Peggy Noonan: JFK Disease

Opinion Journal ^ | 03/04/04 | Peggy Noonan

[Pokey78]

John Kerry certainly looks like a president--the thick steel-wool hair, the Lincolnian planes and shadows of his face. He is tall and slim and seems serious. He also has the guts to wear salmon-colored ties. A red tie is red and a blue tie is blue, and red and blue know what color they are. Salmon is a more delicate hue. Salmon can't decide what color it is. Sometimes it's pink and sometimes it's orange. It's like wearing ambivalence on your shirt. This is an unusual thing for a politician to do if it's thought through, and it takes courage.

[Porterville]

Kerry is a loser.

[Lawgvr1955]

Perhaps Kerry is going to run a campaign like the Firesign Theatre's Papoon, whose motto was "Vote Papoon, Not Insane".

[SkyPilot]

After reading the story about his Communist father---he should wear red ties with a hammer and sickle.

[1rudeboy]

bttt

[okie01]

"If insane isn't the right word, what do you call a man who holds so many contradictory positions and thinks he's the real JFK?"

Peggy posited that John Effin' Kerry wasn't insane. She made no such claims regarding his being delusional.

[Rocky]

"You can imagine him struggling, like Mr. Clinton, to know what precisely he wanted the presidency for once he had it"

This is exactly what I thought of Bill Clinton, even before he took office. Remember the movie The Candidate (Robert Redford)? After being elected senator, Redford says to his campaign manager, "Now what do I do?" His campaign manager, who had done all the thinking up to that point, looked at him with some surprise and said something like, "That's up to you. My work is finished." I think that's where Kerry would be too, if by some nightmarish miracle he should be elected.

[Siobhan]

The other woman of the moment, Teresa Heinz, is going to make things fun. I saw her on C-Span give an eloquent speech a few weeks ago in Wisconsin--notes, no text, and she didn't refer much to the notes. She spoke interestingly of her youth, her political views. She has been wealthy, connected and powerful for so long she has grown mildly bored with her good fortune, and in all her time in public life she has not developed much of an edit button. She seems in interviews like someone who's walked through many smoke-filled rooms, waved her arms impatiently, and told the maid to plug in a few air fresheners. She is not awed by media people; she thinks producers and anchormen are people who are lucky she invited them to dinner at Louisberg Square.

Mark Leibovich of the Washington Post did a brilliant and rather too detail-rich profile of her last summer. People didn't know she considered her late husband, John Heinz, to be her real husband until then. It was startling, and delightful. She hasn't given an indiscreet interview since. But she will. Before that, however, there will be a series of long and glowing interviews from big media reporters who a) need to foster a relationship with a possible future first lady, and b) want to be the first to change the narrative line from "known crazy woman" to "colorful, earthy and authentic presence--and secret power in the campaign."

Bump for my fave part of Peggy's prose on Kerry and claque.

[AnalogReigns]

as if Leonardo's painting had come alive and they were actually seeing God touch Adam.

Ummmm, it was actually Michelangelo's famous painting of God touching Adam.... bad Peggy! BAD!!!

[ontos-on]

his communist father"? can you elaborate?

[Tamzee]

Thank you, Pokey78.... Peggy is always a delight!

[ontos-on]

Peggy posited that John Effin' Kerry wasn't insane. She made no such claims regarding his being delusional.

no, she is a person who chooses words carefully; she said he did not "appear" insane.

[Tamzee]

Pssstt... over here ;-)

[okie01]

"his communist father"? can you elaborate?"

Kerry's World: Father Knows Best, an illuminating article from, astonishingly, CBS News.

Explains a great deal.

[Ruth A.]

Peggy had me from the first reference of salmon. How can someone make me laugh so hard when she writes so subtly?

[Ruth A.]

Ummmm, it was actually Michelangelo's famous painting of God touching Adam

Thank you, I was wondering why it didn't connect together.

[TheMole]

"One has the sense he is a liberal Democrat because of the time and place in which he was born, that he inhaled a worldview as opposed to struggling through to one."

It is indeed a very good line. It applies to many liberals, and especially those who have spent their entire lives in the liberal bubble - New England or the Bay Area, college and college towns, government, the "non-profits". It's why so many of them can't make reasoned arguments for liberal policies - they've never really thought about them.

[Fenris6]

thanks. I'm used to using [img]...[/img]

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Bump!

[metesky]

"One has the sense he is a liberal Democrat because of the time and place in which he was born, that he inhaled a worldview as opposed to struggling through to one."

Kerry was born in Colorado.

[FairWitness]

Thanks, Peggy. I needed that.