...and I walk around like this, so I don't get confused with Helen Thomas...
Posted on 02/02/2006 6:11:22 AM PST by areafiftyone
The president's State of the Union Address will be little noted and not long remembered. There was a sense that he was talking at, not to, the country. He asserted more than he persuaded, and he chose to redeclare his beliefs rather than argue for them in any depth. If you believe, as he does, that the No. 1 priority for the American government at this point in history is to lead an international movement for political democracy, and if you believe, as he truly seems to, that political democracy is in and of itself a certain bringer of world-wide peace, than this speech was for you. If not, not. It went through a reported 30 drafts, was touched by many hands, and seemed it. Not precisely a pudding without a theme, but a thin porridge.
It was the first State of the Union Mr. Bush has given in which Congress seemed utterly pre-9/11 in terms of battle lines drawn. Exactly half the chamber repeatedly leapt to its feet to applaud this banality or that. The other half remained resolutely glued to its widely cushioned seats. It seemed a metaphor for the Democratic Party: We don't know where to stand or what to stand for, and in fact we're not good at standing for anything anyway, but at least we know we can't stand Republicans.
There was only one unforgettable moment, and that was in a cutaway shot, of Hillary Clinton, who simply must do something about her face. When the president joked that two people his father loves are turning 60 this year, himself and Bill Clinton--why does he think constant references to that relationship work for him?--it was Mrs. Clinton's job to look mildly amused, or pleasant, or relatively friendly, or nonhostile.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
Maureen Dowd?? Gimme a break.
The Man is not a great public speaker.
But he's got guts.
He means what he says.
And he keeps his promises.
What's not to like?
Peggy does have one main point, but if she wears a hat, it's barely noticeable.
How soon they forget. How sudden.
( They never even knew.)
At one point in time, you were truly the annointed one.
What's left is a dogs breakfast of cruel, heartless, uncomprehending babble. They quite simply do not get it.
Never did.
It's simply a case of "Peg before swine".
Face it. No hope is left when you are mentioned in the same breath as William Kristol.
Take heart,Lass. Some of us were there...and we fell in Love.
Worth repeating.
Noonan thinks that nothing is important outside of Ronald Reagan and his cold warrior speeches.
Also, Noonan has lately moved on from simply being wrong to being sickening, especially with her upper-crust-of-society way of speaking.
If fact did you notice that it is NOONAN who seems to be talking "at" us, not President Bush in the SOTU speech. GWB is so folksy in his mannerisms that he NEVER seems to be talking at anyone.
Which leads me to the obvious conclusion that Noonan is now PROJECTING her own foibles, just as the Democrats and leftists have been doing the past four years.
A shame really, Noonan can be enlightening, but not when she gets into this East Coast criticism mode in which she dismisses anything with a twang of country as being dumb.
...and I walk around like this, so I don't get confused with Helen Thomas...
Her dislike of the President is very Dowd-ish.
Not really. The Pubs pretty much expelled the craziest of the crazies from our midst in the late 80s and early 90s - and it was key to the Republican Revolution. If the Dems don't do the same, and distance themselves from the whackjobs in their own party, they will be irrelevant in 10-20 years.
Peggy jumped the shark long ago. It would seem that the shark bit her on the arse as she passed overhead!
LLS
Stuff & nonsense. So she didn't wet her pants over the SOTU address. Off with her head!
Hyperbole is better suited to DU'ers.
Wet her pants? My, aren't you mannerly!
Whether or not she needs Dependz, it was an ugly column--well-written, since she is a talented writer, but with just enough of the Dowd-ish fishwifery to bring the comparison about.
So you didn't like the speech. Fine, go write a fan letter to Noonan. I did like it, and many here did also.
ping
Just take heart in the fact that it will never make it through Congress. He proposed it in Jan 2004 and Nov 2004 and it was declared DOA both times. As Tancredo said..."Their amnesty plan was dead on arrival when they sent it to the Congress in January, and if they send the same pig with lipstick back to Congress next January, it will suffer the same fate."
We do however, need to give Bush credit for at least addressing the issue, whether we feel he is right or wrong. If Congress doesn't like his plan, it is up to them to put together one that is to their liking and we should hold them accountable for not addressing the issue in a timely fashion.
Her comments about the RATs' implosion are accurate, but her petty critique of the speech itself make her look, well.............petty. Like an out of work speechwriter.
The speech was great.........strong, bold, in your face at the Dems. And Peggy is right about a party that is being yanked by their nose rings by Kos and moveon.org. She should have left her sour grapes opinion of the speech out of this.
(Then again, it's not as bad as her 'God-drenched' trainwreck of a review of the President's visionary, eloquent 2nd Inaugural Address........)
She thinks she can write better speeches than he gives.
bttt
Good post. I especially like....
"The venom is bubbling on websites like Kos, where Tuesday afternoon, after the Alito vote, various leftists wrote in such comments as "F--- our democratic leaders," "Vichy Democrats" and "F--- Mary Landrieu, I hope she drowns." The old union lunch-pail Democrats are dead, the intellects of the Kennedy and Johnson era retired or gone, and this--I hope she drowns--seems, increasingly, to be the authentic voice of the Democratic base"
The democratic party is in worse shape than I thought. It is a dying party.
"Then there are the Democrats. They are the most superb complainers in the land, but have not had an original idea since the 1930s. Most of those, in retrospect, turned out to be dreadful, and still harness the nation to a panoply of entitlement programs that threaten to bankrupt us."
I was just having that exact same argument with my liberal sister this morning. What you stated is exactly what I told her. So, there are at least two of us in America that see things for what they are, LOL! ;)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.