Saturday, May 14, 2016

Today In Republican Detachment Disorder: Peggy Noonan Finds Her Magic Cab Driver


Semi-aquatic Conservative thought-leader and ingestible ethanol enthusiast, Peggy Noonan, has made her move to stake out a little slice of paradise on Republican Detachment Disorder Island:
...
Those who oppose Mr. Trump should do it seriously and with respect for his supporters. If he is not conservative, make your case and explain what conservatism is. No one at this point needs your snotty potshots or your supposedly withering one-liners. I confess I have lost patience with many of those declaring they cannot in good conscience support him, not because reasons of conscience are not crucial—they are, and if they apply they should be declared. But some making these declarations managed in good conscience, indeed with the highest degree of self-regard, to back the immigration proposals of George W. Bush that contributed so much to the crisis that produced Mr. Trump. They invented Sarah Palin. They managed to support the global attitudes and structures that left the working class jobless. They dreamed up the Iraq war.

Sometimes I think their consciences are really not so delicate...
Yes, yes!
"Those" who oppose Mr. Trump. 
Those establishment Republicans.  
Those True Conservatives,  
Those goofs who supported George W. Bush.  
Those mopes who cheerled the Iraq war.  
Those people waaaaay over there who are definitely not Peggy Noonan.  

So (you may fairly ask) how has Ms. Noonan managed to traverse the vast, toxic ocean of her own, +30 year career as a staunch Republican establishementarian, tireless cheerleader for the Iraq war (Media Matters archive here) and loyal Bush family retainer? (from Wikipedia) -- 
...
In 1984, Noonan, as a speechwriter for President Reagan, authored his "Boys of Pointe du Hoc" speech on the 40th anniversary of D-day. She also wrote Reagan's address to the nation after the Challenger explosion, drawing upon the poet John Magee's famous words about aviators who "slipped the surly bonds of earth... and touched the face of God." The latter is ranked as the eighth best American political speech of the 20th century, according to a list compiled by professors at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Texas A&M University and based on the opinions of "137 leading scholars of American public address." The "Pointe du Hoc" speech ranks as the 58th best speech of the century.[6]
...

Later, while working for then Vice President George H. W. Bush, Noonan coined the phrase "a kinder, gentler nation" and also popularized "a thousand points of light," two memorable catchphrases used by Bush. Noonan also wrote the speech in which Bush pledged: "Read my lips: no new taxes" during his 1988 presidential nomination acceptance speech in New Orleans...

In mid August 2004, Noonan took a brief unpaid leave from the Wall Street Journal to campaign for George W. Bush's reelection...

In the 2012 presidential campaign, in the days prior to the November election, she expressed optimism for a Mitt Romney victory over Barack Obama because she said she saw happy faces and optimism among Republicans.
-- in order to drop anchor in the safe harbor of  Republican Detachment Disorder Island?

Turns out, it's the easiest thing in the world.

She dialed that secret number known only to very special people and booked herself a few seconds with one of Tom Friedman's worldwide fleet of Magic Cabbies -- the lazy journalist's unverifiable best friend who can always be counted on to hand you just the right quote to confirm your biases, just in time to meet your deadline:
Here I throw in a moment I had in Manhattan Thursday afternoon. I was standing on a corner on York Avenue in the 60s when a cab screeched across two lanes to stop in front of me. “I am voting for Trump!” the driver yelled through an open window. “You want to know why? He is neither right or left!” He then laughed and sped on. Not all Trump supporters are quiet about it.
Getting pretty crowded on Republican Detachment Disorder Island.

Pretty soon, some clever dog is going to suggest building a wall to keep out all those fake Nouveau Beltway Friends of the Working Man.


*Republican Detachment Disorder:
Now that Donald Barnum Trump, Failgunner Ted Cruz and the caravan of benighted shoutycracker GOP candidate wannabes that follow them around have removed any lingering doubt that nothing short of the Bến Tre Option --
'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it'
-- will ever "fix" what is actually wrong with the GOP, the Republican establishment's most obedient and reliable public avatars have all suddenly come down with the same, tragic affliction: Republican Detachment Disorder.

Symptoms include adopting the basic Liberal critique of the Right chapter-and-verse while forgetting to acknowledgment that "Liberals" as such even exist, and pretending that "the Republican establishment" is some mysterious directorate that you barely know which meets in a secret lair far, far away instead of a club which you have been a card-carrying member of for your entire adult life.

8 comments:

dinthebeast said...

Ok, so Trump is neither fish nor fowl (but seems to emit a serviceable red herring upon demand)so what is he, exactly, Peggers?
No, that's not a rhetorical question,(it isn't even particularly difficult) and if you would just answer it truthfully, I might even stop caring about all of the awful, awful writing you did in support of those awful, awful bosses of yours.
See, even perfectly horrible people sometimes do things that don't suck if you let them. If you don't, they almost never do.

-Doug in Oakland

bowtiejack said...

Although the election has been covered by the "press" like a bunch of racetrack handicappers selling tout sheets, the most glaringly obvious fact is never mentioned or alluded to by any of them.

Simply put, the average American sees Trump or Cruz and instantly picks up on the fact that there's something very, very off about each of them.

I don't mean Cruz is unlikeable (hell, Howie Mandel is unlikeable and he's not running for anything) or Trump is a loudmouth. I mean really "OFF".
These are the uncles you keep the kids away from at family events. The people you do not sit next to on the subway or bus or at a bar. They are not just different or eccentric or "telling it like it is". Ordinary human beings do not act the way they act or say the things they do, and for the average person that's a big red flag.

A psychiatrist who testified in a case I once had told me he thought his role in the case was superfluous. "The average person can tell you whether someone's nuts" he said, "I just put labels on it."

We find ourselves in a culture of aggressive stupidity where the two leading GOP candidates are each "nuts" in their own particularly special way. Peggy and friends can't really talk their way out of that one (although they'll try).

RUKidding said...

Nooners must've taken some extra oxy with that gin because it's getting harder than ever to divine what the f*ck the harpy is on about. Does she support Trump, her neighbor, or not? Do we care?

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2010/06/29/peggy-noonans-shameless-attempt-to-rewrite-her/166929

I barely had to search for info about how Nooners very much supported the War in Iraq before she began rewriting history for the first (or second or third...) time around 2010 and claiming it was all a huge mistake and she never supported it.

Ergo I surmise that's why Dame Nooningtonhampshire tap dances around whether she loves or loathes the Donald. Keep it as fuzzy as her recall must be anyway, and then she can either kiss up or distance herself depending on which way the wind blows.

I will take a moment, though, to enjoy Nooners tossing Palin and W under the bus. Because, why not?

The question, then, is: will Nooners deny St. Reagan three times before this election season is over?

Cinesias said...

Cab drivers are constantly going out of their way to swerve across lanes of traffic to shout their political opinions to random people on the sidewalk. If you're a delusional conservative.

American conservatives have some major fucking issues.

RUKidding said...

Nooners always loves to quote the little people, but only as long as they maintain a large bit of distance between their lowly unlovely disgusting selves and their moneyed better, Dame Nooningtonhampshire.

I believe she has regular "conversations" with the riff raff but always at several arms length. Then again, perhaps they're all just alcoholic hallucinations. It would be irresponsible not to speculate.

Belvoir said...

She also wrote Reagan's address to the nation after the Challenger explosion, drawing upon the poet John Magee's famous words about aviators who "slipped the surly bonds of earth... and touched the face of God."

"Drawing upon"? More like, ripped off completely. I feel pretty sure most people thought that Peggy wrote those lines herself, I remember her being lauded by the press for the Challenger speech, and Magee was never mentioned.

I didn't realize this until the late 2000s, where Don Draper on Mad Men is falling asleep in front of a television in 1962 or so, and they used to end broadcasting at 2am or something, with some hyper-patriotic goodnight. And they used a vintage actual sign-off that used that "touched the face of God" line. I was 16 when Challenger exploded, and for many years, I'd swear Noonan was credited with that poetic line. I think I first knew who she was in some Time mag article gushing over her poetry, especially that last line. Didn't ever hear about Magee, Noonan greedily grabbed the credit and all her peers in the media did her a favor of not mentioning that she stole the line from someone else.
You could get away with that in the pre-internet 80s. I felt like the Mad Men inclusion of that late-night sign-off on TV in 1962 was possibly making a point. That Noonan didn't actually write the most famous lines of a famous Reagan speech. A bit of deserved mockery, past sins returning.

Grayson said...

Since when is expelling millions of poor immigrants, rank misogyny, encouraging violence against opponents, and white grievance "neither right or left"?

That has been the GOP platform for generations.

If you want a picture of the future, imagine The Donald's Gucci loafer stamping on Reince Priebus' face — forever...

Robt said...

GW Bush Knighted Karl Rove, "Sir Turd Blossom".

While Noonsie Like the royal family's maid that polishes the cutlery for show.

If females could be knighted GOPers might dub her, "sir Turd Polisher".

Buffing the royal turds with perfume as a service to the royalty she infatuated herself with.
Noonan supported Iraq war and now doesn't admit to it.
Trump was for the Iraq War and now is against it.

It is a serious disease of the mind. Nothing Ritalin can help control.

Some say talking to your plants help them grow.

You have to give Nooners credit for singing lullabies to Turd Blossoms over the years.
Blossoming Turds has always been her collective audience. A eager willings audience.
A separate audience in dire need of confirming the lies and failures of their ideology drenched in perfume.