What I Love About the Internet, part six jillion: Finding other people who share my belief that Peggy Noonan is a nutjob. From an online chat at the WashPost yesterday:
St. Louis, Mo.: Will enchanted dolphins arrive in time to save President Bush’s drowning Presidency like they saved Elian?
Peggy Noonan: Maybe. And maybe he won’t need saving. And maybe the Democrats will. And maybe by the election you’ll need saving, and perhaps some of Bush’s decisions made in connection to the war on terror will save you. It’s all the maybes that keep us getting up in the morning with a sense of excitement and anticipation, don’t you think?
alex said on February 18, 2004 at 8:30 am
The common lowbrow doesn’t benefit from Bush’s policies, much less consider them. Yet he adores Bush�”Finally we got one of our own in there. He’s our president.”
I think Noonan and her ilk will have a hard time pretending that Kerry’s objectionable because he’s a New England elitist. So’s Bush. The difference is that Kerry’s actually got more than half a brain and quite a bit more courage. In troubled times, guess who I’m going to trust.
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catherine said on February 18, 2004 at 2:15 pm
my fave excerpt from that chat:
Bush is the triumph of the seemingly average American man. He’s normal. He thinks in a sort of common sense way. He speaks the language of business and sports and politics. You know him. He’s not exotic. But if there’s a fire on the block he’ll run out and help. He’ll direct the rig to the right house and count the kids coming out and say, “Where’s Sally?” He’s responsible. He’s not an intellectual. Intellectuals start all the trouble in the world. And then when the fire comes they say, “I warned Joe about that furnace.” And, “Does Joe have children?” And “I saw a fire once. It spreads like syrup. No, it spreads like explosive syrup. No, it’s formidable and yet fleeting.” When the fire comes they talk. Bush ain’t that guy. Republicans love the guy who ain’t that guy.
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deb said on February 18, 2004 at 8:02 pm
speaking of bush, we got a hilarious mailing at our house today — a “personal” letter from marc racicot, chairman of bush/cheney 04, pleading for our financial support. this letter refers to my husband as a “grassroots leader,” which is hysterical. as a newspaper editor supervising election coverage, he can’t so much as put a “vote for joe blow” sign in our front yard.
my favorite part of the package: a color 8X10 glossy, “suitable for framing and display,” of the first couple. signed! with a personalized inscription thanking my spouse for his “early commitment and dedication as a charter member of the campaign in wisconsin.”
marc implores us to confirm that the photo arrived in good condition: “this may seem like a small thing, but it is very important to me personally to know that your support has been properly acknowledged.”
if only they could see how hard we’re laughing.
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Peter said on February 19, 2004 at 7:05 am
Peggy Noonan is a nut job? More like Peggy Noonan is THE nut job. Did you read her piece in the WSJ a while back about Mel Gibson’s film? Seems like she got some inside info from the Vatican (ala Novak) and printed it. The Vatican then says the Pope didn’t say squat about the film. Peggy’s reply in the column: She will work hard to find out who is misleading the Pope, since her source couldn’t possibly be wrong. You dumb bitch, can’t you figure out you got punked?
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Paul said on February 19, 2004 at 10:31 am
Enchanted dolphins?? Was that Weingarten punking Peggy?
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Nance said on February 19, 2004 at 10:46 am
Ha. For those who don’t understand the context: In 2000-whenever-it-was, during the Elian Gonzalez case, one of the stories circulating around the keep-the-kid-here crowd was that he’d been protected in the Florida straits by a pod of magical dolphins who surrounded him and bore him up after the smuggling boat sank. Peggy went on the record as saying maybe that really did happen, and if Ronald Reagan were president, he’d have believed it too, because he believed the Lord works in mysterious ways.
Oh, did Charles Pierce have fun with that one.
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