Peggy Noonan: Palin's Failin'

Wall Street Journal:

"Sometimes the leak is so bad that even a plumber can't fix it." This was the concise summation of a cable political strategist the other day, after the third and final presidential debate. That sounds about right, and yet the race in its final days retains a feeling of dynamism. I think it is going to burst open or tighten, not just mosey along. I can well imagine hearing, the day after Election Day, a lot of "You won't believe it but I was literally in line at the polling station when I decided."

John McCain won the debate, and he did it by making the case more effectively than he has in the past that Barack Obama will raise taxes, when "now, of all times in America, we need to cut people's taxes." He also scored Mr. Obama on his eloquence, using it against him more effectively than Hillary Clinton ever did. When she said he was "just words," it sounded like a bitter complaint. Mr. McCain made it a charge: Young man, you attempt to obscure truth with the mellifluous power of your words. From Mrs. Clinton it sounded jealous, but when Mr. McCain said it, you looked at Mr. Obama and wondered if you'd just heard something that was true. For the first time, Mr. Obama's unruffled demeanor didn't really work for him. His cool made him seem hidden.

Read the whole story: Wall Street Journal

Comments

[SlithyTove]

Peggy Noonan's world is coming apart at the seams. I do not know why she does not follow Edmund Burke's advice in saying what she REALLY thought of the debate's outcome -- which was clear to all but the meanest (but still objective) intelligence -- instead of what her fans expected her to say.

Noonan does not like strong women -- there is a pattern here given her treatment of Hillary Clinton. Burke, like Noonan, was inconsistent...a child of Eire with a catholic mother and a protestant father who simultaneously sympathized with the American cause and vilified the French Revolution. I propose a different gem from Burke which speaks head-on to McCain's fake outreach to Joe the Plumber, "It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare."

McCain and the GOP do not care about Joe the Plumber or his ilk. McCain and the GOP are elitists of pelf, just as clearly as they are not elitists of the intellect...their true friends, benefactors and patrons are in a very different income bracket than Joe. It is funny watching the coiner of sparklers like "thousand points of light" tap-dance about McCain manfully pinning Obama for being too facile with words, and doing so with a seemingly straight face. (continued below)

[SlithyTove]

She dissed Sarah Palin because she could not do otherwise without blowing any integrity she has claim to, given the incident with the open mike that caught her dissing Sarah Palin some weeks ago. What was interesting was the less-than-subtle dig she gave Karen Hughes -- I sense bad blood between them -- and the low-key attacks on the Bush administration. She gets no points for that, now that it is not only not risky to do, but central to the new GOP party line.

She does get my thanks for being on the side of Fowler & Fowler and Professor Higgins, and against the dumbing down of rhetoric and ratcheting up of emotion to pander to voters who grew up on a steady television diet of professional wrestling.

[odoreida]

Like Zsa Zsa (not the real Zsa Zsa -- I know HER and she's really smart) Noonan seems to have issues about all powerful women. She's a cultural anachronism that's just about ready for the glue factory.

[SlithyTove]

You may be a reporter yourself, with an Ivy degree, and from New York (not the city, mind you, but one of those small towns Palin idolizes as definin' the nation) but you will never come close to achieving what Noonan has. Why must you be so consistently nasty?

[HeevenSteven]

So Peggy, ya gonna stay home November 4th or try to help save us from the FrankenParty monster you helped build?

[jackie4444]

Poor, poor Peggy. ("McCain won the debate.") She might be a decent commentator but for being
so 'blinded by the light of her soul's own enlightenment'. Remember the acid-dripping piece she did on HC many years back that kind of made you wonder if HC left her off the guest list for one of her
parties? No, Peggy, hon, McCain didn't win the debate. Actually he looked like a political version
of Howdy-Doody with his fall-flat one-liners and furiously-­fluttering eyelids. A sad spectacle. And here's a thought. Obama is a detail person so it wouldn't be altogether a surprise if he DOES do a 'line-by-line' of programs that 'work' and those that don't.

[Bruupo]

Not that I'm a Noonan fan, but I think she only gave McCain the debate "win" in that column to soften the blow she was about to give Palin, since she knew the blow-back she'd receive would be twice as bad if she ripped too much on McCain's debate performance at the same time.

If you haven't, you should check out the comments in the WSJ forum linked to that column, people there were more than just a tad unhappy :)

[Edmonsky]

To understand Peggy Noonan, you must have your feet well planted in political philosophies and anthropologies. For instance, she wrote:

“For conservatives in general, but certainly for writers, the answer is a variation on Edmund Burke: You owe your readers not your industry only but your judgment, and you betray instead of serve them if you sacrifice it to what may or may not be their opinion”

This is to innoculate herself against charges from the conservatives that she is a sell-out or to encourage others on the fence to make their views known. Again she writes:

“But we have seen Mrs. Palin on the national stage for seven weeks now, and there is little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office. 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?”

This is a devastating blow to Palin by concluding that her deficiencies are not limited to learning but poorly equipped biologically.

[Collielady]

In this piece Peggy Noonan is describing radical conservatives of which Palin is only one of many, those who Palin is likely imitating because, well, they became successful, didn't they?

The Republicans are a failing and flailing party that's all over the map trying to find its identity. The tactics and rhetoric that were effective for so long have suddenly, almost overnight, become obsolete. Newcomer Sarah Palin, who is so delighted to be on the national stage, fails to realize she's already history. The neo-conservative message is stale and impotent in America. The reign is over.

[rpyon21]

Peggy Noonan is making a point that has been made by presidential historians: maybe Palin is unprepared and too inexperienced to be vice-president. If you want to read what those presidential historians had to say about Palin's readiness for the vice-presidency, visit the Dailysource at http://www.dailysource.org/special/palin/95#presidential_historians_say_palin_is_least_experienced_person_on_a_major_party_ticket_in_modern_history.

You can also get video footage of Peggy Noonan's opinion of Palin by going to the Dailysource's comprehensive videoclip section on Palin. Just go to http://www.dailysource.org/special/palinvideos/299#peggy_noonan_and_mike_murphy_on_msnbc.

[Matt7]

Maybe the article is mistitled, or maybe Noonan is just all over the board with her thinking on this. But it seems as though she's writing about at least three separate things: 1) how McCain mopped the floor with Obama at the debates, yet Joe the plumber makes a better case for Republicans in his interviews, than the Republican ticket has; 2) the dumbing down and infantalization of American thought and speech; and 3) Palin's obvious lack of qualification for the nation's second highest office is now SUDDENLY (?) dawning on Independents and Republicans.

You're late, Peggy. There's been a test (even though Sarah has tried to take it in absentia), and Palin's FAILED.

[BlueBoomer]

Peggy gets to the meat of the matter if you read the entire article.

I have recently had a couple of spirited conversations with folks who said they were Republicans and/or fans of Palin...And what I noticed might have actually made them think about the potential ramifications of their position was when I used the word "grace"...

"Grace" is a virtue that is sorely missing in this world, and it is one that our leaders especially must possess in abundance if they are going to succeed in elevating our battered image in the world.

It was in this context that I pointed out that Barak Obama has it and Joe Biden has it, to which they did not disagree... And then,when I asked them if they thought McCain or Palin has it, their response was that they saw what I meant... They looked almost wistful, (altho' it could have been the effects of their wine!),. Based on that and other things they said, I'd like to think that perhaps I got those two very nice republican women thinking and reconsidering what they had surely assumed was a foregone decision for them...

We can never change the minds of the ignorant, but if we take a thoughtfull and respectful approach, we can, I believe, have an effect on others who may not even know they are willing and even eager to hear what we have to say.

Vision & Veritas...
Grace & Gravitas

Obama & BIDEN.

[Freesia2]

I was sitting here studying Palin's picture. Knowing what we know about her now it's funny how her photographs don't look attractive any more. She is, I think, the ugliest Pretty Person I've ever seen.

John Steinbeck wrote in his book "East of Eden" about the character Cathy Trask, a lovely woman who was truly without a moral compus, some consider her one of the most corrupt female characters in modern literature, that it was as though "nature concealed a trap." I now know what he meant. I'm looking at a Cathy.

[WolfLady]

Peggy Noonan reminds me of a long-forgotten vegetable you suddenly discover in the bottom of the refrigerator, mottled green with mold and slime. It's like, "Eewwwww, how gross is THAT. I bought it three years ago."

~WolfLady~

[PT6]

Maybe! But she is RIGHT!

[PT6]

Can you IMAGINE someone like Michelle Bachmann as President?

Sarah Palin is Bachmann in "Sheep's Clothes."

One Heartbeat Away from the President and HOLDING THE SAME BELIEFS AS BACHMANN!

I believe Bachmann motivated McCain to pick Palin!

Bachmann was a FISH CLEANER IN ALASKA when she was young!

[Blutus]

She's an intellectual?? Since when??

She's one of Ronnie's Fairy Tale writers.

Next time she is on a panel of talking heads, watch how many eyes roll every time she
speaks and attempts to make since.

She cannot make sense because she lives in a dream world where Ronnie is still The Daddy
and Morning in America is just around the corner.

Drunk? Yes. On Kool Ade.

[neesy08]

Noonan cannot decided which side she is on

[levibatgirl]

What planet is that accent from?

It's a mixture of more than one area.

It's forced and fake.

Like her.

[rzan1]

I agree. I just think it is an affected way of talking that she has acquired, to make herself sound more intellectual. I don't like listening to it.