Peggy Noonan and the Two-Headed Bowling Ball Child

The morning after Obama's acceptance speech, Peggy Noonan told the Morning Joe crowd on MSNBC that everything she'd predicted about the speech and the event in her Wall Street Journal column turned out to be true.

It sucked, Peggy said. In a few months, no one would remember anything he said. The Parthenon set was ridiculous. The rhetoric never achieved any height. It was full of tired old cliches. It disappointed the crowd, who'd waited in the sun for hours for uplift. There was no humor, no wit, no soaring. It was the old, pre-Bill Clinton liberalism. And anyone who disagreed with her -- like the MSNBC talking head who called the night "a symphony" -- was guilty of "suckupitis."

When Scarborough pointed out that Pat Buchanan, of all people, had praised the speech, and called it "manly," Peggy replied, Well, the best thing I could say about it is that it "wasn't sissy."

I'm paraphrasing here, writing while she's still on the air, but this is the gist: At least the speech wasn't all about all those miserable unemployed people that Democrats always talk about. It wasn't full of whining about all those unhappy sick people they only seem to see. It wasn't about a woman who had a two-headed child who was used as a bowling ball.

More like this, Peggy. Please.

I hope everyone who watched that speech has a chance to hear her say that. For the right-wing commentariat, it was a Katrina moment. It was a benchmark for how out of it and, well, disgusting, that crowd is. It established a baseline for magisterial condescension, for blindness, for night-is-day, for the gulf between Republican dead-enders and the rest of the country. Even though she's dared criticize George W. Bush, presumably to fashion a life preserver for her credibility, Peggy was more than willing to tell the speech's morning-after audience that they should believe her, and not their lying eyes.

And oh, those wacky sob-story Democrats with their unemployment and their freak-show kids. I mean, what country are they living in -- Katrinaville? Iraqland?

Thanks, Peggy, for telling it like it really is -- which is to say, for telling it like you, and your Party, really are.

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Comments

[raker]

I'm a Democrat who wouldn't vote for a Repug no matter what. I like Obama but I don't like him like him. I thought his speech wasn't so great. Too much of the usual poetry and not enough prose. Democratic candidates work too hard seem conservatives to the right wingers and liberal to the left when they should stand firm for progressive principles and convince the middlers that the left is a better place for them. That's what the right does, and they convince people to vote for their own doom.

[NorthCarolinaJoe]

Marty - I wholeheartedly agree with your comments about Peggy Noonan. But frankly I found the response by Micah Brezinski and Joe Scarborough to be equally disturbing -- they burst into hysterical laughter and had to cut to a commercial. Sure the political nature of these comments is sometimes laughable but the callousness by these two was striking. No apologies given. Amazing that they just don't seem to appreciate how hard it is for some people and how a major role of government is to support them. Granted we may differ on the nature of the support. But that hardly warrants this sort of inappropriate reaction. I think I have finally concluded that the boyish chatter by the Scarborough crew is just a major bring down and has too little redeeming value for me to continue watching.

[Valley Forge]

To reprise a bumper sticker I saw in Indiana during the 1992 Dan Quale, (a native Hoosier), / Murphy Brown fight, "Hatred is NOT a Family Value!"

[Valley Forge]

I'd like to start a movement here...
Can we all start referring to the Republican's 2008 candidate for the Presidency of the United States of America as "McSame"?
...Just to bug the Pachyderms?

[reelcobra]

Good fodder for the HuffPo echo chamber.

Even though the writer concedes the points of Noonan's criticism of The One's speech, or at least doesn't address them, he gets in some personal attacks on conservatives and those evil enough to not be part of the HuffPo Hard Left.

Keep it up and out there!

Amerikkka needs to hear more from the Cindy Sheehan-Michael Moore-George Soros-Jumah Carter branch of the party - really the trunk now.

As The Hessiah moves to the center in s shrewd cynical manner, we need to be reminded who really wants him in there!

Brao!

[FredBrighton]

"Even though the writer concedes the points of Noonan's criticism of The One's speech, or at least doesn't address them,"
.... some consistency would be a good idea here. There is a great deal of difference between not addressing a point and conceding a point. Since no points were conceded throughout the article one cannot reasonably suggest that the writer agreed with all of them. It may be much more reasonable to recognize that the points were so obvious no further comments were needed.

"he gets in some personal attacks on conservatives and those evil enough to not be part of the HuffPo Hard Left."
.... Actually if you look at the article again he mentions three people who were inane, rude, and childish. No evil was brought up, not even alluded to. Maybe you're overly sensitive, but to most people professionals in the media giggling and cracking childish jokes is at least disrespectful and usually shows a lack of understanding. Not unlike a bunch of ten year olds poking each other and giggling through a movie that they can't comprehend. That was my take on it.

[Rockwell]

I assume Noonan will be repulsed by all the republican gushing about Palin's downs syndrome grandchild. After all, we know how repugnant it is to exploit tragedy for political purposes.

[RalphDestinFla]

Peggy Noonan is so jealous of Senator Obama's wonderful speech, she is no doubt having the mother of all hot flashes. With her outrageous and yes, rude, comments to the Scarborough bunch about Obama's speech she finally outdid Ann Coulter as the Republican wicked witch of the right wing. When she looks down her patrician nose at liberals while making these assinine comments, she reveals her true nature, indescribable pettiness of the first degree.

[regulardem]

I'm a big fan of Peggy Noonan's Saturday WSJ pieces but I did notice that her excitement and enthusiasm for Obama faded after her four week summer vacation. Maybe she went to confession or maybe "they" just got to her, but she's back on the GOP line now, as if taking a chance on Barack is in any way, shape or form, a bigger risk than eight years of Bush or 72 year old cancer survivor Johnny McCain, ably backed up by a Miss Alaska runner-up. I fully expect Noonan to be drinking the Palin Koolaid by next Saturday.

[MyGuyO]

Sorry I missed her showing on Morning Joe. Must have been pretty bad.

It's no wonder PN campaigned for Bush. PN also was Ronald Reagan's speech writer, plus elder Bush, too. She coined the phrases: "Read My Lips" and "A Kinder, gentler nation."

[hummusbreath]

a thousand bowling-ball heads of light, peggy?

[DNITTI]

This country is in a position, and one that is not bent over like the one Americans have been in for several regimes. We need to stand up...walk upright and be a leader(s). Obama is a leader...he is articulate, calm, concise and willing to consider all information in order to form a more perfect nation. The D's have FINALLY figured out that it takes intelligent marketing in order to WIN! To take an analogy from the ring, you must look your opponent in the eye, determine their weakness and..TKO. Obama CAN do this. He has done it and is very capable to continue to do it through his platform, his heart and his speech. No need to regress to dirty tactics WE are the heart and soul of America, unlike the other party who have taken the heart and sold the soul's of America(n's). Those that work hard to make it, those that try to fill their damn gas tanks, and those that struggle each day to try to make it and bring their families along to a better place....a better America....a better world. Just follow some of the coaches of the boxing ring's advice: bob and weave (hard to hit a moving target and one that is always making the right move), know when to drop back, and most of all when you are poised to take a shot.......TAKE IT and knock "them" out! All the way to a new day! --DNITTI

[Counterglow]

Everything you say is right, but in a world with Karl Rove slithering about in it, I'm not sure it will matter. As one of McCain's advisers, Rove understands that the news media want a dog fight, not a coronation, and he's willing and able to help them deliver one.

The media will continue to slide away from the issues, and its punditocracy will portray Obama as effete and condescending. All the while McCain's many, many gaffes and lapses will be covered up or under-reported. I don't know how they'll manage to explain away the fact that Obama fills stadiums while McCain can barely fill a corner doughnut shop, but I'm confident that they'll find a way.

I hope I'm wrong about this, but I'm terribly afraid that I'm not. If ever Hillary Clinton in full-on attack mode was needed, it's during the next few weeks. She's the one person in the Democratic Party who can expose Palin for the Stepford Wife she is without being accused of sexism and bullying, and Noonan & Company will have a hard time countering her.

[BethStuart]

I have alway felt that the neo-cons and their media allies have nothing but contempt for the people whose votes they are after. I assume that successfully convincing people to vote against their own best interests engenders that contempt.

Peggy Noonen seems to embody that role.

[tie1on]

Wonderful point. Never thought of that.

[mopsy110]

Wow, how on point....

[Hatchibakku99]

Uh -- obviously she was listening to the wrong speech (wrong channel? wrong planet???). No one who heard Barack Obama's acceptance speech could recognize it by Noonan's words. Thank God I WAS listening to the right speech!!! Senator Obama was inspiring and riveting.
Obama/Biden '08!!!

[danielmcvicar]

hi Marty
The fun part has been watching the Republican pundits try to explain how Palin is qualified.

[FatherWolf]

My favorite was the claim that she's experienced in foreign affairs because Alaska is close to Russia!

[plooger]

Well said, Marty. I found it ironic that none of the shows' hosts who'd been classifying Democrats as elitist dared suggest to Peggy that she was coming across as the poster child for what intelligent people recognize as the true Compassionate Conservative.

[marko77]

Peggy Noonan calls herself a Christian. That's a laugh. If she was alive during Christ's Advent 2000 years ago, she would have been howling for his crucifixion along with her fellow Money Changers in the Temple.

[longislandlol]

Peggy Noonan has lost her credibility--

[mopsy110]

Bingo - Peggy is the new age Christian of Convenience who uses religion for political purposes. And it has been quite successful for her.