If you haven't read Peggy Noonan on Sarah Palin from today's WSJ, you need to
She was a gifted retail politician who displayed the disadvantages of being born into a point of view (in her case a form of conservatism; elsewhere and in other circumstances, it could have been a form of liberalism) and swallowing it whole: She never learned how the other sides think, or why.
In television interviews she was out of her depth in a shallow pool. She was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and sometimes in knowing them. She couldn't say what she read because she didn't read anything. She was utterly unconcerned by all this and seemed in fact rather proud of it: It was evidence of her authenticity. She experienced criticism as both partisan and cruel because she could see no truth in any of it. She wasn't thoughtful enough to know she wasn't thoughtful enough. Her presentation up to the end has been scattered, illogical, manipulative and self-referential to the point of self-reverence. "I'm not wired that way," "I'm not a quitter," "I'm standing up for our values." I'm, I'm, I'm.
In another age it might not have been terrible, but here and now it was actually rather horrifying.
She then proceeds to dissemble thePalin mythology one step at a time. Here's a link:
Peggy Noonan hasn't understood that Sarah Palin is an American fascist. She doesn't realize that Palin's blithe ignorance is exactly what her fans want.... and their are a lot of fans.
I think she may end up splitting the GOP and with the economy sputtering she may just end up saving Obama's patooty by doing so.
July 11, 2009 12:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Palin isn't a fascist. It's doubtful she understands political theory at any level -- she certainly hasn't demonstrated it ever. She is simply a selfish ignoramus that by circumstances has been given a platform to demonstrate her stupidity to the world, over and over again.
The real danger of Palin is that cleverer people can easily use her as the tip of their own spear.
July 11, 2009 1:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
I cosign that.
July 11, 2009 10:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ditto
July 12, 2009 5:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
It is in no way necessary to think of oneself as a fascist nor even understand what fascism is in order to actually be one.
July 12, 2009 1:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
That is correct. You have understood perfectly.
July 12, 2009 11:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah but Dave, I mean if ever I saw a redo of
Mothra vs. Godzilla
I mean THIS IS IT. HAHAAHAHA
July 12, 2009 12:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for posting this link. I was about to, but checked first to see if someone had beaten me to it. The title alone makes this required reading!
July 11, 2009 1:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I realize Noonan is trying to spin Palin up so she can tear down the image, but I think Palin is more a superficial fluke than "a gifted retail politician".
"Ceci n'est pas un politician." [stenciled on a glossly portrait of Palin...
July 11, 2009 3:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I read it different. It was a call-to-arms for the true republicans still in the Party to unite, otherwise the rabble-rousing base will take the Party over and leave them out in the cold. Towards the end, she illustrated a significant insight to what will happen in the next 8 years and if the base runs the Party, the Democrats will be entirely in control of the agenda. So if they want to have a say, they better take back their Party before its' too late. She was just using Palin as a prop - an old rag used to clean the rot and scum with.
July 12, 2009 5:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Peggy Noonan often earns the scorn of liberals.
Not this time. Her appraisal, not only of the essential Sarah Palin but also the essential task confronting the Republican party -- if there is to be one of any note -- is correct. Not too much, not too little, but just ...right, about the right.
July 11, 2009 4:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I find it telling that it is conservative women who see Palin for who she really is. Mother's truth...
July 11, 2009 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think she was saying Palin is not a true conservative republican. She's a member of the base who are republican in name only and some people in the upper echelon of the Party, who should have known better, mistakenly elevated her to a position that was way above her abilities. And for that major indiscretion, the Party has lost its' bearings and is wandering aimlessly without sense or purpose.
July 12, 2009 5:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh I go up and down with her, I guess.
It is one hell of a column though. I will give her that.
Thanks for the post.
July 11, 2009 6:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Peggy Noonan writes that Sarah Palin is "self-referential to the point of self-reverence"?
An understatement. Try "delusions of royalty."
Mrs. Palin actually said she loves Alaska so much that she's "sacrificing her title" for the state.
See:
http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/07/07/sarahs-sacrifice/
July 11, 2009 6:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
She's got a lot of yokels going with that royalty shtick of hers, of course.
July 12, 2009 6:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good post, thank you.
Iread the Noonan column and could think of only one response. MEOWWW!!!
July 11, 2009 6:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
You may be right about this particular noonan column, but i still cannot abide her. She could have/should have been saying this during the campaign season, which kathleen parker (another conservative commentator)actually DID. Noonan takes too much xanax, i think. A few months ago on ABC's This Week she said about investigating torture, "Some things just have to remain mysterious; sometimes you just have to just keep walking, and not look back," or something, a bit more of a dream-like image. Sorry; this does not redeem her in my eyes. I think she's an asshat. Mysterious, i ask you!
July 11, 2009 7:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Never look a gift horse in the mouth. Besides, the tide is turning and this may just be what it takes to get the true conservative republicans to wake up and take notice they have no Party. So by the time they get their shit together, run the republican wanna-bes out, ship the religious right off to the funny farm and take full charge of their Party, Obama's 8 years will be over.
July 12, 2009 6:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's about right, I think, from a timing perspective.
July 12, 2009 12:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just for fun, and alternate reality, check out this on wonkette:
http://wonkette.com/409788/peggy-noonan-chastiseth-thine-wolf-childe-sarah-palin
July 11, 2009 7:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's hysterical. Thanks. :-)
July 11, 2009 9:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh no, you beat me to it, but my favorite was Peggy Noonan saw A Mexican, but to stay on topic, the one on how John McCain won the debate even as he was turning into a walking ghoulish monster must be her greatest act of self-delusion.
But to misparaphrase Joe Biden, Peggy Noonan is "a noun, a verb, and did I tell you I know Ronnie?" What a marvel to behold. But now that she's attacking someone we don't like, I guess we should all pretend she's making sense now. Come sit with the Kewl Kidz, Peg.
July 12, 2009 1:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
That Latina story is revolting.
July 12, 2009 1:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe I should make this clearer. McCain-Palin lost the election by 7 points, only 7%. When Palin came out for the convention, she knocked her speech out of the park. She'd only been on the national scene a few weeks, while folks like Huckabee and Romney had been trudging through snow in Iowa for years and were still boring.
Did Palin screw up, was she out of her depth? Well, she brought a lot more to her ticket than Dan Quayle did despite some bad interviews. (And I still have a problem with her supposed cluelessness in asnwering Charlie's "what do you think of the Bush Doctrine?" If you go to Wikipedia, you'll see that it's not quite established what the Bush Doctrine actually is")
But primarily, Palin was running with an old coot that was literaly falling apart. There's only so much the 2nd on the ticket can do. And she did it better than what any "serious" candidate could do. Kay Bailey-Hutchinson? Bobby Jindal? (Look at how he flamed out this spring). Hell, the GOP got to see how a serious female candidate would be treated and realized America was more in the mood for Joe the Plumber. And isn't that what Democracy is about, giving the people what they want?
Idiots like Peggy Noonan helped lead us down this path, helping anoint W and ignoring his huge flaws back in 2000, applauding him 2004. Oh, so she does an about-face in 2005 and realizes Bush is an idiot too? Too fucking late, lady. Katrina lies on your shoulders as well. Wait, maybe people don't know this so, PEGGY NOONAN TOOK LEAVE FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL TO CAMPAIGN FOR BUSH IN 2004!!! So shut your trap already, Peggy. TARP bailouts and freaking deficits? Thanks partly to you. Still in Iraq and Afghanistan? Thanks partly to you. Voting in idiots purely for partisan reasons? Thanks partly to you. So go wash your mouth/fingers out with soap, and spare us your words of lofty wisdom for like a century or two. If you insulted Pol Pot you'd make me think there might be a good side to him I'd missed.
July 12, 2009 1:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Once again, I must juxtapose Sarah Palin with her competition, say Fred Thompson? Rudy Giuliani? These were the "serious" choices who had years on the campaign trail and years of experience and turned into (for Thompson) a kumquat, and (for Giuliani) a complete raving lunatic. Oh wait, Giuliani had been one for years, just revelations about Kerik and his mistress hit the newsstands to finally drop him. So why so hard on Sarah? Really. Oh no, she took her kids on stage!!!
July 12, 2009 2:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
LOL! Thanks for redeeming this thread, D. When you're right, you're right, especially when you're on a roll. As I've said before, I love when you do that.
I hate to ponder what it is about progressives that makes them so hopelessly forgetful, stupid, and easily hypnotizable. But the Peggy Noonan worship on this site is pathetic. I can only think it's the same reason you give that Republican rank-and-file admire Sarah Palin: Progressives have a charisma deficit and Noonan has charisma.
In any case, moths to a flame.
July 12, 2009 8:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, most of what Peggy Noonan proves is that Washington will protect its own. I'm sure she wrote her Scooter Libby defense letter, and will write another hall pass for Cheney on why it was really important for him to not tell Congress about his double-secret spying program that we/they still don't know about. If Sarah comes to Washington for a few years and gets the Talking Class Seal of Approval, well, then maybe all can be forgiven (though she'll have to work on that accent - can she sound more droll and bored like Maureen Dowd, or brazenly pampered and cynical like Cokie Roberts?)
Speaking of moths and flame, I'm studying self-immolation, which comes right after Immodium.
July 12, 2009 9:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Um, that was not a good mental picture at the end of this thread, though from there up it was a jolt of reality to this blog.
July 12, 2009 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
How do you think *I* feel?
July 12, 2009 2:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Conservative women -- and Republican women who are not so conservative -- have every reason in the world to loathe Sarah Palin, or at least what she represents. I suspect most of them do. A woman on the ticket was a savvy political move in this election. But all of the legitimate, prepared, capable women in the party were passed over for someone of surface sex appeal, a lot of moxie and little else because she was - ta da! -- anti-choice. It was hard, perhaps impossible, to find even a conservative Republican woman who was going to pass that particular litmus test ...... So they were all discarded for someone who couldn't even answer the softball questions of Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric. It's hard to imagine a bigger slap in the face from one's own party.
July 11, 2009 8:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
You nailed it, Elizabeth2.
July 11, 2009 9:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I appreciate this column and this honest thoughtful view on Palin from a conservative columnist like Noonan. And remember it was Noonan who did the "live mike" mistake during the Repub convention, expressing her disdain for the Palin choice. However, I can't change my opinion of Noonan as a somewhat silly, less than honest writer. She still is addicted to broad generalities (the "self esteem generation"), and I just can't forget that stupid column she wrote after 911 that was some drug addled babble about the return of "real men"...
July 11, 2009 11:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Her praise of Kate O'Beirne and her raving anti-"feminism" (I'm not sure she knows what it is, but certainly she's hateful towards women) all fit in with her post-9/11 time for manly men bit.
July 12, 2009 2:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Chuck Todd: Mike Murphy, lots of free advice, we'll see if Steve Schmidt and the boys were watching. We'll find out on your blackberry. Tonight voters will get their chance to hear from Sarah Palin and she will get the chance to show voters she's the right woman for the job Up next, one man who's already convinced and he'll us why Gov. Jon Huntsman.
(cut away)
Peggy Noonan: Yeah.
Mike Murphy: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor world: Engler, Whitman, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. I mean, these guys -- this is how you win a Texas race, just run it up. And it's not gonna work. And --
PN: It's over.
MM: Still McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.
CT: I also think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too.
PN: Saw Kay this morning.
CT: Yeah, she's never looked comfortable about this --
MM: They're all bummed out.
CT: Yeah, I mean is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?
PN: The most qualified? No! I think they went for this -- excuse me-- political bullshit about narratives --
CT: Yeah they went to a narrative.
MM: I totally agree.
PN: Every time the Republicans do that, because that's not where they live and it's not what they're good at, they blow it.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/212920.php
July 12, 2009 12:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Peggy doesn't like her, but I think it's something more than the obvious.
It's really quite remarkable that MsMoose has such a hold over the GOP, with so few bona fides. At least Tracy Enid Flick was accepted to Georgetown.
July 12, 2009 12:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
MsMoose is popular with people, not the party. They've a charisma deficit, and the closest they had, Huckabee, spunked out, and McCain just got too old to pull it off. (Not trying to be ageist, but his capacity to be engaging in front of a mike went way downhill over the last 3 years).
Okay, the Governor of Puerto Rico is Republican and seems pretty cool, but don't expect him to mount to the top. And Jindal was their great Indian hope, and he fizzled. So who exactly do the Republicans have that can draw nationally? Lindsay Graham, but he's likely gay so that won't cut it. Condi whiffed in job performance (and is likely gay). Norm Coleman's gone, a joke. Ensign's gone, Sanford's gone. Maybe Linda Lingle? Carly Fiorina? Meg Whitman might take California's Governorship, but too radical for mainstream GOP.
July 12, 2009 1:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Her hard core supporters are just as vacuous as she is. These are the people who argue from ignorance. Rational Republicans see her as a tool and a fool.
July 12, 2009 9:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
And who are these "Rational Republicans" except some made up category in your mind. All how dislike Sarah? Peggy Noonan? Colin Powell? Giuliani supporters?
July 12, 2009 10:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Rational Republicans", (ie. those with a lot of money) are not numerous enough to win elections. That is where the temptation to go "irrational" appears.
July 12, 2009 11:29 AM | Reply | Permalink