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| Peggy Noonan: "Baberaham Lincoln" changes the game |
| 2008-09-05 |
| Peggy said some dumb things the other day. She said some smart things in today's column. Go read it all. What she did in terms of the campaign itself was important. No one has ever really laid a glove on Obama before, not in this campaign and maybe not in his life. But Palin really damaged him. She took him square on, fearlessly, by which I mean in part that she showed no awkwardness connected to race, or racial history. A small town mayor is kind of like a community organizer only you have actual responsibilities. He wrote two memoirs but never authored a major bill. They've hauled the Styrofoam pillars back to the Hollywood lot. This was powerful coming from Baberaham Lincoln, as she's been called. By the end, Democrats knew they had been dinged, and badly. After the speech they descended on cable news en masse with the dart-eyed, moist-browed look of the operative who doesn't believe his talking points. They seemed like they were thinking, "I've seen this movie before and it doesn't end well." Actually they haven't seen it before in that Palin is something new, but they have seen it before in terms of what she said. Which gets me to the most important element of the speech, and that is the startlingness of the content. It was not modern conservatism, or split the difference Conservative-ish-ism. It was not a conservatism that assumes the America of 2008 is very different from the America of 1980. It was the old-time conservatism. Government is too big, Obama will "grow it", Congress spends too much and he'll spend "more." It was for low taxes, for small business, for the private sector, for less regulation, for governing with "a servant's heart"; it was pro-small town values, and implicitly but strongly pro-life. This was so old it seemed new, and startling. The speech was, in its way, a call so tender it made grown-ups weep on the floor. The things she spoke of were the beating heart of the old America. But as I watched I thought, I know where the people in that room are, I know their heart, for it is my heart. But this election is a wild card, because America is a wild card. It is not as it was in '80. I know where the Republican base is, but we do not know where this country that never stops changing is. It all left me wondering if this campaign is about to take on a new shape, with the old time conservatism on one side, and a smoother, evolved form of the old style liberalism on the other. It doesn't get more dramatic, or dramatically drawn, than that. |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #11 NS, I agree: a good part of Palin's power is that she doesn't lust after approval or office. Noonan has for a long time struck me as one of the Republican elite (self identified) who are a good part of the party's problem - not through corruption but through smug complacency punctuated by shrill condescension. George Will lives in that place a lot too as do most of the NRO writers. |
| Posted by: lotp 2008-09-05 20:48 |
| #10 walter...sweeeeet |
| Posted by: Frank G 2008-09-05 20:42 |
| #9 Peggy is dead to me. I was not in the least surprised by Palin's speech based on what I had read. Except that she could be so poised in front of such a large crowd. Peggy should have known that much. Certainly there was calculation in McCain's thinking. And I should hope so. But it was not entirely the kind of cynical move she clearly thought it was. To be polite, Peggy is a wordsmith. To be honest, she's a bullshitter for hire. I think Betty has it right. That is the evil of DC, to which I often fear McCain has succumbed in his naive desire for country first and heroic accomplishment in excess of his four star forebearers. Palin, on the other hand, can go home any time she wishes and life will be just as full for her. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2008-09-05 20:42 |
| #8 Sarah did something different Peggy. She raised Obama's voice by several octaves.... forever. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2008-09-05 20:29 |
| #7 She is just another journalist to me now. Which is to say, untrustworthy. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-09-05 15:17 |
| #6 Peggy Noonan is not dead to me now. She is just another journalist to me now. |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2008-09-05 14:05 |
| #5 Peggy just wants to be invited to the best parties. She will say whatever she believes will keep her on the invite list. |
| Posted by: Betty Grating2215 2008-09-05 13:30 |
| #4 The day after her open mike moment, Ms. Noonan wrote a piece I saw at the Wall Street Journal's OnlineJournal.com, wherein she conveyed her shock at the swiftness with which the YouTube had spread and the large number of negative reactions she received. In the piece she tried to put a good face on what was heard... but the attempt was like a cat trying to cover up the mess it made on the linoleum. There are two possibilities: 1. Ms. Noonan has had a chance to look at the data, and to watch Governor Palin speak, and has revised her opinion, or 2. Ms. Noonan realized how much she angered her audience with a few snide and unconsidered words, and is making up to those who cause her to be paid. I'm going to continue regarding her as I have done: a very good speechwriter whose analysis of the speech style and delivery is insightful, but whose opinions beyond the technical are worth no more than, say, my own. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-09-05 13:04 |
| #3 Peggy Noonan is a marvelously gifted writer and it would be a sin against Charity for me to say "You're dead to me." As to her credibility, however, it is already and permanently "Six Feet Under." |
| Posted by: Sgt. D.T. 2008-09-05 12:47 |
| #2 Peggy Noonan is trying to back peddle from her off air hot mike comment the other day. A comment ("Palin's nomination is political bullsh*t"). That comment...made honestly pre-Palin's acceptance speech and what Noonan really believed at the time...will have to color everything Noonan says from this time forward. The article set forth above is Noonan's attempt at penance...three Hail Mary's...three Our Father's...one Act of Contrition...together with a daily Rosary for the next month. It's a good start. Maybe what Peggy fails to understand is that Palin is more authentically consevative than...Peggy. Such a thing can happen when you hang with the belt-way elite for almost 30 years as Peggy has done. Noonan has the ability as a writer to tell Palin's story. Noonan the other day said that when trunks push someone out front with only a good narrative they fail. I think Peggy should revisit that statment and be one of the first to tell the Palin narrative because what I'm learning about Palin is that her narrative has serious subtance. Only time will tell, but does anyone other than the dems in the MSM, DU, and DK think this woman to be a mere flash in the pan? |
| Posted by: MarkZ 2008-09-05 12:03 |
| #1 She really damaged her credibility with her off-mic statements. Now I don't know if she's just writing what people want to read or what she believes. In the process I've lost interest in what she has to say. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2008-09-05 12:02 |