Posted on 01/27/2005 2:08:34 AM PST by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
When dealing with terrorism,... It's a good thing to have plenty of twist ties on hand.
"But I lived under a totalitarian regime. I know the horrors of these regimes from the inside. I know they can be transformed. They won't be perfect, and they won't agree with us on every issue. But it is better to have a democracy that hates you than a dictatorship that loves you." - Natan Sharansky
In no way does this quote apply to the concepts and principles Bush alluded to in his inaugural speech. In fact, they inferred the EXACT opposite.
I hate to say it, but I think "sour grapes" defines Noonan's position. Remember this - she announced that she was taking 6 months off from work (I think it was) to "help president Bush get re-elected". After that "sacrifice" could it be that she became ticked because he passed over her and chose someone else to write his speeches for him?
I think so. Now she's getting even, IMO. I now put her in the same catagory as John McCain.
Great find, Aqua!
Thanks but all the credit goes to Google. ;)
Google is my friend,too. ;) but you did bother to search!
Thanks MEG, was hoping that the article would help explain a few things to some, it did for me.
"Are we a government that has a country, or a country that has a government? We are the latter; hold it high. Can dictators who run a country the size of a continent in the name of a life-killing ideology, can they push freedom around? They cannot. Say it, hold it high. Is there a natural thing within man that tells him God is real and good, real as a rock, good as clean water--is that thing, that knowledge, natural to man? Yes it is. Hold it high. Should we as a people try to rid ourselves of the natural expressions of this natural knowledge? No. We must keep that and guard it and love it. We must hold it high."
Hypocrisy, thy name is PN. And though she addresses the headline, she says nothing of her own words about "God being invoked relentlessly". Oh, there was this from the first column:
"This president, who has been accused of giving too much attention to religious imagery and religious thought, has not let the criticism enter him."
So, Peggy the speech critic, cannot accept criticism of her critical column. Oh the irony. Toby Keith has a song called "The Critic" which comes to mind!
Those weren't her words. They were from a poem that seemed to fit the circumstances. If you think you can attribute the ideas expressed by the poet to Noonan, consider how hard it is to find a poem that might suit a specific occasion, and just how difficult that must have been if the occasion was a tragedy the whole country saw on television. The words of the poem certainly aren't appropriate in every way, but its spirit caught something that people wanted to remember about the crew.
Has anyone mentioned Vietnam yet? That was an important influence on Peggy Noonan's development. High-sounding words, soaring ambitions and ill-conceived plans achieved little and left ordinary Americans holding the bag while the visionaries moved on to other things. And Peggy identified with those who paid the price. She may well be wrong about the President and his speech and her airs may rub plenty of people the wrong way, but she's not exactly coming in from left field now. Those who remember Vietnam may understand her concern, even if they don't share her opinions.
John Kennedy and his speechwriters do get a free ride from commentators. But they're not saying that Kennedy was a great President or that his inaugural was great oratory, or that Kennedy politics provide the answer to all our problems, just that his speech was the last truly memorable one. That's true, but then how many inaugural addresses do we remember? JFK's, FDR's first, Lincoln's second and perhaps his first, and maybe Jefferson's first -- most of them have been forgotten, so it's not a slam at Bush to say that his may not live forever.
I do wish Reagan were still around, though. Some of the notions attributed to him today may not have been his own. The guarded, cautious perspective of the "Powell Doctrine" was more characteristic of Reagan's policies than later, more optimistic, and less restrained views on how to use our military might. It's not so easy to say what Reagan would have done if he were president today.
When you get over the giggles, take a peek at post #220.
Peggy is through.
God drenched?
Freedom isn't for everyone?
W.H. didn't have anyone competent to oversee the speech?
Yes, Peggy. We understand quite well what is driving you. Goodbye.
Are you refering to your application of the quote?
GWB has a sworn duty to defend our nation. Promoting freedom and freedom loving governments is perhaps the most effective way of ensuring our security. GWB made this clear during the last campaign, the campaign PN worked on. The speech merely crystallized the vision he articulated in the campaign. GWB has not changed his tune. Noonan has.
She has gone over to the dark side, promoting realpolitik, appeasement and detente with the likes of Iran, North Korea and the ChiComs. Look for her to take the same road as Arianna Huffington. She's done.
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 of the most embarrassing sort.
Bush did not say any of these things. Here are the Noonan version and what he really said:
Noonan: To declare that it is now the policy of the United States to eradicate tyranny in the world
Bush: So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.
These are two vastly different statements. Bush says that it is our policy to support democratic movements and institutions around the world, and that the ultimate goal of doing so is to end tyranny. That is not the same as saying that our policy is to go out and end tyranny directly. In 1860 it was the policy of the Republican Party to prevent the spread of slavery into the territories, the ultimate goal being that slavery would be choked to death in the slave states. That was not the same as saying that the Republicans wanted to declare war to end slavery in the slave states right now.
Noonan: that we are embarking on the greatest crusade in the history of freedom
Bush: Renewed in our strength - tested, but not weary - we are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom.
No crusade in the real speech. In context, really nothing more than an acknowledgment that America's coming challenges may be even greater than in the past, and a hopeful claim that we are ready for them. Apparently Peggy is weary -- that was clear in her "fatigue" piece last year -- but Bush did not say what she has attributed to him.
Noonan: that the survival of American liberty is dependent on the liberty of every other nation
Bush: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.
Again, Noonan's version is a complete distortion. Bush did not say that the survival of our liberty depends on the liberty of every other nation. He said that liberty's survival here is increasingly dependent on liberty's fortunes in other places -- one would think that the obvious reference to Afghanistan would be uncontroversial. He proposes that the best strategy is one of promoting liberty generally, but he neither says nor implies that liberty in Myanmar is at this moment as pressing for the survival of our liberties as liberty in the middle eastern states in which tyranny is breeding and promoting terrorism.
What is fascinating is that none of what the President said is new. For example, he renounced the "our SOB" school of diplomacy in November 3, 2003 in his speech at Whitehall Palace. He made the link between security and democracy in the Rose Garden speech on Israel and the Palestinians on June 24, 2002. He affirmed the universal potential for democracy in his February 26, 2003 remarks at the American Enterprise Institute banquet.
As for Peggy Noonan, there have been some nasty things said on this thread that I wish had been left unsaid. I don't think she's sold out: I think she is tired and very, very afraid. Since 9/11 the fear has risen to the surface in her writing time and time again, and that brings "fatigue." I think she's dead wrong, and I think that she needs to take some time and get control of her feelings or they will ruin heras a commentator. But I don't think she has gone over to the dark side or that she deserves to be called anything unprintable.
When someone is afraid and tired they can be very dangerous. The best course is to divest that individual of responsibility and put them in a place where they are unable to do any damage to anyone or anything.
ping for later read
Correct.
Everything contained within that speech can be directly sourced to the past four years. This is the natural evolution of those policies.
Noonan can have whatever opinion she wishes. She's learning that it is not the messenger, but rather that message that results in a following. People are not going to agree with her because she's "Peggy Noonan". When she distances herself with the firm beliefs of the majority in this party, she opens herself to critisism. If she had ended there she would have taken a hit, but survived.
She didn't. She chose to make this personal. Her words were cutting. Petty. False. God drenched? Oh no, Peggy, it wasn't just the critisism you leveled that inspired this ire. It was your tone. It was the viciousness that leapt off the page. This is why we've turned on you. You remain unrepetant, perhaps incapable of discerning that attitude but it is what caused this firestorm and why I no longer count your opinion as credible.
My correct reading of the quote, yes.
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