The gift that will never quit giving.
Posted on 11/11/2010 8:59:59 PM PST by Sarah
Obama's Gifts to the GOP Republicans own the political center for now. Not because they deserve it. Democrats are down, and sniping at each other. That's the way it goes when parties lose. What's interesting is the mood this week among Republicans on the ground. It's not triumphal. They all seem to have in the back of their minds a question: Is this election the beginning of the big turnaround? Is this when the GOP comes to the fore as its best self and soberly, shrewdly pursues policies that will help dig our country out of the mess? Or will the great sweep of 2010 come to be seen, in retrospect, as just another lurch and shift in a nation whose political tectonic plates have been unstable since 2006? They're not sure, but there's a high degree of hope for the former. And that's news, because Republicans haven't been hopeful in a long time. They continue to be blessed by luck. Whatever word means the opposite of snakebit, that is what the Republican party is right now. One reason they are feeling hope is that they have received two big and unexpected gifts from President Obama. The first, of course, was his political implosion—his quick descent and speedy fall into unpopularity, which shaped the outcome of the 2010 elections. At the heart of that descent was the president's inability to understand how the majority of Americans were thinking. From the day he was sworn in he seemed to have had no practical or intuitive sense of what was on the American mind. By early 2009 they had one deep and central worry, the economy. But his central
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
"Not because they deserve it."
Whatever
Nice article here, (Snide subtitle notwithstanding...)
Was that what Peggy was saying when he was inagurated? LOL
Nice try Peggy. Go join Kathleen at MsNBC. I'm not interested.
OR CNN. Point stands either way.
The first... outbreak.
What can I say....
her: ‘What I saw at the Revolution’ was one of the first books I read that caused my political awakening.
I don’t get it?
It’s just the snooty Noonan - nothing to see here.
You can move along.
Here is the full article:
http://www.peggynoonan.com/article.php?article=547
From that piece:
A reporter would be walking along with a cameraman. At one picnic blanket she sees a sober fellow and his handsome family. He looks like an orthodontist or a midlevel manager. His family looks happy, normal, pleasant. Right next to them, on a foldout lawn chair, is a scowling woman in a big straw bonnet with a dozen tea bags hanging from the brim. She’s holding a sign, a picture of Obama in a Hitler mustache. Who does the reporter choose to interview? I think we know. A better question might be who would you pick if you were that reporter and had a producer back in the newsroom who wanted interesting copy, colorful characters and vivid pictures.
Hey Peggy, a few years ago would your reporter have interviewed a scowling woman carrying a sign, a photo of Bush with a Nazi mustache? Would your producer back in the newsroom have regarded such a nutcase as a colorful character who provided interesting copy and vivid pictures? Or would your (liberal) reporter have already known that he should never bring such a story to his (more liberal) producer? "We" know the answer, but apparently you don't have a clue. Once a Dan Rather protégé, always a Dan Rather protégé.
The point is when they want to paint you as nuts and yahoos, don’t help them paint you as nuts and yahoos
Who exactly are "they"? Who just provided us with the image of a scowling nutcase tea partier with an Obama-as-Hitler sign? Who last week dismissed Sarah Palin as a nincompoop after sliming her using an out of context quote? Here, Peggy, I'll fix your sentence:
The point is when I want to paint you as nuts and yahoos, don’t help me paint you as nuts and yahoos
Thanks Peggy, we won't.
I find Noonan to be less than a has been - she is a never was.
She has trouble with accurate description - let alone analysis.
For example:
“One reason they are feeling hope is that they have received two big and unexpected gifts from President Obama” -
The only people surprised by Obama are weak minds like Noonan - who fell for it in the first place.
Further “he seemed to have no practical or intuitive sense of what was on Americans minds” - this guy had the voting record of the furthest left member of the Senate. He wrote 2 autobiographies before sponsoring a bill. His friends are Rev Wright and Bill Ayers etc - when - ever in his life - did he give evidence of practical or applied intelligence?
There were always two possible Obama outcomes - this (or something like it - he is completely inexperienced, and matched with his arrogance, is a crazy bad mix) or he could have run to the center, to get two terms. He didn’t run to the center, so we get an inexperienced arrogant far left narcisist. Then this is what happens.
I feel sorry for the guy - abandoned by two fathers and a mother, half white raised to hate whites, coddled by affirmative action, etc. And I hope he makes the next 24 months without a major meltdown (not betting on it.) But that doesn’t change the fact that this was not a surprise to many.
How long has it been since Noonan wrote something truly insightful?
I was also a fan, back in the day. At her best she was one hell of a writer.
Just read full article - another take -
Let’s look at where we are -
A once a century upheavel/direction change in the Congress.
A President who is completely ignoring all political signals, and driving along the same path that has been rejected by the majority of Americans - 2X (include last fall - VA, NJ, and MA) -
(This result has not been a surprise for probably 6 months - the only question was 50 seats to 80 seats - what would the number be?. He had 6 months to prepare a response. He is still completely lost.)
And this is the article she chooses to write? “Some Republicans may act weird, and not dominate the center”. She is looking into the future - for what we may do wrong - while the Dem party has driven off a cliff - and Rinos are running for their lives. She is challenging Obama for most out of touch. She doesn’t even know she has missed the train.
Who gives a flip what Piggy Noonan thinks anymore.
She wrote at least the first draft of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEjXjfxoNXM
I remember feeling genuinely grateful to Reagan for giving that speech. I think that was the only time I have felt grateful to a politician for giving a speech. The country was in pain -- I was in pain -- and that magnificent speech helped put things in their proper perspective.
Noonan may have gone off the rails, but please don't call her a "never was."
To start, Peggy is a NY Republican (an oxymoron) with Beltway Insider roots. She does have fabulous writing talent... The fact is, she was a helluva speechwriter for Reagan and had some great columns over the years, especially right after 9-11 but Peggy Noonan is all about “intangibles”; speech-giving as “leadership”, vague notions about “character”; and she has never cared too much about conservative policies, though she writes as if she does.
She swoons over a well-turned phrase and ignores the thoughts behind them. She judges people by their accent not the ideas they offer. She prefers style and temperament over substance and experience. Clearly, you cannot help but love the line she wrote in Reagan's speech after the tragic loss of the Challenger 7 crew:
..."We shall never forget them nor the last time we saw them, as they prepared for their mission and waved good-bye and slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God."
She has a way with words, but nobody ever said she was some great conservative to begin with. Peggy is in love with ‘beautiful sounding words’ rather than any ‘political ideology or person,’ for the most part.
She swoons well and punctuates well, and does an excellent rendition of breathlessness. It appears she is on nobody’s side but her own. Working within the belly of the beast for too long, she has become little more than a peevish elitists.
Peggy Noonan’s day in the spotlight has passed, as her generation of American politics has faded. Yet, Noonan’s been name-dropping Reagan for over twenty years as if this makes anything she has to say relevant or gives credence to herself as a true conservative.
As she continues to run with the cocktail circuit elite media crowd in NYC, she loses all credibility as any conservative with a political ideology. Noonan is Reagan Democrat who went back home many years ago. Peggy outwore her welcome on my computer screen long ago.
‘The only people surprised by Obama are weak minds like Noonan - who fell for it in the first place.’
Yeah... You’re starting to convince me too.
I was in shock when she fell all over Obama before the election.
I remember this feeling of disconnect with my country when he was elected. I was living in Europe, and teaching macroeconomics in an Engish speaking private university. My students would bring in articles quoting him, going against everything we were learning, and ask me what were his chances of getting elected. I’d been out of the country since 2001, but still had confidence in my ability to read between the lines of the polls, and predict that the American people were not that stupid, and that they were afraid to tell the pollsters that they wouldn’t actually vote for him. I had this whole theory about racism- that people were afraid to appear racist, but were not really going to vote for him.....obviously wrong.
Here’s a question for you: Why is is that there are two topics that are so touchy that mature people just know to avoid in polite discussion: Religion and politics. What is it about leaders that allow so many people to read what they want into them?
I had not heard Obama speak until just before the election. I was following the US news in print, but then I got my kids to listen to the recent speeches of Obama, McCain, and Palin. (I spared them Biden), anyway, we were all repulsed by Obama and his schtik. It was so phony, and we couldn’t even SEE what others found in him. (unlike Clinton, where at least you could get his charm somehow.)
Google or search FR for “Vacation Gal” for the gift that never will quit giving that won’t end until 2012.
With the exception of a few Reagan speaches - she has nothing.
Nothing before - and nothing after.
I’ve seen people like this at work. Usually the five years of brilliance was someone working for them - or cleaning up after them.
Another way to look at it - does it seem like the smae person - once with great vision - now barely able to see yesterday? Just sayin ....
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