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Peggy Noonan: Bush is "Extremely Irritating," "Unnatural," and "Weird"

Conservative mouthpiece Peggy Noonan has a delightful op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today.

I received an email before the news conference from as rock-ribbed a Republican as you can find, a Georgia woman (middle-aged, entrepreneurial) who'd previously supported him. She said she'd had it. "I don't believe a word that comes out of his mouth." I was startled by her vehemence only because she is, as I said, rock-ribbed. Her email reminded me of another, one a friend received some months ago: "I took the W off my car today," it said on the subject line. It sounded like a country western song, like a great lament.

As I watched the news conference, it occurred to me that one of the things that might leave people feeling somewhat disoriented is the president's seemingly effortless high spirits. He's in a good mood. There was the usual teasing, the partly aggressive, partly joshing humor, the certitude. He doesn't seem to be suffering, which is jarring. Presidents in great enterprises that are going badly suffer: Lincoln, LBJ with his head in his hands. Why doesn't Mr. Bush? Every major domestic initiative of his second term has been ill thought through and ended in failure. His Iraq leadership has failed. His standing is lower than any previous president's since polling began. He's in a good mood. Discuss.

...

Americans have always been somewhat romantic about the meaning of our country, and the beacon it can be for the world, and what the Founders did. But they like the president to be the cool-eyed realist, the tough customer who understands harsh realities.

With Mr. Bush it is the people who are forced to be cool-eyed and realistic. He's the one who goes off on the toots. This is extremely irritating, and also unnatural. Actually it's weird.

To me, watching a Bush press conference has been a maddening experience for a number of years. I suspect it's the same for many of our readers. Looks like Peggy, and her conservative friends, are just catching up. Read the whole op-ed here.

Comments

Two possible reasons:
1. Bush's entire set of stated goals is a layer of smoke and mirrors designed to distract us while he dismantles the Constitution in favor of some sort of return to the age of the robber barons, or perhaps actual barons.
2. Prozac. Big doses.

Posted by: thinkgra on 07/13/07 at 5:18 PM Respond

Peggy Noonan is an absolute realist by comparison to the people on the National Review cruise:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/13/2499/#comment-53279

This is the second paragraph, written by Johann Hari:
I am getting used to these moments - when gentle holiday geniality bleeds into… what? I lie on the beach with Hillary-Ann, a chatty, scatty 35-year-old Californian designer. As she explains the perils of Republican dating, my mind drifts, watching the gentle tide. When I hear her say, ” Of course, we need to execute some of these people,” I wake up. Who do we need to execute? She runs her fingers through the sand lazily. “A few of these prominent liberals who are trying to demoralize the country,” she says. “Just take a couple of these anti-war people off to the gas chamber for treason to show, if you try to bring down America at a time of war, that’s what you’ll get.” She squints at the sun and smiles. ” Then things’ll change.”

Posted by: Eric Ferguson on 07/14/07 at 6:55 PM Respond

Is this the Peggy Noonan, the catholic divorcee, hypocrit, the Reagan speech writer, the ultra right wing conservative throwback and pimp for right wing shill for catholic ideology coming out of the Vatican and the Pope of the catholic church, my church, and guilty of abominable acts under the present and previous popes.

Peggy Noonan is nothing but a shill for Catholic Republicans with whom the previous pope aligned himself and the catholic church. Now the catholic church shills for the Republican Party and vice versa. One hand washes the other!

Peggy Noonan, like her good friends Bush, Cheney, Reagan, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, Tim Russert et.al. are the scum of and scourge upon America. They and the right wing SCOTUS (Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito and sometimes Kennedy) are all shills for the Pope and his favorite political party(Rethuglikkkans) the Vatican, the Catholic Church and the Republican Party and a deadly scourge upon our now shredded Constitution and our democracy.

It is Scalia's intent to put an END to the rule of law and an END to our democracy which he expressed in his own words, in May, 2000. That is what thias is all about.

Peggy Noonan and her ilk belong to the Republican Party of pro-death for profit and world domination. There is nothing pro-life about their agenda, absolutely nothing at all and their never was. Pro-life was nothing more than a means to an end. The end being to get Republicans elected so they may promote their agenda of pro-death for PROFIT( all profits especially oil profits) and world domination.

Let me repeat that pro-death for PROFIT.

Posted by: bob t on 07/14/07 at 9:23 PM Respond

Peggy Noonan is extremely irritating, unatural(as was her friend Reagan) and weird.

The right wing(Peggy Noonan and all right wing catholics and the right wing evangelicals, their brethern) attack on families and family values and their pro-death for profit agenda is anothema to human life, in America and throughout the middle east and the world.

Posted by: bob t on 07/14/07 at 11:01 PM Respond

Question the party? Question Jesus.

Ain’t no god fearin’ evangelicals or Mormons that I know who are desertin’ the president! (except John Dolittle).

Posted by: john on 07/15/07 at 5:16 PM Respond