush’s success is about. It’s also what is so special about Sarah Palin. In them, people hear their own voice.
Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes I listen to Sarah Palin and am disappointed. She echoes McCain, which she has to do, on Wall Street greed instead of talking about the Democrats who got us into this mortgage mess. She told Greta van Susteren last week, “Thank God for Title IX.” But these points are far from central, and what Palin has to contribute to advancing conservatism may be worth a few strategic and even policy differences. Heck knows, that’s why I believe John McCain needs to win in November.
As for those on the Right who reject Palin, I don’t think elite talking heads reject Palin because they reject, reflexively, the voice of the grassroots. I don’t accuse them of disliking, disapproving of, or downright hating Palin for any other reasons than the ones they enumerate — but I do think they might be missing why it is that her candidacy resonates and why that energy is much desired: A winning coalition has to be of and with the people who live outside Washington and New York. In this, Palin serves as an important reminder, perhaps, to northeastern conservatives.
Conservatism is not a fringe movement. Nor is it an elite movement. Nor is it a Washington movement. (It’s certainly not a New York movement.) Sarah Palin represents that. Here is a woman who hasn’t spent her life going to Heritage Foundation working groups or Manhattan Institute luncheons — and yet she gets it. In this respect, she is a conservative success story — she is a living, breathing, executive example of how widespread and adaptable a movement we are. Even in the most remote state of the Union."
In this, Palin serves as an important reminder, perhaps, to northeastern conservatives. Is Kathy Lopez talking to me?
AA: So OK, maybe I went overboard praising Peggy Noonan's impartiality. You are right, she showed scorn immediately, and likely this has influenced her thinking. But yet, yet, you cannot simply dismiss her reasoning out of hand. This is not an Obamamaniac spewing the Party Line -- just a conflicted northeast conservative.
Alec Baldwin interjects.
Peggy is a mess. She's flying up and down worse than the Dow and yet AI wants to bet on her. This is a dead letter. WSJ can do better.
the “can’t stand” crowd seems to be dominated by talking-head and editorial-page types, and the “simply love” crowd tends to be regular Janes and Joes (Six-Pack and otherwise), and those — like talk-radio hosts — who hear from them daily.
Exactly.
Which is why Le Bleu is Versailles, and Palin is We the People.
King George III or Sam Adams, Royal Blancmange or Boston Beer? No doubt Le Pew would have been supping that aristo Blancmange had he been around in those days.
But then, in those days, he would have had to answer when he came to this land, and why did he come.
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