Peggy Noonan: When Your Box Wine Is Pressed From Sour Grapes

In the past three days I have taken over 10,000 cab and Uber rides, traversing every main street, rural route and frontage road that crosses paths with every dusty town, bitter village and federal and state prison in the midwest.  And from this I learned the following, heartbreaking news.

Not a single one of these hardworking ferrymen that transported me across 10,000 tributaries of the River Styx between 10,000 weary WalMarts and 10,000 bustling Big Lots have ever heard of Peggy Noonan.  None had ever had her in their hack.  Yes, they've had their fair share of plowed fares poured into their back seats to be taken home from the local Shenanigan's Lounge, but none fitting her description.  Yes they've hosed out upchuck from countless overserved tipplers, but none of the vomitus had been chunky with fancy nouns like "tropism".  Nor were any of these worthies subscribed to the Wall Street Journal.  Nor did I spot any scraps of the Journal tucked away in any corner of the vehicle

Furthermore, in all my travels, nary a single "Peggy Noonan" lawn sign did I see.  In none of the taverns, diners and rest stops where I found respite from the road did I ever hear anyone say, "Hey, have you read the latest from Peggy Noonan?"  At none of the motels where I laid my weary head was a complimentary copy of the Wall Street Journal slipped under my door.  USA Today? Yes, and sweet Jebus make it stop.  But the WSJ?  No.

So, based on my extensive, first-hand knowledge of the land where I live -- Middle Murrica -- I can state unequivocally that Midwesterners have no idea who Peggy Noonan is, and, conversely, from her corner stool at a tony Georgetown bar, Peggers has gleaned nothing whatsoever about the lives and loves of the inhabitants of the American Midwest. 

Truth be told, I had all but forgotten Peggers.  In my mind, if she existed at all, it in a liminal state of semi-existence.  I know she hadn't dropped dead in her apartment and been partially eaten by her cats because if that had happened, I'm pretty sure I woulda heard about it.  But beyond that, she was Schrodinger's Cat Lady: might be out there, might not, and either way, who cares?

But when Alert Reader "Dexter" sent me a copy of Peggers January 11, 2024 column --

The Voters Finally Get Their Say

Each party seems set to make a big mistake, but a Trump-Biden rematch isn’t yet inevitable.

-- as a 'umble servant of my reader's whims, I felt I had to act.  And so began my one million mile trek though the lands of my birth, just to be firm in my facts, and thence back to the Land of Lincoln, and my ancient HP laptop with the wheezy fan, and the words you are reading right now.  

But let's get something out of the way first.  Since the earliest days of the ARPANET, the mighty Tengrain of Mock Paper Scissors has owned clear title to all matters related to Peggy Noonan.  Respect must be paid.  Period.  Full stop/

Now that that's done, on to the bitter dregs that is all that remains of Ronald Reagan's primary speechwriter, Ms. Peggy Noonan.  Or Peggers.  Or The Magic Dolphin Lady.  Or "She Who Whistled 'Walk On By' Once The Bush Administration's Torture Regime Was Discovered".

Like syphilis, Peggers is known  by name names.  

And from her corner stool at a tony Georgetown drinkery, through slitted, swollen eyelids Peggers has surveyed this vast land and loathes pretty much everything she imagines she see. 

To begin with, Joe Biden is terrible and so is Kamala Harris and everyone knows it! 

[Joe Biden is] no longer up to the job, the vice president never was, and this doesn’t go under the heading National Security Secret Number 379, everybody knows...

He's so boring!

His speeches are boring, he never seems sincere, he seems propped up...

And this one, coming from Ronald Reagan's speechwriter, is priceless.

He doesn’t have a tropism toward intellectual content and likes things airy...

Also too, according to Peggers, working class Scranton Joe, somehow doesn't understand the real world and the lives of real people: 

...his subject matter isn’t life as most people are experiencing it but something many steps removed.

And so obviously Democrats need to abandon this very successful, incumbent president and immediately go candidate shopping.  Maybe Joe Lieberman is still available?  Or Chris Christie?

Democrats on the ground should raise a ruckus, issue a mighty roar. They can do better than this. 

Then we're on to the Republican party and lemme tell ya -- 

Republicans similarly shouldn’t accept the inevitability of Donald Trump.

-- Noonan telling Republicans what they should and should not do is just fucking hilarious.  This isn't old-man-shouting-at-clouds; this is old tosspot wagging her finger at Godzilla.  

On the debate stage Wednesday Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis were the Bickersons, and seemed smaller. 

Because nothing screams "I am in touch with the lived experience of real Murricans so listen to me!" like references to a radio show that came and went during the Truman administration.  

Then there is a short recitation of Donald Trump's most recent roaring threats and heresies against democracy, after which Pegger wonders aloud:

What is behind a Republican voters’ decision to stick with him?

And here is what she figures must be keeping the otherwise, noble Conservative yeomen farmers and shopkeepers (who make up the base Pegger's imaginary Republican party) from giving up their Trumpist follies and throwing their lot in with Nikki Haley, who Peggers hilariously mis-pronouns:

Mr. Haley is a steely, orderly lady...

No, Ms. Haley is a fluttery windsock of the first order who will fall in line once Trump stomps his way to the nomination and everybody knows it.

Where were we?  Oh yes.  Why is the meathead base sticking with their Dear Leader?  Peggers gives six reasons, all carefully packed in cotton batting to make them sound a whole lot more soft and reasonable than they are.  

Hope—he’ll be better than Mr. Biden, he was good until the pandemic and 1/6, but he’s learned.

Pride—you took a lot of guff for past support, you’re not gonna back off now. Identification—he’s a nonelite. Anger—he’s a living rebuke of the system that has produced disorder. Cold calculation—“In a world full of animals, he’s our animal.”

Mischief, sheer humor—his antics make you laugh, and it isn’t a bad feeling to subvert things when you feel what you’re subverting is decadence.

And then she adds

Some other things, I think...

I'll pause until you stop laughing.  Yeah.   Some other things.  Like attributing the (K–Pg) mass extinction event to poor dinosaur work habits, TicTok, the welfare state and Hunter Biden's laptop....and some other things, I think.

What does Peggers omit?

Racism.  Paranoia.  Racism.  +30 years of Conservative media and Republican slash-and-burn politics turning congealing the base into a mob of rage-drunk, reprogrammable meatbags.  Homophobia.  Xenophobia.  Misogyny.  And did I mention racism?

Then, like that obligatory little glop of what was technically "applesauce" that used to come with every Swanson frozen Salisbury steak dinner whether you liked it or not...no Beltway pundit round of opinion-having is ever complete without that obligatory little glop of Both Siderism, which I have highlighted for your convenience:

Americans have long used political debate as a distraction from their real lives. 

But...but...every Very Serious Person on the planet has been telling me since forever that most Murricans pay no attention to politics at all?  Christ Almighty, people, get your bullshit straight!  

Anyway, onward:

Once Mr. Trump is in office again you have a job again. When he’s in power he dominates the stage, the national conversation. Everyone is forced to argue about Trump. Your job the next four years is to defend him. It’s a full-time job so you get to ignore your life and what needs fixing in it. These tend to be the hard parts—lost kids, loneliness, job problems. You can’t fix them, you’re too busy saving the nation! You have to avoid them!

The left does this too, maybe more so. But it all got turbocharged in the Trump era.

Finally, Noonan just plain runs out of go-go juice.  Sure.  Fine.  OK.  Democracy is in danger -- 

It has to be kept healthy and operating, which means at this of all times we have to be careful. We have to navigate in a sound and prudent way, we have to steer clear of the rocks.

-- and something must be done.

And while that last sentence sounds like it came straight out of one of President Biden's recent stirring, speeches, it will not surprise you that the limits of Pegger's cramped and besotted imagination begin and end with which flavor of feculent Republicanism should voters choose:

A practical argument would be that whatever the nature or flavor of your conservatism, you surely want to make progress, urgently, with the next Congress. Ron DeSantis or Nikki Haley would come in with the whoosh of the new...

If you need more Noonan, the honor bar at Mock Paper Scissors is always fully stocked.  Or, if you wish, you are welcome to root around in my archives for something to your liking.  Perhaps this crisp, fall offering from October 23, 2008 in which we find Peggy Noonan playing Tone Cop who is terribly angry at those God damn liberals and those win-at-any-cost Democrats who are silencing debate in this country. 

Plus, they're also being rude about it!

As for me, I'm off to make lunch for my wife and myself.  Blueberry pancakes, if you must know.

I Am The Liberal Media

Birthday Fundraiser Day Two -- Dry-Heave Politics With Peggy Noonan

Once again I descend the rickety stairs down, down, down into my archives to retrieve another moment lost to time.   This time the date is October 23, 2008 and the person is Peggy Noonan playing Tone Cop who is terribly angry at (see if this sounds familiar)  those liberals and those win-at-any-cost Democrats who are silencing debate in this country. 

Plus, they're also being rude about it!

 

Keep Drinking

Eventually you'll believe anything

Except, of course, the simple truth.

In fact eventually you will sound exactly like this…

From Media Matters

Peggy Noonan, meet Bill O'Reilly
by Eric Boehlert

Peggy Noonan is pained about the state of public debate in this country. The longtime Wall Street Journal columnist and former Reagan speechwriter longs for a time when dignity flourished and political dissent was embraced. Lecturing with signature certainty in her latest column, Noonan bemoans the loss of "civic grace, democratic grace, the kind that assumes disagreements are part of the fabric, but we can make the fabric hold together."

After all, she laments, "Free speech means hearing things you like and agree with, and it means allowing others to speak whose views you do not like or agree with."

Peggy Noonan may be anguished, but at least she's sure who is to blame. It is liberals, those win-at-any-cost Democrats (and worse, celebrities!) who are silencing debate in this country. Plus, they're also being rude about it.

The way Noonan sees things, it's inquisitive, open-minded conservatives who are grappling with the hard questions, eager for public debate and a civilized, wide-ranging dialogue. They're the solemn protectors of dissent in this country, particularly vigilante about shielding unpopular opinions during wartime.

All of which begs the questions: Has Noonan ever watched Fox News where Bill O'Reilly tells guests to "shut-up" and unfurls insults, all while compiling an "enemies list"? Has she tuned into right-wing talk radio, which is designed to be hermetically sealed in order to keep dissenting voices off the air? And has Noonan ever read the right-wing war bloggers, who, as a rule, question the patriotism of anyone who speaks up against the war in Iraq?

Noonan's attempted maneuver about grace and free speech is clunky, but it's not unfamiliar. She's simply mimicking a popular right-wing attack that happens to be a classic Rovian, jujitsu thrust, which is to acknowledge your own weakness -- unhinged hatred for liberals and bullying desire to muzzle dissent -- and relentlessly project it onto your opponents, arguing that they're the ones who have blinders on and are driven by partisan rage. Consequently, Republican pundits pretend it's high-minded conservatives -- gentlemen and women who prefer the Queensbury Rules of intellectual combat -- who are trying to cling to a fading notion of poise and civility in the public square.

Where to begin? You could start with Media Matters for America's catalog of graceless attacks made by the likes of O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh, who owe their careers to their willingness to assault political opponents and stomp on minority viewpoints. In terms of Noonan herself, travel back to last year's Terri Schiavo right-to-die controversy and try to find the grace hidden in the insults Noonan hurled against anyone who disagreed with her radical notion that Congress needed to overrule the rights of Schiavo's husband and keep Terri alive via legislation. To Noonan, her opponents had a "bizarre passion" for death, were "unstable," "unhinged," and "red-fanged and ravenous." She warned that they were paving "the low road that twists past Columbine and leads toward Auschwitz."

…
As for Noonan's allegation that it's liberals, not conservatives, who actively despise dissent, blogger Glenn Greenwald did an efficient job of demolishing that talking point, noting, as just one of many examples, that "David Horowitz has built his career over the last several years on his campaign to limit academic freedom through legislation."

Or how about the Fox News pundits in late March 2003 who were attacking journalists who raised legitimate questions about the early military progress of the invasion into Iraq. At Fox, that public discourse was slapped down as "disgraceful," "idiotic," "stupid," and "moronic."
…

While I agree with Boehlert’s analysis – his dissection of “method and opportunity” -- I disagree with his take on the motive for Noonan’s crimes. His assertion that “She's simply mimicking a popular right-wing attack that happens to be a classic Rovian, jujitsu thrust…”

Her actions may well have the effect of mimicking Rove’s pathology, but there is no reason to think that the cause of her now-complete detachment from Reality isn't that she has simply and finally gone insane.

That her whispery, dolphineering, Jebus-conjuring blather and Locked Ward Stare into a Universe that does not exist would look and sound exactly as they do from inside four padded walls and tied into five-point restraints, instead of in front of the cameras and microphones of the national press.

Because once you have fallen too far into darkness, the thought of having to face the reality of the carnage that gapes at you from your rear view mirror becomes your ultimate horror.

Your cage of rats.

You mash on the gas, piling more of the same onto the disasters you have already sired (the Hair of the War that Bit You, so to speak) but no matter has fast you flee or how loud you screech, the only thing protecting you from your Room 101 primal dread is a tissue of lies that grows more brittle and translucent with each passing day.

Because now the heaps of corpses you have stacked out to the horizon are bringing down the roof beams.

The ruin and penury in which you have happily collaborated in press so hard against that last onion-skin of perfidy that the blood now oozes freely through.

What is coming next is beyond doubt, as are the names and faces of the authors, axe-honers and axe-wielders who have stampeded the entire 21st century into this abattoir.

Because chaos and nightmare is and always was

the real Project for a New American Century

And there was a moment, long ago -- who can say exactly when? -- that you knew beyond any doubt that all that have sworn by is a fraud and all you believe is a lie.

But you couldn’t muster the courage to face the music you yourself composed.

Because once you knew better – once you galloped on past that checkpoint beyond which you can not possibly, plausibly argue that you were misled or were just too stupid or credulous to figure our what was really going on – and you keep on going in the direction of evil while spouting scripture and wheezing on and on about righteousness, you were lost.

Possibly forever.

Part of the symptomology of the wildfire cancer that has now swallowed your soul is the volume and fever with which you now say the most despicable and deranged things.

You denounce patriots as traitors, back war criminals as heroes and denounce as misfits and Compulsive Bush Haters the level-headed realists who warned you this was all coming. You lie and lie and lie about crazy shit. Obvious shit.

Because Rove is has no conscience, what he does doesn’t bother him, but to follow him -- to survive after trading in your soul for protection from the consequences of your lies -- you have had to slowly cut yourself off from anything having any spiritual nutritional value. You live now, under siege, in the battle-bridge of your own skull, sustained only by swallowing lies regurgitated down to you from above which you, in turn, puke into the mouths and hearts of the rank and file below.

At long last – after clearing a path to One Party Power by projectile vomiting unhinged hatred in anything that stood in their way – there is nothing left in the Republican belly but the sour aftertaste of that fiery cask-strength rage that has kept them warm and voting for so long.

At long last, nothing left but the pathetic gibbering of Dry-Heave politics.

Area Dipso Worried George Santos May Sully The GOP's Good Name

File under "Breaking:  Peggy Noonan Not Actually Dead".

Honestly, I thought she had passed out in a puddle of her own sick months ago and had been quietly interred between the mortal remains of Rush Limbaugh and Bob Novack.

But I was wrong.  

She's still among the living and, damn it, she has things to say!

Things like (from Raw Story via MSN since WaPo is mercifully paywalled):

'He will cost them': Conservative Peggy Noonan warns GOP is playing with fire by not dumping Santos

Noonan started off her latest column calling Santos' continued presence in Congress "an insult to the American people," and she described him as someone who "has for decades abused all around him by waging war on reality."

Since Noonan traded her moral compass for a big jug of Lethe decades ago, she didn't bother trying to appeal the the non-existent conscience of House Republicans.  Instead she went straight to the dire warning...

He will be used relentlessly by the Democrats, and the media, to make the Republican conference look like a cabal of fraudsters.  In the short term he damages their reputation, in the long he will surely cost them seats.

But Peggers needs to stop worrying her addled little head over such things.  After all, compared with the feast of lies, corruption, racism, fascism and treason the GOP has been tucking into for the past 50 years (and that Noonan has blithely ignored) Santos is merely a mint.

A tiny..

...little...

...wafer- thin...

...mint.

I Am The Liberal Media

Sunday Morning Comin' Down: I See a Bad Noonan Rising

Today, June 26, 2022, the perpetually sozzled Peggy Noonan poured herself into a comfy chair on the set of Meet the Press, said something stupid and got laughed at.  From Crooks & Liars:

Panel Laughs At Peggy Noonan For Expecting GOP To 'Become A Party That Helps Women'

Guests on an NBC panel laughed out loud at conservative columnist Peggy Noonan after she suggested that Republicans should use the "victory" over abortion rights to become a "party that helps women."

The entire "Meet the Press" panel laughed out loud at Peggy Noonan today when she said the GOP "should become a party that helps women" after its abortion "victory." pic.twitter.com/uSth0nkutC

— David Edwards (@DavidEdwards) June 26, 2022

So, just for laughs, I went to my extensive archives to figure out when it was that La Noonan first got herself a mention on this here blog. 

It was Thursday, May 05, 2005 in a post about David Fucking Brooks.  The timestamp said I posted it at 8:21 evening.  Here's a sample:

Yet again, BoBo The Hutt has pulled a fantasy of a menacing, aggressively secular, God-hostile goon-squad entirely out of his ass in order to pretend that there are two sides to the issue of “Intolerance”, so that he can drag the “middle ground” another thousand miles in the direction of the Middle Ages.

Yeah, sounds like me.

Then, just for laughs I meandered around my archives a little longer.  There are a lot of Noonan or Noonan-adjacent posts in there.  And during my meandings I came across this, posted on Monday, October 23, 2006.  At 9:00 PM.  It brought me up short because fully half of the post consisted of excerpts from one of the late Eric Boehlert's typically well-written, well-researched vivisections of the Conservatives ghouls who dominated the media narrative:

Peggy Noonan, meet Bill O'Reilly

by Eric Boehlert

Peggy Noonan is pained about the state of public debate in this country. The longtime Wall Street Journal columnist and former Reagan speechwriter longs for a time when dignity flourished and political dissent was embraced. Lecturing with signature certainty in her latest column, Noonan bemoans the loss of "civic grace, democratic grace, the kind that assumes disagreements are part of the fabric, but we can make the fabric hold together."

After all, she laments, "Free speech means hearing things you like and agree with, and it means allowing others to speak whose views you do not like or agree with."

Peggy Noonan may be anguished, but at least she's sure who is to blame. It is liberals, those win-at-any-cost Democrats (and worse, celebrities!) who are silencing debate in this country. Plus, they're also being rude about it.

The way Noonan sees things, it's inquisitive, open-minded conservatives who are grappling with the hard questions, eager for public debate and a civilized, wide-ranging dialogue. They're the solemn protectors of dissent in this country, particularly vigilante about shielding unpopular opinions during wartime.

All of which begs the questions: Has Noonan ever watched Fox News where Bill O'Reilly tells guests to "shut-up" and unfurls insults, all while compiling an "enemies list"? Has she tuned into right-wing talk radio, which is designed to be hermetically sealed in order to keep dissenting voices off the air? And has Noonan ever read the right-wing war bloggers, who, as a rule, question the patriotism of anyone who speaks up against the war in Iraq?

Noonan's attempted maneuver about grace and free speech is clunky, but it's not unfamiliar. She's simply mimicking a popular right-wing attack that happens to be a classic Rovian, jujitsu thrust, which is to acknowledge your own weakness -- unhinged hatred for liberals and bullying desire to muzzle dissent -- and relentlessly project it onto your opponents, arguing that they're the ones who have blinders on and are driven by partisan rage. Consequently, Republican pundits pretend it's high-minded conservatives -- gentlemen and women who prefer the Queensbury Rules of intellectual combat -- who are trying to cling to a fading notion of poise and civility in the public square.

Where to begin? You could start with Media Matters for America's catalog of graceless attacks made by the likes of O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh, who owe their careers to their willingness to assault political opponents and stomp on minority viewpoints. In terms of Noonan herself, travel back to last year's Terri Schiavo right-to-die controversy and try to find the grace hidden in the insults Noonan hurled against anyone who disagreed with her radical notion that Congress needed to overrule the rights of Schiavo's husband and keep Terri alive via legislation. To Noonan, her opponents had a "bizarre passion" for death, were "unstable," "unhinged," and "red-fanged and ravenous." She warned that they were paving "the low road that twists past Columbine and leads toward Auschwitz."

…
As for Noonan's allegation that it's liberals, not conservatives, who actively despise dissent, blogger Glenn Greenwald did an efficient job of demolishing that talking point, noting, as just one of many examples, that "David Horowitz has built his career over the last several years on his campaign to limit academic freedom through legislation."

Or how about the Fox News pundits in late March 2003 who were attacking journalists who raised legitimate questions about the early military progress of the invasion into Iraq. At Fox, that public discourse was slapped down as "disgraceful," "idiotic," "stupid," and "moronic."
…

Then I stopped laughing.  

Because any healthy media ecosystem would have shown this gibbering trainwreck the door decades ago.  Instead she continues to enjoy an open invitation to the Elite Media grownup's table.  

Here's how I finished off that post of mine from 16 years ago:

Her actions may well have the effect of mimicking Rove’s pathology, but there is no reason to think that the cause of her now-complete detachment from Reality isn't that she has simply and finally gone insane.

That her whispery, dolphineering, Jebus-conjuring blather and Locked Ward Stare into a Universe that does not exist would look and sound exactly as they do from inside four padded walls and tied into five-point restraints, instead of in front of the cameras and microphones of the national press.

Because once you have fallen too far into darkness, the thought of having to face the reality of the carnage that gapes at you from your rear view mirror becomes your ultimate horror.

Your cage of rats.

You mash on the gas, piling more of the same onto the disasters you have already sired (the Hair of the War that Bit You, so to speak) but no matter has fast you flee or how loud you screech, the only thing protecting you from your Room 101 primal dread is a tissue of lies that grows more brittle and translucent with each passing day.

Because now the heaps of corpses you have stacked out to the horizon are bringing down the roof beams.

The ruin and penury in which you have happily collaborated in press so hard against that last onion-skin of perfidy that the blood now oozes freely through.

What is coming next is beyond doubt, as are the names and faces of the authors, axe-honers and axe-wielders who have stampeded the entire 21st century into this abattoir.

Because chaos and nightmare is and always was the real Project for a New American Century

Burn The Lifeboats

A Peggy Noonan Pop Quiz

Who said this and what was the subject?

There is an odd, magical-thinking element in the psychology of recent White Houses. It is now common for those within them to assume that history will declare their greatness down the road. They proceed as if this is automatic, guaranteed: They will leave someday, history will ponder their accomplishments and announce their genius.

Answer:  Peggy Noonan wrote it.  Six years ago.  About Barack Obama.

The Nihilist in the White House

Which, in turn, made various Conservative media constituencies like the homunculi at P J Media all gooey in their bikini areas:

Understanding the Nihilist in the White House...

But it is clear that one of the main things that motivated Noonan’s use of the word “nihilist” for Obama was that he is bent on destruction rather than creation, because destruction for its own sake is also part of the arsenal of nihilism. In the paragraph of hers that I quoted above, she uses words that express this to describe the effects of Obama’s executive order on immigration [emphasis mine]: it is “destructive to the reputation of democracy itself,” it “damages the standing of our tottery political institutions,” and it “erode[s] the position of the American working class.”

I agree that Obama wants to destroy...

And here is what Peggers wrote six weeks ago (emphasis added):

Burn the Republican Party Down? 

It would damage the country, and those who say yes bear some blame for the president’s rise.

Where did Donald Trump come from? Where is the GOP going? Should the whole thing be burned down? A lot had to go wrong before we got a President Trump. This fact, once broadly acknowledged, has gotten lost, as if a lot of people want it forgotten...

That was what got every Never Trumper currently on anyone's payroll up-in-arms.  Which, in turn, got many Liberals who have been writing about the racism and depravity of the GOP for decades rolling in the aisles.

But Peggers had more to say.

He came from a spirit of frustration among a sizable segment of the electorate that, in time, became something like a spirit of nihilism...

And the penny drops:

The past four years have produced a different kind of disaster, one often described in this space. The past six months Mr. Trump came up against his own perfect storm, one he could neither exploit nor talk his way past: a pandemic, an economic contraction that will likely produce a lengthy recession, and prolonged, sometimes violent national street protests. If the polls can be trusted, he is on the verge of losing the presidency.

Now various of his foes, in or formerly of his party, want to burn the whole thing down—level the party, salt the earth where it stood, remove Republican senators, replace them with Democrats.

This strikes me as another form of nihilism...

Over time, the alert reader will notice that Peggers throws around the term "nihilist" like the dotty Faulkner sisters threw around the word "pixelated" in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.

You see, everyone on Earth is a nihilist.

Except, of course, for Peggy Noonan.

No Half Measures

Peggy Noonan Renews My Faith...

...in the theory that if you can just get a Republican Beltway Pundit one-on-one in a comfortable, quiet room...

...and then pin them down...

...and then just wallop them upside the head with terrifying facts about their party over and over and over again, eventually they will sue for peace.

After which they will, of course, squirm like a slug in a bucket of salt until they find a way wriggle out of their enforced epiphany and to revert their wretched, lying default settings at the earliest opportunity.  But when the moment comes when a  Republican Beltway Pundit's psyche has been torqued by the depravity of their party to the point where they momentarily can't take it anymore, we should pause to note the moment

Peggers in the Wall Street Journal today:

As to impeachment itself, the case has been so clearly made you wonder what exactly the Senate will be left doing. How will they hold a lengthy trial with a case this clear? Who exactly will be the president’s witnesses.

Of course, if one were less than charitable, one might be tempted to note that this has come almost exactly one decade after details about the Bush Administration torture program came to light.  Someone so rude as to remember such unpleasantness might go even further, and raid the Crooks & Liars archives for the irrefutable video evidence that Beltway Media was a shitpile of mealy-mouthed, wingnut-enabling Quislings long before Trump showed up.

And among the worst of the worst was Peggers:

Finally, by an odd coincidence, it turns out that my view of Peggy Noonan happens to be exactly the same as Peggy Noonan's view of torture by the Bush Administration.

It's hard for me to look at a great nation where Noonan's manifestly toxic opinions continue being broadcast out to the world and think, oh, much good will come of that.

The Tip Jar Is Open.

Peggy Noonan Remembers Thee Olde Democratic Party Was Warm...

...like a Flaming B-52 or a Flaming Mouthwash or a Flaming Dr. Pepper or a Harry Potter Goblet of Fire or a Flaming Mai Tai or a Bailey's Comet or a Flaming Moe.

But the new Democratic party is cold.

Cold and bitter.

Cold and bitter and divisive.

Like cheap absinthe or Pruno.  Or (shudder) Jeppson's Malört.  From the WSJ:

If Biden Runs, They’ll Tear Him Up 

The old Democratic Party was warm, like him. The new one rising is colder, less human and divisive.

Which is not to say that, under certain conditions, Peggers would turn down a shot of Malört or cheap absinthe or Pruno.  Because when it's Sunday morning and the cabinet is bare, and there's a foot of snow outside, and the Uber Eats guy won't slog it over to Binny's for a fifth of something elegant no matter how much you yell at him, even that novelty bottle of Snake Juice someone gave you as a joke --

-- starts to look a lot like 30 year old Lagavulin. 

So will Peggers throw in with President Stupid in 2020, or sullenly accept what's on offer at the Democratic end of the bar?

Who knows.

What is certain is that, whether she holds her nose and votes for Trump, or chokes down a vote for the Democratic nominee, or tearfully writes in "Ronald Reagan", the Wall Street Journal and Comcast will continue to pay her to bitch about how everything has gone to Hell and Both Sides are to blame for it every inch of the way.

Behold, a Tip Jar!

Magic Dolphin Lady Lauds Speech Beamed In From Alternate Universe

This has been a deeply adept speech in terms of policy. He cut to the muscle on legal and illegal immigration, on abortion and infanticide, on foreign wars. His vow on socialism will be remembered. Great heroes in the balcony, a real American panoply. 1

— Peggy Noonan (@Peggynoonannyc) February 6, 2019

And how did the Democrats do, Magic Dolphin Lady?

And good natured with the white jackets, who I see some on twitter are calling the straight jackets. AOC had a rare bad night, looking not spirited, warm and original as usual but sullen, teenaged and at a loss. 2.

— Peggy Noonan (@Peggynoonannyc) February 6, 2019

As we have noted before on this blog, MSNBC employee, ether-frolic enthusiast and professional Reagan trance-channeler, Peggy Noonan, has always been a big fan of  breezing on past any inconvenient factual realities that might encumber her beautiful mind and childlike, "Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims: Time-Travel Adventures with Exceptional Americans"  understanding of American politics and history.

Behold, a Tip Jar!

Sunday Morning Comin' Down

I used to devote more time and viscera deconstructing the Weekend Gasbag Cavalcade back when there was a glimmer of hope that if enough of us documented and published the catastrophic failures of our political media over and over and over again, it might change their collective behavior.

I no longer believe that.

Clearly, their contemptable collective behavior is an organizational feature and not a bug, and therefore unfixable until it becomes unbearably more painful for the men and women who control our corporate media to change their ways than to maintain the status quo.  I still take note of the weekly crimes against journalism and the vipers and pettyfoggers who commit them, but now it is more with an eye towards the future.  Just a dime-store Josephus documenting who we are and why this is happening to us as our country is systematically gutted by forces beyond my control.  And I think I write a pretty honest stick, but this Sunday I can't sum things up any better than @51Renee on the Twitter machine:

Trump having a meltdown today.

Jill Stein having a meltdown today.

Bernie snapping at Chuck Todd today.

Hillary Clinton is laughing her ass off.

She tried to tell you.

#StillWithHer

Yeah, that's about where we're at.

Also a few, very special Presidents' Day Fuck Yous going out to a few very special Beltway media collaborators who never, ever want to find themselves across the table from me with a camera rolling.

First, Fuck You, John Kasich  Y'know, the "Good" Republican who is running so fucking scared from the degenerates who own his Party and their enablers who own the media that he cannot form his mouth the say the word "Republicans" when asked a direct question about who exactly is blocking any meaningful progress on gun control legislation of any kind:

BASH: But when it comes to Congress, you were a member of Congress. Do you think that it's just dysfunction and ineptitude, or do you think it's because they're actually scared of the political consequences from important groups like the NRA?

Instead, he gasses on about the goll durn "Congress" up there in goll durn "Washington D.C." and advises people to just give up on the federal government entirely because of the goll durn "politicians" and do what he did: get a lil' group together with a friend of his and his friend's cousin and then there's Floyd and some of the boys down ta' the barber shop who's always up for whatever, and ya get together and maybe propose somethin' to the town council!

KASICH: ... Where we have to effect this, I believe, is at the local level and the statehouse, because you can have greater access to politicians who serve in the state legislature, in -- a county commissioner, in a city council.

Before ending up exactly where every one of these sniveling Republican cowards always ends up.

KASICH: ... And, look, I'm not calling for some outright ban. I'm talking about small steps that can be taken that can be effective. And the Congress ought to do it.

I just don't -- I -- I don't have any confidence in them. I don't think most Americans do. Nobody's supporting them any more on both sides. They're both broken.

Then Fuck You Maureen Dowd, who took the same "Both Sides/All Sides/Everyone is to blame" playbook and ran with it --

Then I gave up. If the sight of slaughtered angels did not dent the nation’s conscience, could anything?...

But we didn’t care...

In our ongoing angst about our national identity — if we weren’t John Wayne anymore, who were we? — there had been a terrible tacit judgment made: America would accept periodic human sacrifices to the trigger gods in the interest of upholding this bizarre notion that the Second Amendment is inviolate or even really threatened.

We can’t even summon the energy to break the chokehold that the N.R.A. has on Republicans in Congress.

When societies try to protect a malevolent status quo, they become warped.

The most chilling sign of this is when people look the other way as the most vulnerable members of society are preyed on.

America shrugs.

-- pausing only briefly to pat herself on the back for that time she blamed Barack Obama. 

And I wrote in disgust about President Barack Obama failing to marshal the L.B.J. mojo to push through a gun control bill after Sandy Hook even though he had 90 percent of Americans on his side and a Democratic Senate.

Because, see, President Obama didn't use his Magic Green Lantern powers to change the cold, dead hearts of Republican scumbags like Maureen Dowd's brother. 

Republicans who are are "meh" about all those "slaughtered angels" because Freedumb!  

Republicans who are delighted with the permanent damage President Stupid is doing to this country.  

Republicans who elected the seditious thugs who dynamited everything the Obama Administration tried to do just because they fucking hated the first black president.   From Time Magazine, August of 2012:

TIME just published “The Party of No,” an article adapted from my new book, The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era. It reveals some of my reporting on the Republican plot to obstruct President Obama before he even took office, including secret meetings led by House GOP whip Eric Cantor (in December 2008) and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (in early January 2009) in which they laid out their daring (though cynical and political) no-honeymoon strategy of all-out resistance to a popular President-elect during an economic emergency. “If he was for it,” former Ohio Senator George Voinovich explained, “we had to be against it.” 

And finally, a Very Special Presidents' Day Fuck You to Respected NBC Contributor and America's Most Lubricated Conservative Barfly, Peggy Noonan --

-- for very nearly making it to the bathroom before vomiting half-digested wingnut talking points about school shootings all over the sink, the walls, the rug and the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal:

The family blew up—divorce, unwed childbearing. Fatherless sons. Fatherless daughters, too. Poor children with no one to love them. The internet flourished. Porn proliferated. Drugs, legal and illegal. Violent videogames, in which nameless people are eliminated and spattered all over the screen. (The Columbine shooters loved and might have been addicted to “Doom.”) The abortion regime settled in, with its fierce, endless yet somehow casual talk about the right to end a life. An increasingly violent entertainment culture—low, hypersexualized, full of anomie and weirdness, allergic to meaning and depth. The old longing for integration gave way to a culture of accusation—you are a supremacist, a misogynist, you are guilty of privilege and defined by your color and class, we don’t let your sort speak here.

Poor Peggers.  Other than the Wall Street Journal...and The New York Times...and MSNBC...and NBC...and ABC...and the lecture circuit...and book deals..and putting words in the mouths of Republican presidents...and myriad radio appearances...and a standing invitation on the now-defunct Charlie Rose Show...

...no one will let her sort speak here!

Have another drink, Peggy.

Hell, have a thousand.

Behold, a Tip Jar!

Sunday Morning Comin' Down

I've already said all I had to say about Mr. David Brooks' garment-rending-hand-wringing column on Friday and his appearance on the Intelligence Squared debate stage and his dizzyingly non-linear understanding of recent American political history, so I will just note that this Sunday morning was something like the 3,785th time he was invited to appear on Meet the Press to reprise portions of his most recent column for the reading-impaired.

CHUCK TODD:  David, I want to get to a point you made in your column on Friday, which is a victory by Roy Moore for the Republican Party is, I guess, the ultimate in empiric victory, isn't it?

DAVID BROOKS:  Right.

Also featured on Meet the Press was noted tosspot, torture-whisperer and Respected NBC Employee, Peggy Noonan.  Because I suppose given the state of swooning fidgets which have temporarily afflicted Mr. David Brooks this week, NBC brass thought he might need some help bearing the Both Sides banner on his own.

Peggers was more than up to the task.

After pausing briefly to kick Al Franken on his way out of the Senate --

Al Franken Departs Without Grace by @peggynoonannyc https://t.co/KWYYwHjoVL via @WSJ

— Peggy Noonan (@Peggynoonannyc) December 8, 2017

-- she hied herself over to NBC as fast as possible without risking spillage --

-- in order to deliver her lines:

PEGGY NOONAN:  I understand. Can I say, part of this pushback you see on Fox and other stations and outlets, part of it is I very much remember “Let's kill Ken Starr”--

CHUCK TODD:  Right.

PEGGY NOONAN:  -- in the late 1990s, it was the Democratic party and Democratic media trying to kill the Republican special prosecutor. That said, it is so important, so much depends on the Mueller investigation that it's not bad, I think, if people look at it in a strict way and just say, "Make sure everything's on the up and up and fully credible and not partisan and not partisan political creepiness."

Watching the Sunday Shows really is like watched state-media broadcasts from Camazotz.  Part ahistoric blathering, part hastily thrown-together Both Siderist fairy tales, all in the service of  awkwardly and self-consciously avoiding any discussion that has anything to do with what is actually going on in this country right now, or the lived experiences and memories of the tens of millions of us who exist outside of the Beltway bubble.  

And I am oddly comforted by the fact that the perpetrators of this weekly sham are so keenly aware of how weak and ridiculous they are that they absolutely will not let anyone within a 1000 yards of the party who might show up with a little actual, inconvenient history in-hand.

Behold, a Tip Jar!

Peggy Noonan: The Joker You Drink, The Seriouser You Get

Whether the subject is the torture regime which the Cheney Administration enthusiastically endorsed and secretly administered --

-- or literally the entire history of the United States from the founding of the republic until breakfast this morning --

A shonda. They were figures in the greatest, most killing moral struggle in US history. They didnt tweet, they took to the field and died.1/ https://t.co/wDjqmWTTE0

— Peggy Noonan (@Peggynoonannyc) September 7, 2017

Then one side won, they reconciled, the American experiment continued and we learned through this history. Keep em. Let it be. They are us.

— Peggy Noonan (@Peggynoonannyc) September 7, 2017

And both sides afterward held together -- imperfectly, sometimes uncomfortably. The leaders of the South largely attempted reconciliation /9

— Peggy Noonan (@Peggynoonannyc) September 7, 2017

-- respected @MSNBC employee, ether-frolic enthusiast and professional Reagan trance-channeler, Peggy Noonan, has always been a big fan of "walking on by" any inconvenient factual realities that might encumber her beautiful mind and childlike, "Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims: Time-Travel Adventures with Exceptional Americans"  understanding of American history.

Did I mention that Ms. Noonan is now a respected MSNBC employee?  Ah, I see that I did.  Well, it's true.  Happened less than a month ago.  In fact, here is a rare photogravure of MSNBC president Phil Griffin taken as they were in the act of inking the deal.

Did I also mention that Ms. Noonan also won a Pulitzer prize this year for her addled mutterings?

Yep.  That happened too.  Quite the bottled-in-bond banner year for Ms. Noonan.  According to the Pulitzer website,  they gave her the award for “rising to the moment with beautifully rendered columns that connected readers to the shared virtues of Americans during one of the nation’s most divisive political campaigns.”

Funny old world.

Behold, a Tip Jar!

First You Take a Drink

Then the drink takes a drink.
Then the drink takes you.
Then the drink gets a job blabbing ridiculous opinions on NBC.

-- F. Scott Fitzgerald, updated

From The Business Journals/Biz Women:

Peggy Noonan joins NBC, MSNBC

Peggy Noonan, a longtime conservative columnist for the Wall Street Journal, is joining NBC and MSNBC as a political commentator, The Hill reports.

Noonan appeared on the network's "Meet the Press" Sunday in her debut.

Noonan was a speechwriter for former President Ronald Reagan. Starting with the 2016 election, Noonan has been a frequent critic of President Donald Trump...

There is literally no barrier to permanent Beltway employment other than already being in The Club.

Conversely, if you're not in The Club, you do not exist.  Unless, of course, you're a freshly decanted, white Conservative man-baby with the right connections and paperwork, in which case everyone at NPR and The New York Times and Meet the Press and Time magazine and on and on are all deeply, deeply interested in every little thing you have to say about everything -- from how Donald Trump will save Murrica, to why your previous deeply-held opinion about Donald Trump saving Murrica may have been poorly considered.

From Shakespeare's Sister:

Julius Krein, a conservative who founded the pro-Trump journal American Affairs, now regrets his vote for Donald Trump. What a story! Such an astounding story, in fact, that he has been given space at the New York Times to tell his amazing tale of being catastrophically wrong.

Well, this is made a little easier knowing that my pal Tengrain and Mock, Paper, Scissors -- who owns clear title to the Noonan Genre and don't you forget it! -- will not lack for raw materials with which to work his magic anytime in the near future.

Operation Memory Hole: The Noonaning

From her stateroom aboard the stately True Conservative dirigible that floats high above the petty concerns and quotidian realities of time, space and causality, Peggy Noonan spotted the real problem with True Conservatism:  some damn fool had failed to severe the last of the mooring lines that kept the ungainly and blowing-up-prone ship tethered fitfully to objective reality.

Noonan -- a veteran of such crises -- knew exactly what to do.  Girding herself with several gallons of Gallo Brother's gallantry from her emergency bug-out bag, she inched along the catwalk that ran the length of the bucking, heaving ship, to do what needed to be done.  Finding the knot that secured the line was too heavy and intricate to simply be untied, she shipped out her keyboard and began hack, hack, hacking away...

Imagine a Sane Donald Trump

You know he’s a nut. What if he weren’t?

Holy crap.  Really?  This is where Peggers is wandering off to now?  Really?

Really.

Slowly, Noonan felt the knot beginning to give way...

Mr. Trump’s great historical role was to reveal to the Republican Party what half of its own base really thinks about the big issues. The party’s leaders didn’t know! They were shocked, so much that they indulged in sheer denial and made believe it wasn’t happening.
...

The Republican Party will now begin the long process of redefining itself or continue its long national collapse. This is an epochal event. It happened because Donald Trump intuited where things were and are going.

Since I am more in accord with Mr. Trump’s stands than not, I am particularly sorry that as an individual human being he’s a nut.

Which gives rise to a question, for me a poignant one.

What if there had been a Sane Donald Trump?...

Okay.  "What, pray tell, would Sane Donald Trump look like?" he asked, knowing full well that it is folly to argue with drunks or crazy people.   But...

Sane Donald Trump would have looked at a dubious, anxious and therefore standoffish Republican establishment and not insulted them, diminished them, done tweetstorms against them...

Sane Donald Trump would have given an anxious country more ease, not more anxiety...

Sane Donald Trump would have explained his immigration proposals with a kind of loving logic...

Sane Donald Trump would have spoken at great and compelling length of how the huge, complicated trade agreements created the past quarter-century can be improved upon...

Sane Donald Trump would have argued that controlling entitlement spending is a necessary thing but not, in fact, this moment’s priority...

Sane Donald Trump would have known of America’s hidden fractures, and would have insisted that a healthy moderate-populist movement cannot begin as or devolve into a nationalist, identity-politics movement...

Sane Donald Trump would not treat the political process of the world’s greatest democracy as if it were, as somebody said, the next-to-last episode of a reality-TV series...

Wow!  You know, I am kinda digging this "Sane Donald Trump" fella.  

And yet my admiration for this wholly fiction candidate invented by a blithering liar to lead a wholly fictional Republican Party that is somehow, suddenly not overflowing with bigots and imbeciles is somewhat tempered by the fact that these character traits -- giving the GOP leadership more benefits of the doubt than they deserve by a factor of 1000, offering the country hope instead of fear, proposing a humane and comprehensive immigration policy, trying to fix our trade problems and prepare our people for the realities of tomorrow, standing up to the Republican obsession with shredding the social safety net and an overall reverence for the democratic process -- all sound remarkably like this guy:

You know, the guy you and the rest of the actual Republican Party and it's actual candidate have spent the last eight years trying to obstruct, slander, sabotage and in every other way nail to a cross with a belt-fed bullshit gun?

Oh my God, Sane Trump would have won in a landslide...

But Barack Obama did win in a landslide, didn't he?  And you never forgave him for it.  Instead, you and the rest of the filth on the Right just crawled deeper into your cups and went right on dreaming your demented little dreams.

So you see, it's not hard for us Liberals to imagine such a person at all.

But what we cannot imagine, no matter how hard we try, is a Sober Peggy Noonan.

Take it away Tengrain, who owns clear title to the Noonan beat:

Anatomy of a Column

Peggy Noonan came to somewhere in the garment district, in a shopping cart, wearing a vermillion factory second prom gown with an enormous fuchsia sash and puce bow that was some how caught in the small pushed vehicle’s wheel. Out of her reach on a ledge down the alley was her trusty first aid kit (a Christofle flask, hopefully full of her daily minimum allowance of Vitamin M-T, to prevent scurvy, don’t you know).

She began rocking the cart until it lurched forward a few inches, and stopped.

“I was at the Al Smith dinner, and now I’m here, dressed like this” she mused as she lurched the cart closer. “Life is funny that way.”...

Madame Noonan's House of Palmistry, Tarot and Zinfandel

On the way to her Salon of Whispery Beltway Secrets, Madame Noonan teetered through the halls of her co-op, conducting an impromptu tour of the place.

"The Death Mask of St. Ronald Reagan," she intoned breathlessly, nodding at a pile of old towels on a milk-crate end table.

"The original Black Grimoire of Newton Leroy Gingrich," she said reverently, indicating a Washington D.C. metropolitan phone-book from 1977.

"The Secret Sex Dungeon of Rutherford B. Hayes," she shuddered, pointing to a wicker basket full of old pantyhose.

Finally she arrived at a small card table on which sat a box of Fig Newtons, a souvenir coffee mug from the set of "This Week with George Whatshisname" full of dried out pens and blush brushes, and a glass of wine the size of a birdbath.  She pounded the wine like a pro --

Amy Schumer Wine Glass in #drunk

-- and then stared blearily into the lees and made strange, dramatic movements with with her hands which were either meant to conjure voices from the Other Side or keep her from tipping over.

"Many things, I see," she said melodramatically. "Many things."

From the Wall Street Journal:

Let’s begin with a prophecy: It is not only the Republican Party that is breaking and perhaps re-forming. The Democratic Party is also starting to come apart. We’re seeing the first signs of it now. ... Here’s what I suspect is coming whatever happens this year. Just as a portion of Republicans—nobody knows how big—will break from the GOP over Donald Trump, some percentage of Democrats, especially among the affluent will, in the next cycle, start to peel off from their party over its lurch leftward. They will not be at home in a party of smiley-face socialism that threatens to become actual socialism. They will not want the American economy destroyed. They will not be comfortable in a party that supports the most extreme political correctness; they do not want their 10-year-old daughters using transgendered bathrooms with men. They will find themselves increasingly opposed to the political correctness that has swept the universities. They will have increasing qualms about spending $60,000 a year to have their bright, kind children turned into leftist robots. 

...

So they will start to split off from the Democrats, and they will find the Republicans who split off in 2016, and together, in 2020 or so, they will attempt to create their own party. It will be pro-growth, moderate on social issues, more or less neoconservative in its foreign policy. It will be smallish but well-heeled. It will try to hold together and grow. 

That is my prophecy...

"And thus shall the Royal Road of Both Siderism lead inevitably to the Imaginary Third Party of my dreams!" Madame Noonan slumped back into her chair, exhausted by the power of her mighty vision. 

Her hand trembled as she poured herself another catchment basin of wine.

"And when exactly is all of this supposed to happen?"  I asked. 

 "Meh," she shrugged. "Let's say five or ten years after everyone forgets I wrote it.  That usually works."

She dropped her voice and looked suspiciously around the room. 

 "By the way, have I shown you Rutheford B. Hayes' sex dungeon yet?" she asked. "He died in there you know. Died."