Peggy Noonan Calls Sarah Palin A 'Nincompoop'

One half of what could have been a great column...but then Peggy Noonan's Palin Derangement Syndrome had to kick in.Pity.

Noonan's latest makes two cogent points - first that she's finally done with Obama:

On to the aftermath of the election. On Wednesday President Obama gave a news conference to share his thoughts. Viewers would have found it disappointing if there had been any viewers. The president is speaking, in effect, to an empty room. From my notes five minutes in: "This wet blanket, this occupier of the least interesting corner of the faculty lounge, this joy-free zone, this inert gas." By the end I was certain he will never produce a successful stimulus because he is a human depression.

Actually I thought the worst thing you can say about a president: that he won't even make a good former president. {...}

What Democrats have to learn from this election: Cut loose from that. Join with Republicans where you can, create legislation together, send the bill to the White House, see what happens. Even as the Republicans have succeeded in getting out from under George W. Bush, this is your chance to get out from under Mr. Obama, and possibly prosper in 2012 whatever happens to him.

The other cogent point Noonan makes is that the Tea Party Movement needs to realize both the message and the messenger is important, as she compares Marco Rubio with a Sharron Angle or a Christine O'Donnell. She has a point. But what she of course fails to get, like most ruling class elitists is that these people didn't nominate themselves. The voters did. And that even a well-spoken, gaffe free 'moderate' candidate can end up losing - ask Dino Rossi in Washington State about that.

At that point, Noonan's usual Palin Derangement Syndrome kicks in, sparked by Governor Palin's common sense answer to questions on FOX about her TV show about Alaska and 'Dancing With The Stars'..."Wasn't Ronald Reagan an actor? Wasn't he in 'Bedtime for Bonzo,' Bozo, something? Ronald Reagan was an actor."

Noonan's response was to say that Palin was ignorant and to go through Reagan's pre-Presidential resume, referring to his Hollywood profession as 'an artist'.

I have no doubt that the Gipper himself would have chuckled at that one, recalling all the lame movies he was compelled to make to earn that weekly paycheck, keep from angering the studio bosses and getting placed on suspension. And I doubt that President Reagan would have put hosting the GE Theater each week under the category of 'art'. Being a working actor didn't make him less of a great man, anymore than Palin sitting in the 'Dancing With The Stars' audience to root for her daughter diminished her. Noonan, of course, either missed that simple reality or chose to ignore it, as her PDS kicked in full strength:

The point is not "He was a great man and you are a nincompoop," though that is true. The point is that Reagan's career is a guide, not only for the tea party but for all in politics. He brought his fully mature, fully seasoned self into politics with him. He wasn't in search of a life when he ran for office, and he wasn't in search of fame; he'd already lived a life, he was already well known, he'd accomplished things in the world.

This 'nincompoop' as Noonan referred to her is directly responsible for GOP gains in this election. along with Jim DeMint. It was Palin in particular who kept the Tea Party movement within the Republican Party when she could have taken them third party for her own aggrandizement , and without the Tea Party things would be very different for the GOP today.

Governor Palin had the ninja political skills to go from being the defeated VP candidate in one of the most inept campaigns in recent memory to the hottest political ticket in America...and she did it on her own, outside the GOP establishment.

I and many others haven't forgotten how Peggy Noonan shilled for Obama during the '08 election and told us how wonderful he was going to be. Palin, on the other hand, had his number from Day One.

And that bit about accomplishment? Sarah Palin has been a mayor,a member of an important energy board in Alaska who took on the fat cats in her own party for corruption and won, a governor who took on Big oil, balanced Alaska's budget and put through a vital energy pipeline that had been sitting in limbo for thirty years, a successful small business owner, a vice presidential candidate, and she's now a best selling author, speaker, political voice and TV commentator whose fans mob her wherever she goes. And she's still in her forties.

And what was it Peggy Noonan accomplished again? A few speeches written a quarter of a century ago, a couple of books, writing a weekly column and attending a few of the right Manhattan cocktail parties.Oh, yes, and lying to her readers.

Whatever else she's done, Sarah Palin has made a difference, a positive change in America's political climate. Peggy Noonan never will, and that probably fuels her rage as much as anything.

All these "Noonan sucks" posts, with not even one attempt to determine whether or not her criticism of Palin was justified.

It was not justified. Here is video of Palin making her comments:

http://texas4palin.blogspot.com/2010/10/gov-palin-wasnt-ronald-reagan-actor.html

Here is the transcript of that interview:

http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/fox-news-sunday/transcript/john-brennan-mail-bomb-plot-sarah-palin-and-chris-van-hollen-preview-elections?page=4

Palin was responding to statements by Karl Rove in the Daily Telegraph:

“With all due candour, appearing on your own reality show on the Discovery Channel, I am not certain how that fits in the American calculus of 'that helps me see you in the Oval Office’,” Mr Rove told The Daily Telegraph in an interview.
...
“There are high standards that the American people have for it [the presidency] and they require a certain level of gravitas, and they want to look at the candidate and say 'that candidate is doing things that gives me confidence that they are up to the most demanding job in the world’.”

Palin said this in the Fox interview:

PALIN: You know, I agree with that, that those standards have to be high for someone who would ever want to run for president, like, umm, wasn't Ronald Reagan an actor? Wasn't he in Bedtime for Bonzo, Bozo?
So that Ronald Reagan was an actor.
Now, look it -- I'm not in a reality show. I have eight episodes documenting Alaska's resources, what it is that we can contribute to the rest of the U.S. to economically and physically secure our union. And my family comes along on the ride because I am family. Family is -- and my family comes along on the ride to document these eight episodes for The Learning Channel and Discovery Channel.

Here is Peggy Noonan's version of what Sarah said:

Conservatives talked a lot about Ronald Reagan this year, but they have to take him more to heart, because his example here is a guide. All this seemed lost last week on Sarah Palin, who called him, on Fox, "an actor." She was defending her form of political celebrity—reality show, "Dancing With the Stars," etc. This is how she did it: "Wasn't Ronald Reagan an actor? Wasn't he in 'Bedtime for Bonzo,' Bozo, something? Ronald Reagan was an actor."
Excuse me, but this was ignorant even for Mrs. Palin. Reagan people quietly flipped their lids...

In other words, Palin said that while some of Ronald Reagan's films may have been shallow and frivolous, those films did not define the depth of his character, his "gravitas." She therefore asked to be judged by more than just her appearances on "Sarah Palin's Alaska."

Sounds reasonable to me. Yet in Noonan's snippet, Palin is made to appear to have little idea who Ronald Reagan was. Perhaps he was an actor who appeared in some old movie, Palin is not sure.

This is attempted character assassination with out-of-context quotes. And to think that Noonan wrote Reagan's Challenger disaster speech.

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