I meant to send this out yesterday, but got too busy. Fridays are that way. I seldom get time to read Peggy Noonan’s pieces in the WSJ, but I managed to get a little over halfway with this one on Friday, and then finished it this morning.
I like the way she writes, because it transcends the partisanship, even though her own affiliation is not in doubt. I mean, the Jimmy Carter and Rev. Joseph Lowery comments were one of those things that come up every day which neatly splits the partisan hordes. On this one, Democrats cheer and Republicans fume. They know to do this automatically; they’re preprogrammed. No need for any marching orders to go out. It’s a neat system, because the partisans are able to go about truly believing that they’re thinking for themselves (HAR!).
Ms. Noonan does think for herself, and what is her reaction to the incident? She celebrates it, in a way that most people who are capable of independent thinking can join with her, and be warmed by the spirit that moves her to write these things. Sure, she criticizes and even gets snarky now and then. But there’s a thoughtfulness and a warmth moving through it all that helps you not only forgive, but enjoy those things.
Dig the way she gently criticizes the son of her ex-boss:
People sometimes marvel at the grace of George H.W.
Bush. He is a warm and gracious man, and he’s old enough to appreciate
the humor in everything. He’s old enough to appreciate life.
But it is also true that when you attack him or his son from the left
he doesn’t get mad because in his heart he kinda thinks you’re right.
Attack him from the right; you won’t be overwhelmed by his bonhomie
then.President Bush was fine, his eloquence of the formal
kind. He needs to find the place between High Rhetoric and off-the-cuff
plainspeak. He always does one or the other. But there’s a place in
between, a place that’s not fancy and not common, that would serve him
well if hecould find it.
And the way she both trashes and embraces the Clintons, here:
Bill Clinton was, as always, the master. Say what you will, he is the
only politician in America with the confidence to call Episcopalians
"the frozen chosen" and know everyone will laugh and take no offense.
Amid all the happy bombast he was the one who pointed at the casket and
said, "There’s a woman in there." He talked about Mrs. King in good
strong plain terms. Yes, he caused a quarter-second of awkwardness when
he said of the beautiful Coretta that even at age 75 she still had the
goods, but in moments of exuberance we all forget our own history.
And here:
If you don’t understand that Mrs. Clinton was
rehearsing her 2008 announcement speech, then you are a child and must
go home and have a nice cup of cocoa.This is what is coming: I have had a blessed life.
And like so many people I could choose, after all these years, a life
of comfort. Watch it from the sidelines, tend to my own concerns, watch
the garden grow. But our nation calls out. And if we are to be
Americans we must meet the call. "Send me."With Bill nodding beside her, his hands clasped
prayerfully in front of him, nodding and working that jaw muscle he
works when he wants you to notice, for just a second, how hard it is
sometimes for him to contain his admiration.God I love them.
She groks the fullness of all, and takes it in with a love for life as it is, then shares it with us to help us see it the way she does.
I wish she were syndicated. If she were, I’d sell the office furniture to be able to afford to run her. But she’s not.
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I didn’t see the funeral, other than a few highlights and lowlights. Noonan’s comments are in her well known reflective style and well done. My take on it is that at this one single funeral ceremony the Bush family in general showed more class than anyone could ever imagine. Compare that to ex-Pres. Jimmy Carter who played to the loser left with shots at the current administration. What a disgrace that man now is. He is a man who has never met a brutal leftist dictator that he doesn’t admire. Castro, Mugabe, Gaddafi, the list is endless. And the Clintons, also no class Arkansas trash. Since when is a funeral eulogy a time and place to win a few chips in the perpetual game of election poker?
Thank God that Peggy Noonan isn’t syndicated.
The merest exposure to her sanctimonious hack-dom makes me puke.
I’ve finally learned just not to read Katherine Parker. I suppose that I could do the same for the sacharine coated blather of Noonan.
“He needs to find the place between High Rhetoric and off-the-cuff plainspeak.”
Puh-leeze! Is that what you call it when he lapses from his script and actually attempts to utter a coherent thought?
As for the funeral, should all of the King’s fellow activists pretend that Bush and his policies aren’t simply the antithesis of what the couple strove to achieve? One of the hurdles that the Civil Rights movement had to overcome was the paralysis of “decorum” and “good manners.” I can’t speak for the Kings but I think that they both would have endorsed speaking truth to power— especially since our bubble boy emperor so actively avoids anyone but fawning worshipers.
Wow, you really chose a great nom de plume if you can be induced to hurl that easily. You really are ready.