I am a fairly regular reader of Peggy Noonan’s Opinion Journal columns. This week’s column has her cutting through the nonsense on several issues.
First, she has this to say about Hillary Clinton:
Hillary doesn’t have to prove her guy chops. She doesn’t have to prove she’s a man, she has to prove she’s a woman. No one in America thinks she’s a woman. They think she’s a tough little termagant in a pantsuit. They think she’s something between an android and a female impersonator. She is not perceived as a big warm mommy trying to resist her constant impulse to sneak you candy. They think she has to resist her constant impulse to hit you with a bat. She lacks a deep (as opposed to quick) warmth, a genuine and almost phenomenological sense of rightness in her own skin. She seems like someone who might calculatedly go to war, or not, based on how she wanted to be perceived and look and do. She does not seem like someone who would anguish and weep over sending men into harm’s way.
Ouch. Harsh, but, come one, you know its true.
Next, she opines on the happily defeated Flag Burning Amendment:
The flag burning amendment is a bad idea, and will not prove, in the end, politically wise or fruitful to any significant degree.
The New York Times:
It was hurt by its own limits–a paper of and from an island off the continent, awkward in its relationship with and understanding of the continent. It was and is hurt by its longtime and predictable liberalism. Predictable isn’t fun. It doesn’t make you want to get up in the morning, tear the paper off the mat and open it with a hungry snap. It was hurt by technology–it lost its share of what was, essentially, a monopoly. And it’s been hurt by its own scandals and misjudgments. The Times rarely seems driven by an agenda to get the news first, fast and clear; to get the story and let the chips fall. It often seems driven by a search for information that might support its suppositions. Which, again, gets boring. The Times never knows what’s becoming a huge national issue. It’s always surprised by what Americans are thinking.
And even the Star Jones fiasco:
Everyone should stop spinning. Because America is now a country composed of people who know better than anything how to deconstruct spin. It’s our great national talent.
Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing.
June 30th, 2006 at 9:12 am
She is not perceived as a big warm mommy trying to resist her constant impulse to sneak you candy. They think she has to resist her constant impulse to hit you with a bat.
Thanks, Peggy… Time to clean the coffee off the monitor again…