Typo needs fixing. "Noonan concludes that we're in an era in which the nation leads..." No, she said "nation *needs*..."

I wonder if Palin will also file a defamation suit against Noonan like she did Moore....

Palin is more than qualified to be a Republican member of the House.

That's not a compliment.

The commenters over there are insane.

Maybe Noonan is going for the Dowd gold...elite confection and all.

Peggy, y'all built this party...

After 40 years celebrating ignorance and intolerance, now you notice what it got you, and expect to switch on a dime? With what constituents? With what members? Lots of luck.

The tragedy, of course, is if Dems don't deliver (and we sure haven't yet), the Palins of the world might not have to change one bit in order to get themselves elected.

If they are all going to be attacking each other, I say pass the popcorn.

Noonan typifies the smug self-assurance of the liberal MSM. All she knows is how to tear down. This is a time the country needs builders not tearers. Instead people like Noonan are driving people like Governess Palin from office.

Delete any reference to "she" and replace it with "he" and then do the same with "her" etc. Then the same for any mention of her name and replace it with Bush. Her critique of PALINaroundwithterrorists is dead nuts on. The exact same crit could be used by her for Bushit. Nauseating...

Palin is more than qualified to be a Republican member of the House.

I'd say it the other way around - that a lot of house Republicans are less qualified than Palin.

That's not a compliment.

It has the benefit of accuracy, however.

Maybe they think "not thoughtful" is a working-class trope!

MAYBE?!?!?!

Sometimes, in my good moments, I remember back to discussions with conservatives when I appreciated the thoughtfulness of the discussion. There was a seriousness about issues of politics and governing. Noonan, occassionally, harkens back to that era. So does Brooks, at times. But when you've built a political philosophy on hatred of government and governing, you can only go so far down the path towards serious discussions about how to best govern. There is a big difference between advocating principles of limited government and being anti-government. Add to that, that Republican's reflexively prefer oligarchy to democracy, its in their dna. The combination sets up a real receipe for cynical manipulation of the democratic process in order to maintain minority control. I don't think that will ever change with the GOP, no matter who is in charge.

Where in the world did she get the idea that Lincoln went to Princeton? He was granted an honarary degree from there, but never attended as a student.

"Noonan typifies the smug self-assurance of the liberal MSM." As soon as I read one of the few principles pieces ever from Peggy Noonan (no, I'm not a Noonan fan) - somehow I knew a member of the Palin fan club would say something like this. If I were a Republican (and thankfully I'm not) - I would want Palin to disappear from the political scene ASAP. But in the meantime, this Democrat agrees with "pass the popcorn"!

Where in the world did she get the idea that Lincoln went to Princeton? He was granted an honarary degree from there, but never attended as a student.

She was being sarcastic. She isn't very good at that.

Yes. When I think of people who have standing to criticize others for being "not thoughtful", the first to pop in my mind is Peggy "Some things in life need to be mysterious... Sometimes you need to just keep walking" Noonan. Jeez, pot, meet kettle.

Oooooh. Rush isn't going to like this...

Rush Limbaugh vs. Peggy Noonan.

We're going to need more popcorn.

Feh. Noonan's the pet of a certain segment of the same idiotic party -- she's just shooting a warning shot across the bow for the Romney folks, who'll presumably run (this time) as a technocratic idea man.

It's not like Noonan has real beliefs or anything. She has poses. And she strikes them at the behest of others (except when she's getting all Catholic ecstatic at Magic Dolphins and weeping Marys.

Seriously. The intellectual difference between Mooselini and St. Ronnie of Peggy's Loins? Slivers. Ronnie could read a speech a bit better. But they were both fake populist morons who were squarely aimed at "the base". Nooners help build the Idiot Beast. And it's way fucking late in the game to start whining about the monster, Doc.

Yes, only in Palinville is Noonan a "liberal".

RNC scientists are working around the clock to discover new theoretical limits of Stupid, pushing the boundaries of conventional thinking on the subject of Stupid. Modern advances have achieved levels of Stupid unheard of just a generation ago.

And then there's the inevitable backlash by luddites and other anti-progress people like Noonan and Schmidt. If not for their meddling, surely Republicans would be able to reach Absolute Stupid, if even only in the lab. It really remains to be seen how this will play out.

Part of the loony Right's deification of Palin is intended to purge folks like Noonan, who can't always be counted upon to parrot the party line. The more the Limbaugh leadership genuflects to Palin, the more disgusted pragmatists such as Noonan get and they eventually (a la Arlen Specter) leave the party. And this is what the wingnuts WANT.

this from the worshipper of ronald reagan... the smiley-face front man clown who covered for the neo-nixonian thugs who laid waste to the country.

and then bushco...

hardy, har har, alice -- hardy, har har...

I love the "ponder-free zone" bit. Perfect.

I love that she ends her column talking about the future of America (bankruptcy, secession, and being attacked with WOMD), and follows that by saying the Republican Party needs the "best". Palin is obviously not among the "best", and she states that clearly. That she actually believes the Republican party is going to be able to find, groom, and put forth candidates that will be viewed as the "best", and *that* is hilarious. The Republican motto still seems to be "The Future Looks Bleak - Gloom and Doom! Gloom and Doom!" So how great is any candidate going to appear pushing a boulder like that up a hill?

Yes, Peggy, I believe it's known as "reaping what you sow."

She is a complete elite confection.

And that's what they think of the people who vote for them.

Either:

A] The republican mainstream is too blissfully ignorant and hopelessly self-unaware to realize what a vacuous, vapid, character-less idiot Palin is; or

B] The republican mainstream is too obstinate, bull-headed and dense to admit what an incredibly bad mistake Palin's VP candidacy was.

More likely it's both. Those people are too stupid and obtuse to lead anything, including their own party.

Peggy Noonan. What a clown. It was people like her who built the GOP as it exists today. And she can't help but keep at the same stupidity that brought them to where they are. Oh sure, she attacks Palin quite accurately.

But she has to add the "fact" that liberals "overplayed their hand" with "attacks on her children" when McBush introduced her as his VP. She still has to take backhanded swipes at the "liberal" media even while acknowledging that they didn't tear Palin down. She still talks up the specter of a major US city getting mysteriously nuked. And she mentions secession as if the situation were bad enough to make it a legitimate idea.

This woman hasn't changed at all. I doubt she ever will.

But, she looks so hot gillnetting.

"Conservative leaders who know how to think"?? Har har!!

Conservatives know what they want for America, and thinking would force them to abandon all that. So they choose not to think.

A post on an earlier thread ( days ago)
listed the similarities between Palin and George Bush. The only difference was money and family name.

Palin is being savaged because she is not rich. George is part of the nobility and cannot be so savaged.

PBS show on a voyage to Australia, early 1800's.
Member of nobility goes onto poopdeck without permission of captain - serious violation of the rules - but nothing happens to him.

Commoner thinks it is ok and does the same thing
and is abused as whipping boy for noble's mistake.

Palin is the commoner.

Sarah Palin can't even appear on 'Meet the Press' because she'll give 'Saturday Night Live' enough comedy material for weeks.

SARAH PALIN CAN'T HANDLE A HALF HOUR OF 'MEET THE PRESS'... and they want her in 2012, hilarious.

The Palin pick was the GOP's equivalent to Caligula appointing a donkey as a Roman Senator.

They've gone totally off the deep end. They're out of ideas, and out of empty-suits with any credibility. They keep trying for a Reagan re-do; while most of the voters realize that Reagan was an unmitigated disaster for our nation.

Delete any reference to "she" and replace it with "he" and then do the same with "her" etc. Then the same for any mention of her name and replace it with Bush. Her critique of PALINaroundwithterrorists is dead nuts on. The exact same crit could be used by her for Bushit. Nauseating...Posted by: stevio

Many commenters suggest that it makes no sense for Noonan to say this about Palin when she is just "Bush in a skirt." But that misses a critical distinction between W. Bush and Palin -- it is no accident this broadside came from Noonan or in the WSJ.

This is the announcement that the Corporatocracy, the side of the GOP that is all about money, not other peoples' morals, or military macho (those are, after all, the three pillars of modern Republicanism) has no faith in Palin, and will oppose her. W was an idiot, but he was an idiot who could be controlled by well-connected puppetmasters. He was a useful idiot for the Corporatocracy.

Palin and Bush are very different in that regard: Palin is a loose-cannon, unpredictable, uncontrollable. Business likes steady, predictable, dependable -- Palin is anything but. She and Bush may have the same general politics and IQ (and way with words), but they have very different personalities with regard to a trait that Wall Street finds very important.

With any luck, the Moralists reply in kind and the battle among the three wings of the GOP is on.

For *aham* a somewhat different criticism of Palin, see this condemnation of her as 'too much a feminist.'

A couple of prime quotes:
"Palin is an avowed feminist. As such, her husband and children have to fall in line behind her career goals. If everyday actions speak louder than words, then she holds more affinity with her pro-abortion feminist sisters than with her conservative sisters nursing babies at home.

"When John McCain introduced Palin as his running mate last September, she praised both pro-abortion Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton, saying, "It was rightly noted in Denver this week that Hillary left 18 million cracks in the highest, hardest glass ceiling in America, but it turns out the women of America aren't finished yet and we can shatter that glass ceiling once and for all."

and

"Was Palin talking about "the hand that rocks the cradle" kind of difference that celebrates motherhood and the value of children, not only inside the womb, but outside as well?

"Palin's history over the past 17 years tells another story. Three years after the birth of the first of her five children, she entered the rough-and-tumble world of Alaska (and eventually national) politics and has never looked back.

"Has America become so emasculated that our only hope of getting another Ronald Reagan into the Oval Office is to idolize Palin as a political Madonna?"

Its WND, of course.

zeitgest - I don't think Bush was controllable. The Republican elites thought he was, but found out he wasn't, but still went along because booting him out would have cost them the White House and eliminated all those lovely helpings of slop that Bush doled out.

I think Noonan's comments can best be understand as a sign that the Republican elites have learned. They have seen what Bush did to the country and to their interests - the government will have the upper hand over business for some time to come, and there will be huge tax increases, with luck largely on the rich, in the next several years. Whatever happens, they don't want a repeat. They are sorry f***s, but give credit where it's due.

Nooner's article......that's gonna leave a mark.

Noonan will be savaged as a liberal MSM hack by Limbaugh in 5, 4, 3, ...

Dittoheads will be told to boycott the WSJ in 10, 9, 8, ...

Noonan will back track, apologize, and claim to have been taken out of context in 15, 14, 13, ...

Poll numbers by Fucksnews showing Palin's numbers going up in 20, 19, 18, ...

"From Noonan's keyboard to the party's ears."

There you go again, Steve; rooting for a vibrant, serious, competitive party of Randians and Friedmanites. If that is not is how you envision the rejuvenated republican, how would the neothug be significantly different from a blue dog or 'moderate' Democrat? Is it merely the appearance of a robust, competitive 2 party system for which you long?

This is the announcement that the Corporatocracy, the side of the GOP that is all about money, not other peoples' morals, or military macho (those are, after all, the three pillars of modern Republicanism) has no faith in Palin, and will oppose her.

Exactly right. But it's only the latest announcement, not the opening salvo. The leaks from McCain Co., culminating in the Vanity Fair savaging from the right, were about as subtle as Mack trucks. The corporatocracy wants her dead and gone before she has time to cause them any more trouble.

She knows that, and her determination to go "outside the system" is all about sidestepping this bloc of opposition in her own party. It's not the media or the left making her melt down. It's people ostensibly on her side.

Does anyone really think that Palin has the attention span or the discipline to memorize the presidents of Pakistan?

But for everyone who's hoping she is the Republican candidate in 2012: all she needs is another candidate like Kerry competing against her.

Don't get too smug, though-- remember all the Obots who bought the Yes-We-Can Hope for Kumbaya bullshit. Talk about empty calories..

Amazing. Noonan was one of the mouthpieces for the GOP as it spent the last 35 years recruiting racists, gun-nuts, bible-thumpers and anyone else whose IQ was low enough to be conned into voting against their own interests in support of the wealthy and corporate interests. Now, she laments how stupid they are and wonders why they would support a candidate as stupid as they are.
Noonan is a fucking tool.

Wonder what Noonan would have added if she had read today that Palin's almost son-in-law threw her under the bus. He told reporters that she quit because she wants to cash in on her fame, and he had heard her say so when he lived there.

The shame of it is St Sarah never got to "Run" the Senate. Plus, it is now learned, she could have had her own personal Special Forces "Hit Squard" ala Cheney. Geez, they could taken out rogue Polar Bears and Moose and runaway wabbits on the frozen tundra.

Apparently the true power elite of the Republican party aren't sure Palin is politically dead, so they keep pounding on her. Maybe she was really smart to get out of politics for a while. It makes all their attacks on her seem pathetic and bizarre.

So, Ensign, Sanford, (probably) Palin and perhaps a few others are NOT going to be running for president. It makes me wonder who is next on the list of those who must be knocked out, so 'the chosen one' can sail through unopposed.

Looks like the repubes got what they asked for...

What great comments. The collective intelligence, not to mention wit and wisdom, on this blog is pretty incredible.

It's too bad that commenters aren't in positions of elected leadership. We'd be in much better shape as a country.

Peggy Noonan writes that Sarah Palin is "self-referential to the point of self-reverence"?

An understatement. Try "delusions of royalty."

Mrs. Palin actually said she loves Alaska so much that she's "sacrificing her title" for the state.


See:

http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2009/07/07/sarahs-sacrifice/