Peggy Noonan: Love Her When She's doing an Aria!

I started out reading kausfiles today and got to a para where he points out "Et tu, Peggy?" for Ms. Noonan's infractions against Republican me-tooism, along the lines of Tony Snow's past criticisms of the Bush track record. I went to the last of Mickey's links to Peggy's nitpickings and found a little gem dating back to February, 2004, in the middle of the primaries just after Howard Dean gave his "I have a scream" speech.

Peggy goes through Bush's manifest failings as a great communicator and compares him unfavorably to Peggy's boss Ronald Reagan, who like Bush could never remember talking points, but had a zest and wit about him that rose above the petty bullet-point mentality that interviews always engender and seek to elicit. [The subject was an uninspired Bush interview by Tim Russert on Meet The Press].

Then Peggy launches into an almost operatic riff on the differences between Democrats, who are political junkies and can recite long lists of talking points verbatim endlessly and [in John Kerry's case] sonorously without a hint of self-consciousness about the serial imbecility of their behaviour. The Democrats are mesmerized by lists and minutiae, enchanted by desk jockeys and petty functionaries regulating and enforcing small-minded codes of legal behavior---hence the disproportionate numbers of lawyers among senior Democratic politicos.

And hence, my own preference for Bill Richardson, a large-minded gentleman with few inhibitions about actually speaking his own mind, rather than reciting agendas of politically correct balderdash about gas prices or whatever else is a target of opportunity to bb-gun cheap-shot artistes of the Howard Dean variety.

And finally, Peggy notes that quite a few Republicans have a philosophical bent that actually inhibits their ability to perform in interviews, as expounding on the decadence of popular political culture and the Untergang des Abendlands just doesn't fit into neat sound bites that an interview demands of its participants. Peggy is too kind to point out that even in the philosophy department, GWB has seriously tongue-tied drawbacks. However, she correctly notes that the average American can see that GWB is just as intelligent as John Kerry [at the time, George's higher GPA at Yale compared to his election opponent was unknown].

She also notes that the pundits and TV editors pounce on every stutter and mumble and mispronounced adjective and malapropism that GWB utters and repeat them in seemingly endless loops. The MSM is ultra-left and loves to ridicule GWB and all his works, even when they are successful, but easy to nitpick.

So I continue to read Peggy and look forward to watching Tony Snow fend off the ravers and spewing sputum-flecked WH newsies as they jockey for the most anti-Bush question of the day during feeding time in the press pit.