A Sourpuss? Moi? [Peggy Noonan responds to her last column on the inaugural speech]

WSJ - Opinion Journal ^ | 1-26-05 | Peggy Noonan

[bellevuesbest]

I have been called old, jaded, a sourpuss. Far worse, I have been called French. A response is in order.

You know the dispute. Last week I slammed the president's inaugural address. I was not alone, but I came down hard, early and in one of the most highly read editorial pages in America. Bill Buckley and David Frum also had critical reactions. Bill Safire on the other hand called it one of the best second inaugurals ever, and commentators from right and left (Bill Kristol, E.J. Dionne) found much to praise and ponder. (To my mind the best response to the inaugural was the grave, passionate essay of Mark Helprin.) So herewith some questions and answers:

A week later, do I stand by my views?

Yes. If I wrote it today I wouldn't be softer, but harder.

[bellevuesbest]

Nobody has posted this yet, so I thought I would. I expected her to address her column from last week but this isn't what I expected.

[swilhelm73]

Eh, seems to me she went a little too far in her last column and got slammed a little too much for it to back down in this one.

[RWR8189]

I'm glad you posted it and not me.

I posted her piece last week and I'm still getting replies 900 posts later.

Good luck.

[bellevuesbest]

Oh jeez, thanks for the warning.

[Quix]

Not as outraged as I expected to be at her.

Some tolerable points.

But I still mostly disagree with her.

[gaijin]

I've lost so much respect for her. Sigh...

I guess I never really knew her.

[MEG33]

"Here is an unhappy fact: Certain authoritarians and tyrants whose leadership is illegitimate and unjust have functioned in history as--ugly imagery coming--garbage-can lids on their societies. They keep freedom from entering, it is true. But when they are removed, the garbage--the freelance terrorists, the grievance merchants, the ethnic nationalists--pops out all over. Yes, freedom is good and to be strived for. But cleaning up the garbage is not pretty. And it sometimes leaves the neighborhood in an even bigger mess than it had been."

She disagrees with the President and here is the interesting point. Some people have no capacity for self governance and must be led by authoritarian means or tyrants.

[b9]

Thank you for posting this.
I would be most happy to see this administration
focus on revising the tax code.

[risk]

No one will remember what the president said about domestic policy, which was the subject of the last third of the text. This may prove to have been a miscalculation. --Her first column on the topic.

She's all wrong on this, and now she's recalcitrant at that. President Bush's speech is shaking the world. It's an end to 70 years of foreign policy strategy that worsened at Yalta, and ended when we realized that letting down the Shi'a in 1991 was costing us the peace in an already conquered Iraq in 2003.

This isn't about winning a war, or winning one peace. This is about changing the minds of people around the world who think we're willing to be on the wrong side for our own convenience.

President Bush announced to the world: if you're a tyrant "keeping regional instability at bay," the USA is no longer going to be your friend. From Cairo to Banda Aceh, one speech rekindled hopes for freedom that the Cold War had long since smothered.

[JLAGRAYFOX]

Ms. Noonan has serious and bonafide "conservative" credentials, but she would not be the first person to cross over to the dark side. She has every right to her opinion, but it is my belief that she went over to the enemy when she was hanging around with Chris Matthews, Ronald Reagan, Jr., Howard Fineman, Larry O'Donnell and the rest of the liberal vermin boys on MSNBC. She was a great lady and positive asset to our cause. I fear she is lost. She has shown by this recent column that she cannot take criticism well. She doesn't know it yet, but she is now on the wrong side of history.

[BigSkyFreeper]

She should be thankful that Bush had reassured the America and the world that he is not in the business of occupying and global conquest, which has been the charge from the left. The world should be inspired by the fact that Bush wants to spread freedom into the darkest corners of the world.

[BigSkyFreeper]

She has every right to her opinion, but it is my belief that she went over to the enemy when she was hanging around with Chris Matthews, Ronald Reagan, Jr., Howard Fineman, Larry O'Donnell and the rest of the liberal vermin boys on MSNBC.

That came to my initial thought after I read her article last week.

[secret garden]

I hope she isn't turning into a Bill Krystol.

[FBD]

Well, I think she's coming from John Quincy Adams point of view.

..."words have meaning. To declare that it is now the policy of the United States to eradicate tyranny in the world, that we are embarking on the greatest crusade in the history of freedom, and that the survival of American liberty is dependent on the liberty of every other nation--seemed to me, and seems to me, rhetorical and emotional overreach..."

Compare her argument to Adams 1821 speech:

---

Monsters to Destroy
John Quincy Adams

http://www.thisnation.com/library/jqadams1821.html

{SNIP}
"...Let our answer be this: America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity.

She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights.

She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations while asserting and maintaining her own.

She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama the European world, will be contests of inveterate power, and emerging right. Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.

She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.

She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force....

She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit...."

---

[dawn53]

In this world we must speak, yes, but softly, and carry many sticks, using them, when we must, terribly and swiftly. We must gather around us as many friends, allies and well-wishers as possible. And we must do nothing that provides our foes with ammunition with which they can accuse us of conceit, immaturity or impetuousness.

I think she gives our foes more credit than they deserve.

They will accuse the US of conceit, immaturity and impetuousness, no matter what we do.

Consider the criticism from the Indonesia government and calls for us to withdraw when all we were trying to do was provide Tsunami relief.

As Ann Landers would say, "Wake up and smell the coffee, Peggy."

[JLAGRAYFOX]

Take my word for it, she is lost. I read her second piece very slowly and carefully, and it is a blueprint for saying we should nothing but maintain the status quo, as the rest of the "do nothings" in the world proclaim. Ms. Noonan has lost her grip on the the greatness and destiny of the American Dream, freedom and equality for all the people in God's world. I feel very sorry for such a great lady!!!

[AmericaUnited]

Peggy has gotten 'Has-Been' disease(aka PJB syndrone). Affects all who think too highly of themselves and can't accept they will never again have their previous influence/fame/position, etc.

[xsmommy]

i'm not ready to write her off yet, but she has a big question mark next to her in my book now.

[Niks]

"She disagrees with the President and here is the interesting point. Some people have no capacity for self governance and must be led by authoritarian means or tyrants."

Yes. And the problem with that theory is that it wasn't the Iranians or North Korean citizens who drove those planes into our buildings. It was Saudi citizens, Egyptians, Jordanians, etc. Citizens of our "allies" and "friends". Keeping the lid on these people has only made them worse. Isn't that the real problem?