Broken Glass Democrats Can their anger overcome Bush's normality?

The Wall Street Journal ^ | February 19, 2004 | PEGGY NOONAN

[neverdem]

A few quick thoughts about the president. I saw him this week at a White House event. I'd been looking forward to it. A lot had happened since I'd last spent time with him, in July, for an interview for Ladies Home Journal, and I was eager to get a sense of how he's feeling, thinking and looking as the election gears up. Also I've been tough on him lately and wondered how he treats people under such circumstances.

[Hillary's Folly]

One of the life's incidents which I believed changed GW forever was the loss of his little sister

Excellent point. Do you know how old he was when this happened?

[q_an_a]

"There are several ways to interpret this. I choose to believe he is hiding his pain." CS Lewis commented in 1945 that too many people of the middle class spend too much time associating actions with motives. Maybe what President Bush did with Ms. Noonans articles is use them as a tool to improve his presentation. He has made too many hard decisions to be upset about comments on his performance.

[maica]

I can imagine that when President Bush invites the leaders from the Capitol up to the White House, he treats them all with the same demeanor he showed these invited guests. He does not have time or temperament for pettiness. Daschle, Gephardt, Kennedy and others probably interpreted this amiable tone as weakness. Hah! While they are out there "fighting" for their "special interests" Dubya is moving his plans forward.

They cannot understand how he does it!

[small voice in the wilderness]

Broken glass democrats? It's more like Broken Mirror Democrats. clinton shattered the image of dems. and they're too willfully deceived to understand, pick up the pieces, and clean up the mess. The shards of his image will continue to mesmerize them, even as they lose their life blood.

[John O]

But this year the Democrats do seem hungrier than usual, in part because of the continuing wound of the 2000 election, in which their candidate had a plurality of the popular vote

Excellent article but this is a lie. President Bush won the popular vote so big that the dems couldn't manufacture enough fraudulent votes (in the right places) to steal the election

[rabidralph]

A prostitute lived in the complex. Barbara Bush just thought she was popular.

Kind of like Hillary.

[HateBill]

But Dean proved that they were not "Broken Glass Democrats." The most enthusiastic "Democrats" aligned with the candidate who attacked the *Democratic Party* most intensely. Dean called the Democratic Party "Republican Lite." Many of the "Broken Glass" leftists hate "mainstream" Democrats (Kerry, Edwards) almost as much as they hate President Bush.

Will "Broken Glass Bush Haters" (really what they are), vote en masse for a candidate they believe is almost as bad as Bush? Maybe the more pragmatic will, but I don't see "pragmatic" and "Deaniacs" in the same sentence.

[CyberAnt]

I'm not sure, but from pictures of the sister just before she died (3 yrs or so), I'd say GW was 7-8 years of age.

[Tamzee]

A nice description of President Bush from Peggy Noonan :-)

[onyx]

BUMP :)

[My2Cents]

If "normalcy" cannot win in this election, this country's in deep trouble.

[Mo1]

Nice to see that Peggy is coming back to her senses

[My2Cents]

Destroy the bastards, and don't look back.

I'm reminded of Patton's words (or the words in the movie "Patton"): "We'll use the enemy's guts to grease the treads of our tanks." Same thought as yours, I think. I will not be satisfied with the results of this election unless it brings the complete destruction of the Democrat Party.

[prognostigaator]

well said.

[My2Cents]

It's more like Broken Mirror Democrats.

Thirteen years bad luck.

[BigSkyFreeper]

The Dems have been using that playbook since the New Deal era.

There's a whole chapter on "Penalize personal success and reward failure." That particular one gets alot of mileage.

[BigSkyFreeper]

They're angry. If they weren't, Lieberman and Gephardt would still be in the mix right now, and probably one of them would be leading the pack.

[BigSkyFreeper]

Bumpidy BUMP! :)

[b9]

Thanks for the Peggy ping.
She certainly passes the WWHH litmus test.
But then again, I think Hillary would hate just about anything "normal."

[Stallone]

Then, bring on the Greens!