Noonan: “God was invoked relentlessly.” – Personally, and I am not a big organized religion guy, but I did not feel this “relentlessness” at all.
Noonan: “The speech did not deal with specifics--9/11, terrorism, particular alliances, Iraq. It was, instead, assertively abstract.” – “Assertively abstract” – Well, good.
Bush: “The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands." – Sounds good to me, and needed to be said.
Noonan: “Ending tyranny in the world? Well that's an ambition, and if you're going to have an ambition it might as well be a big one. But this declaration, which is not wrong by any means, seemed to me to land somewhere between dreamy and disturbing.” – Peggy may be disturbed. Ha.. She’s disturbed because her input may not have been requested for the speech.
Noonan: “Again, this is not heaven, it's earth.” – The President never said that it was heaven.
Bush: “we are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom." – Yes, this might have been said better. Maybe – “we are ready to reach for perhaps the greatest achievements in the history of freedom” would have been better.
Noonan:“One wonders if they shouldn't ease up, calm down, breathe deep, get more securely grounded. The most moving speeches summon us to the cause of what is actually possible. Perfection in the life of man on earth is not.” – Peggy has a lot of nerve. I’ve read her books carefully and much of her other writing. She has a lot of nerve. She has often had a gardenful of flowery, perfumey high-reaching vanities throughout her writings.
Calm down Peggy.
I love your post. So well said.
Personally, I agree with your points, but Noonan has the right to state her opinion. The dramatic change in that opinion within a few hours is what is perplexing.