The latest Peggy Noonan lecture column makes us wonder: isn’t it hard typing on your keyboard when that jacket restrains both arms?
Ms. Noonan has written yet another one of her wonderfully written, lyrical columns, this time revealing to us that the moderates of both parties who helped nix the “nuclear option” (aren’t we getting sick of that phrase already?) on judicial filibusters are (a)egotistical, (b) pompous, and (c)think they’re right and saving others.
And she also should re-read one of her own columns when she writes this:
Listening to them I thought of some of the great and hallowed phrases of our Republic. “The rooster who thought he brought the dawn.” “The only man who can strut sitting down.”
WAIT! This is the same person who wrote this article in the Wall Street Journal after the election — an article titled So Much to Savor A big win for America, and a loss for the mainstream media. Read it yourself. It probably set a record for strutting over an election victory — using the word “savor” more than bloggers (like me) use the phrase “nuclear option.” The savor article (a favorite of partisan GOPers) was a massive high-five rubbing of Bush’s win in the face of defeated Democrats — the kind of piece that would not have appeared in a major publication 10 or 20 years ago when writing was more genteel.
But then, Ms. Noonan is not always noted for her absolute consistency (and neither are bloggers, with the exception of TMV of course..). Alas, this NEW column of Ms. Noonan’s gives you very little to savor — but much to scratch your head about. And you want to ask the question: what is the point? To wit:
Back to the senators. Why did they put on that performance the other day? Yes, it was sheer exuberant egotism; it was the excitement of the TV lights; it was their sly conviction that if they laud themselves they will be appearing to laud the institution; and it was, no doubt, the counsel of their advisers that in the magic medium of television, if you declare you are a “hero” often enough people will come to associate the word “hero” with you. Advisers, you must stop telling them this. Please.
But wait, Peggy.
Did I miss you making the same criticism of George Bush and the administration when it wrapped itself in the war on terrorism during the campaign, when some politicos associated a win for George Bush with the country’s survival?
When GWB landed on the airplane carrier against the backdrop of the MISSION ACCOMPLISHED sign, I guess I missed the column about the exuberant egotism of that.
What about the “hero” imagery of GWB’s Top Gun wardrobe that day? Can you send me the column you did where you communicated to your readers your reservations about that?
Or do you limit your writing a column about those who are sanctimonious to those who take stands you didn’t agree with, then tack onto that some overall observations (Heaven FORBID, us bloggers never do that!) to make it seem as if it’s a broad-themed column. MORE:
I think everyone in politics now has been affected by the linguistic sleight-of-hand, which began with the Kennedys in the 1960s, in which politics is called “public service,” and politicians are allowed and even urged to call themselves “public servants.” Public servants are heroic and self-denying. Therefore politicians are heroic and self-denying. I think this thought has destabilized them.
A good point. But kindly send me the columns you wrote about this during the Republican convention in New York. (Don’t bother sending me columns on John Kerry because even a pumpernickel sitting on a deli shelf knows that Kerry’s WHOLE CAMPAIGN was based on unsuccessfully pitching himself as a hero ad nauseum). Now, brace yourselves for the ending:
People who charge into burning towers are heroic; nuns who work with the poorest of the poor are self-denying; people who volunteer their time to help our world and receive nothing in return but the knowledge they are doing good are in public service. Politicians are in politics. They are less self-denying than self-aggrandizing. They are given fame, respect, the best health care in the world; they pass laws governing your life and receive a million perks including a good salary, and someone else–faceless taxpayers, “the folks back home”–gets to pay for the whole thing. This isn’t public service, it’s more like public command. It’s not terrible–democracies need people who commit politics; they have a place and a role to play–but it’s not saintly, either.
I don’t know if politicians have ever been modest, but I know they have never seemed so boastful, so full of themselves, and so dizzy with self-love.
Yes, once again it’s a Peggy Noonan column with wonderfully flowing sentences, smooth and skillful phrases. She so good she could probably get a job as a speechwriter (Whoops! She was — and one of the very BEST).
There. Thank you. I yield the floor.
You have to yield the floor. It’s hard to move around in that jacket…
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.