On this one speech? You must take her remarks with what she's written before, as you've already said.
This is from her June 14, 2004 column, in which she reprinted a speech she made at a gathering of former Reagan hands, following President Reagan's funeral:
"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."
This is from her column which ran the day after the inauguration.
"This world is not heaven.
The president's speech seemed rather heavenish. It was a God-drenched speech. This president, who has been accused of giving too much attention to religious imagery and religious thought, has not let the criticism enter him. God was invoked relentlessly. "The Author of Liberty." "God moves and chooses as He wills. We have confidence because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind . . . the longing of the soul."
It seemed a document produced by a White House on a mission. The United States, the speech said, has put the world on notice: Good governments that are just to their people are our friends, and those that are not are, essentially, not. We know the way: democracy. The president told every nondemocratic government in the world to shape up. "Success in our relations [with other governments] will require the decent treatment of their own people."
...snip
"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. Tyranny is a very bad thing and quite wicked, but one doesn't expect we're going to eradicate it any time soon. Again, this is not heaven, it's earth."
I'm so glad that you were here defending her tonight. Because if you review the critiques of her column in light of the historic events that have happenned in Iraq just this past week, it's clear to see how shallow Noonan's thinking is. Much less how hypocritical it is to what she had said just 6 months ago.
again........you guys are not getting it and running to defend your position against her and what she wrote....AGAIN< let me say, I disagree with what she said.....ok.....do you get that....I disagree with what she said.......ok...period........now in light of what she has said before and over the last 20 years or so.....why are you still railing over this issue long after everyone has left it aside?....again, not about her specific content but does it give you some pleasure to keep up at it after her long history has proven her an ally for the most part. If you are letting a couple of episodes outweigh an entire lifetime of work than go for it........I just think it is shallow to do so.........OK??.....