Originally Posted By chickendumpling This shouldn't have surprised me given the stuff she and Mike Murphy got caught saying and the stuff she said on MTP earlier this month. But, I gotta say, I did not expect Noonan to come out this directly. Friday's WSJ: <a href="http://www.peggynoonan.com/article.php?article=438" target="_blank">http://www.peggynoonan.com/art...icle=438</a> "There is now something infantilizing about this election. Mr. Obama continued to claim he will remove wasteful spending by sitting down with the federal budget and going through it “line by line.” This is absurd, and he must know it. Mr. McCain continued to vow he will “balance the budget” in the next four years. Who believes that? Does even he?" "But we have seen Mrs. Palin on the national stage for seven weeks now, and there is little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office. She is a person of great ambition, but the question remains: What is the purpose of the ambition? She wants to rise, but what for?" "For seven weeks I’ve listened to her, trying to understand *** "But it’s unclear whether she is Bushian or Reaganite. She doesn’t think aloud. She just . . . says things." "She does not speak seriously but attempts to excite sensation—“palling around with terrorists.” If the Ayers case is a serious issue, treat it seriously. She is not as thoughtful or persuasive as Joe the Plumber, who in an extended cable interview Thursday made a better case for the Republican ticket than the Republican ticket has made." "This is not a leader, this is a follower, and she follows what she imagines is the base, which is in fact a vast and broken-hearted thing whose pain she cannot, actually, imagine. She could reinspire and reinspirit; she chooses merely to excite. She doesn’t seem to understand the implications of her own thoughts." "No news conferences? Interviews now only with friendly journalists? You can’t be president or vice president and govern in that style, as a sequestered figure. This has been Mr. Bush’s style the past few years, and see where it got us." "In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics. It’s no good, not for conservatism and not for the country. And yes, it is a mark against John McCain, against his judgment and idealism." "I gather this week from conservative publications that those whose thoughts lead them to criticism in this area are to be shunned, and accused of the lowest motives. In one now-famous case, Christopher Buckley was shooed from the great magazine his father invented. In all this, the conservative intelligentsia are doing what they have done for five years. They bitterly attacked those who came to stand against the Bush administration. This was destructive. If they had stood for conservative principle and the full expression of views, instead of attempting to silence those who opposed mere party, their movement, and the party, would be in a better, and healthier, position." "At any rate, come and get me, copper." Interesting observations. I wonder what will happen next.
Originally Posted By Mr X ***a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics*** Perfectly said.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan There is a thoughtful, principled, reasonable branch of conservatism. And then there is the Palin sort of red meat conservativism -- all rhetoric, all anger, all arrogance, with little understanding of complex issues. It is an extraordinarily bad Zerox of the Reagan message as it would appear after umpteen photocopies, not from the original. It becomes distorted and unfocused, faded and crude. I hope the true conservatives can get their party back once again from the Hannitys and Palins who have hijacked it.
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy << If they had stood for conservative principle and the full expression of views, instead of attempting to silence those who opposed mere party, their movement, and the party, would be in a better, and healthier, position. >> Great point there.
