Salon - Dotty old Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan longs for a simpler, misty cliché of America

[Amerigo Vespucci]

http://www.salon.com/news/war_room_hack_thirty/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2010/11/24/hack_list_10



Wednesday, Nov 24, 2010 07:01 ET
War Room
No. 10: Peggy Noonan
By Alex Pareene



Peggy Noonan might be the single funniest Op-Ed writer currently working, and for that I do, honestly, respect her. Her red wine-and-laudanum-inspired tales of wandering the Upper East Side in search of some clue to the Contemporary American Mood, her ability to wring a column out of the phenomenon of seeing a Mexican, her sentence fragments and Golden Books prose -- all of this makes for a reliably entertaining Friday read. It's certainly much more fun than a Krauthammer column.

The dotty old Morning-in-America charm is what made her Reagan's finest speechwriter, and it also helps explain why no one ever calls her on her dog whistles.

Her recurring theme is a return to the innocence and purity of the past. Specifically the "Mad Men" era, or just before it. She allows herself Camelot-worship (as Reagan did), but it's Eisenhower she pines for. Never mentioned, of course, is the fact that those days were a time of simple joy only for the people lucky enough to be considered fully American by the law and in the culture. She longs for the day when black people, gays and even Beatniks could be safely ignored -- the time before they started causing trouble.

And most of her columns follow a similar pattern: Rambling anecdote (probably involving Reagan), misty-eyed reminisce of a Catholic girlhood in a more pleasant America, paean to Grown-up Seriousness in our politicians, pro forma endorsement of some randomly selected item from the Republican Party platform. Things were better before, and that is why we need tort reform, or English as our official language, or tax cuts. Amusing as she is, she's also predictable.

[Chipper Chat]

1. She was bashing Obama on Morning Joe this a.m.

Priss Noonan said Obama was an embarrassment to the United States when he goes overseas and that world leaders are laughing at how ineffective he is. Jesus HC, and she has NOTHING to say about the 8 years of Bush fluckups overseas?? I guess if Obama had been caught giving a backrub to Merkel last week Noonan would already be asking for his impeachment.

[Zoeisright]

2. Fuck you, Piggy.

YOU are the reason this country is in the mess it's in. Your revisionism, lying, and plain old greediness.

[madrchsod]

3. i live in his "hometown"....

my father knew him . there`s a big discontent between reality and myth.