Peggy Noonan's latest column - The Orange Mane

spdirty · 01-25-2008, 11:46 AM

Many good points in here...figured I'd share.

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do
By PEGGY NOONAN
January 25, 2008

We begin, as one always must now, again, with Bill Clinton. The past week he has traveled South Carolina, leaving discord in his wake. Barack Obama, that "fairytale," is low, sneaky. "He put out a hit job on me." The press is cruelly carrying Mr. Obama's counter-jabs. "You live for it."

In Dillon, S.C., according to the Associated Press, on Thursday Mr. Clinton "predicted that many voters will be guided mainly by gender and race loyalties" and suggested he wife may lose Saturday's primary because black voters will side with Mr. Obama. Who is raising race as an issue? Bill Clinton knows. It's the press, and Mr. Obama. "Shame on you," Mr. Clinton said to a CNN reporter. The same day the Web site believed to be the back door of the Clinton war room unveiled a new name for the senator from Illinois: "Sticky Fingers Obama."

Bill Clinton, with his trembly, red faced rage, makes John McCain look young. His divisive and destructive daily comportment—this is a former president of the United States—is a civic embarrassment. It is also an education, and there is something heartening in this.

There are many serious and thoughtful liberals and Democrats who support Mr. Obama and John Edwards, and who are seeing Mr. Clinton in a new way and saying so. Here is William Greider in The Nation, the venerable left-liberal magazine. The Clintons are "high minded" on the surface but "smarmily duplicitous underneath, meanwhile jabbing hard at the groin area. They are a slippery pair and come as a package. The nation is at fair risk of getting them back in the White House for four years."

That, again, is from one of the premier liberal journals in the United States. It is exactly what conservatives have been saying for a decade. This may mark a certain coming together of the thoughtful on both sides. The Clintons, uniters at last.

Mr. Obama takes the pummeling and preaches the high road. It's all windup with him, like a great pitcher more comfortable preparing to throw than throwing. Something in him resists aggression. He tends to be indirect in his language, feinting, only suggestive. I used to think he was being careful not to tear the party apart, and endanger his own future.

But the Clintons are tearing the party apart. It will not be the same after this. It will not be the same after its most famous leader, and probable ultimate victor, treated a proud and accomplished black man who is a U.S. senator as if he were nothing, a mere impediment to their plans. And to do it in a way that signals, to his supporters, How dare you have the temerity, the ingratitude, after all we've done for you?

Watch for the GOP to attempt swoop in after the November elections and make profit of the wreckage.

* * *

As for the Republicans, their slow civil war continues. The primary race itself is winnowing down and clarifying: It is John McCain versus Mitt Romney, period. At the same time the conservative journalistic world is convulsed by recrimination and attack. They're throwing each other out of the party. Republicans have become very good at that. David Brooks damns Rush Limbaugh who knocks Bill Kristol who anathematizes whoever is to be anathematized this week. This Web site opposes that magazine.

The rage is due to many things. A world is ending, the old world of conservative meaning, and ascendancy. Loss leads to resentment. (See Clinton, Bill.) Different pundits back different candidates. Some opportunistically discover new virtues in candidates who appear at the moment to be winning. Some feel they cannot be fully frank about causes and effects.

More on that in a moment.

I saw Mr. McCain this Tuesday in New York, at a fund-raiser at which a breathless aide shared, "We just made a million dollars." What a difference a few wins makes. There were a hundred people outside chanting, "Mac is Back!" and perhaps a thousand people inside, crammed into a three-chandelier ballroom at the St Regis. When I attended a fundraiser in October there was none of this; perhaps 200 came, and people were directed to crowd around the candidate as if to show he had support. Now you had to fight your way through a three-ring cluster. (When I attended a Giuliani fund-raiser this summer I saw something I wish I'd noted: The audience was big but wasn't listening. They were all on their BlackBerrys. That should have told me something about his support.)

Mr. McCain is in the middle of a shift. Previous strategy: I'm John McCain and you know me, we've traveled through history together. New strategy: I'm the old vet who fought on the front lines of the Reagan-era front, and I am about to take on the mantle of the essentials of conservatism—lower spending, smaller government, strong in the world. He is going to strike the great Reagan gong, not in a way that is new but in a way that is new for him.

In this he is repositioning himself back to where he started 30 years ago: as a Southwestern American conservative veteran of the armed forces. That is, inherently if not showily, anti-establishment. That is, I am the best of the past.

Mr. Romney, on the other hand, is running as I Am Today. I am new and fresh, in fact I'm tomorrow, I know all about the international flow of money and the flatness of the world, I know what China is, I can see you through the turbulence just as I saw Bain to success.

It will all come down to: Whom do Republicans believe? Mr. Romney in spite of his past and now-disavowed liberal positions? Or Mr. McCain in spite of his forays, the past 10 years, into a kind of establishment mindset that has suggested that The Establishment Knows Best?

Do conservatives take inspiration from Mr. Romney's newness? Or do they take comfort and security from Mr. McCain's rugged ability to endure, and to remind?

It is along those lines the big decision will be made.

* * *

On the pundit civil wars, Rush Limbaugh declared on the radio this week, "I'm here to tell you, if either of these two guys [Mr. McCain or Mike Huckabee] get the nomination, it's going to destroy the Republican Party. It's going to change it forever, be the end of it!"

This is absurd. George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party, by which I mean he sundered it, broke its constituent pieces apart and set them against each other. He did this on spending, the size of government, war, the ability to prosecute war, immigration and other issues.

Were there other causes? Yes, of course. But there was an immediate and essential cause.

And this needs saying, because if you don't know what broke the elephant you can't put it together again. The party cannot re-find itself if it can't trace back the moment at which it became lost. It cannot heal an illness whose origin is kept obscure.

I believe that some of the ferocity of the pundit wars is due to a certain amount of self-censorship. It's not in human nature to enjoy self-censorship. The truth will out, like steam from a kettle. It hurts to say something you supported didn't work. I would know. But I would say of these men (why, in the continuing age of Bill Clinton, does the emoting come from the men?) who are fighting one another as they resist naming the cause for the fight: Sack up, get serious, define. That's the way to help.

http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html

Hotrod · 01-25-2008, 11:51 AM

The Clintons are "high minded" on the surface but "smarmily duplicitous underneath, meanwhile jabbing hard at the groin area. They are a slippery pair and come as a package. The nation is at fair risk of getting them back in the White House for four years."

Could not have said it any better.

sisterhellfyre · 01-25-2008, 12:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hotrod

The Clintons are "high minded" on the surface but "smarmily duplicitous underneath, meanwhile jabbing hard at the groin area. They are a slippery pair and come as a package. The nation is at fair risk of getting them back in the White House for four years."

Could not have said it any better.

I was willing to consider Hillary at first. Having seen her in action, there's no way I'd vote for her.

Regards,
m.

Rohirrim · 01-25-2008, 12:40 PM

This is absurd. George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party, by which I mean he sundered it, broke its constituent pieces apart and set them against each other. He did this on spending, the size of government, war, the ability to prosecute war, immigration and other issues.

Well, that's a fact. The GOP is still in denial about it.

As far as the Billary/Obama stuff goes, I'm surprised that everybody is falling for it. This kind of intra-party crap has been going on in the Dem Party since Humphrey/McGovern. It's centrists vs. lefties. You can see the press blatantly lining up behind Obama. Why do you think Emmanuel and Teddy told Bubba to cool it and why he told them to shove it? They are Obama backers. This is also why the press tore into Clinton like a pack of pit bulls when he was president and never stopped. They despise his, and Billary's, center-right politics. They despise that she may get the nomination and not represent the hard left, of which they are all members. Why does Bill Maher call Billary "GOP Lite?"

Man, I sure hope Ron Paul launches a third party run or I'll have no political stuff to get into. Watching a Billary/McCain contest would be like eating wet toast.

TailgateNut · 01-25-2008, 01:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

[I] Watching a Billary/McCain contest would be like eating wet toast.

I just laughed so hard, I think it caused something to rupture in my cranium!

Bronco Bob · 01-25-2008, 02:04 PM

Rohirrim has it pegged exactly. The Clintons are too far to the right
for the left wing media, and too far to left for the right wing media.
Peggy Noonan, Chris Matthews, Maureen Dowd, and the rest of
the left wing loons have been teeing off on the Clintons since 1992.
They made a concerted effort to kill Al Gore's presidential bid too.
Who do you think was the one who came up with the nonsense
about Al Gore inventing the internet?
Expecting an objective article from them on the Clintons would be
about like expecting one from Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity on
the Clintons.

Bronco Bob · 01-25-2008, 06:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sisterhellfyre

I was willing to consider Hillary at first. Having seen her in action, there's no way I'd vote for her.

Regards,
m.

Yes, let's keep sending punching bags like Gore and Kerry up against the GOP.
Look, of Obama can't even deal with the Clintons, how is he going to
deal with the Republicans this fall. Rainbows and butterflies just ain't
going to cut it.
If we are ever going to get a Democrat back into the White House we
need someone who can kick butt and take names.
Unless you like the idea of endless wars, huge deficits, tax breaks
for the rich, and an economy going to hell in a hand basket.

L.A. BRONCOS FAN · 01-25-2008, 11:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bronco Bob

If we are ever going to get a Democrat back into the White House we
need someone who can kick butt and take names.

Well, I guess the Dems' only hope is to repeal the 22ond Amendment, then.

Spider · 01-26-2008, 12:01 AM

After hearing some of the talk on right wing Radio , then hearing Ed Schultz rail aginst the Clintons , I saw`Clips of the Clintons on TV , I am changing my way of thinking About Hillary , I have been running around claiming the Dems have no back bone , Spineless cowards , seeing the Clintons battle both the left and the right , and not backing down , gives me a new respect for Hillary ...Yeah the Clintons are hitting below the belt , but as a ex street fighter , there are no rules in fighting , and the way the Clintons are out # , cant blame them for hiting low ........

01-25-2008, 11:46 AM	#1
spdirty Ring of Famer Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Bailey Posts: 13,901 Adopt-a-Bronco: Koppen	Peggy Noonan's latest column Many good points in here...figured I'd share. Breaking Up Is Hard to Do By PEGGY NOONAN January 25, 2008 We begin, as one always must now, again, with Bill Clinton. The past week he has traveled South Carolina, leaving discord in his wake. Barack Obama, that "fairytale," is low, sneaky. "He put out a hit job on me." The press is cruelly carrying Mr. Obama's counter-jabs. "You live for it." In Dillon, S.C., according to the Associated Press, on Thursday Mr. Clinton "predicted that many voters will be guided mainly by gender and race loyalties" and suggested he wife may lose Saturday's primary because black voters will side with Mr. Obama. Who is raising race as an issue? Bill Clinton knows. It's the press, and Mr. Obama. "Shame on you," Mr. Clinton said to a CNN reporter. The same day the Web site believed to be the back door of the Clinton war room unveiled a new name for the senator from Illinois: "Sticky Fingers Obama." Bill Clinton, with his trembly, red faced rage, makes John McCain look young. His divisive and destructive daily comportment—this is a former president of the United States—is a civic embarrassment. It is also an education, and there is something heartening in this. There are many serious and thoughtful liberals and Democrats who support Mr. Obama and John Edwards, and who are seeing Mr. Clinton in a new way and saying so. Here is William Greider in The Nation, the venerable left-liberal magazine. The Clintons are "high minded" on the surface but "smarmily duplicitous underneath, meanwhile jabbing hard at the groin area. They are a slippery pair and come as a package. The nation is at fair risk of getting them back in the White House for four years." That, again, is from one of the premier liberal journals in the United States. It is exactly what conservatives have been saying for a decade. This may mark a certain coming together of the thoughtful on both sides. The Clintons, uniters at last. Mr. Obama takes the pummeling and preaches the high road. It's all windup with him, like a great pitcher more comfortable preparing to throw than throwing. Something in him resists aggression. He tends to be indirect in his language, feinting, only suggestive. I used to think he was being careful not to tear the party apart, and endanger his own future. But the Clintons are tearing the party apart. It will not be the same after this. It will not be the same after its most famous leader, and probable ultimate victor, treated a proud and accomplished black man who is a U.S. senator as if he were nothing, a mere impediment to their plans. And to do it in a way that signals, to his supporters, How dare you have the temerity, the ingratitude, after all we've done for you? Watch for the GOP to attempt swoop in after the November elections and make profit of the wreckage. * * * As for the Republicans, their slow civil war continues. The primary race itself is winnowing down and clarifying: It is John McCain versus Mitt Romney, period. At the same time the conservative journalistic world is convulsed by recrimination and attack. They're throwing each other out of the party. Republicans have become very good at that. David Brooks damns Rush Limbaugh who knocks Bill Kristol who anathematizes whoever is to be anathematized this week. This Web site opposes that magazine. The rage is due to many things. A world is ending, the old world of conservative meaning, and ascendancy. Loss leads to resentment. (See Clinton, Bill.) Different pundits back different candidates. Some opportunistically discover new virtues in candidates who appear at the moment to be winning. Some feel they cannot be fully frank about causes and effects. More on that in a moment. I saw Mr. McCain this Tuesday in New York, at a fund-raiser at which a breathless aide shared, "We just made a million dollars." What a difference a few wins makes. There were a hundred people outside chanting, "Mac is Back!" and perhaps a thousand people inside, crammed into a three-chandelier ballroom at the St Regis. When I attended a fundraiser in October there was none of this; perhaps 200 came, and people were directed to crowd around the candidate as if to show he had support. Now you had to fight your way through a three-ring cluster. (When I attended a Giuliani fund-raiser this summer I saw something I wish I'd noted: The audience was big but wasn't listening. They were all on their BlackBerrys. That should have told me something about his support.) Mr. McCain is in the middle of a shift. Previous strategy: I'm John McCain and you know me, we've traveled through history together. New strategy: I'm the old vet who fought on the front lines of the Reagan-era front, and I am about to take on the mantle of the essentials of conservatism—lower spending, smaller government, strong in the world. He is going to strike the great Reagan gong, not in a way that is new but in a way that is new for him. In this he is repositioning himself back to where he started 30 years ago: as a Southwestern American conservative veteran of the armed forces. That is, inherently if not showily, anti-establishment. That is, I am the best of the past. Mr. Romney, on the other hand, is running as I Am Today. I am new and fresh, in fact I'm tomorrow, I know all about the international flow of money and the flatness of the world, I know what China is, I can see you through the turbulence just as I saw Bain to success. It will all come down to: Whom do Republicans believe? Mr. Romney in spite of his past and now-disavowed liberal positions? Or Mr. McCain in spite of his forays, the past 10 years, into a kind of establishment mindset that has suggested that The Establishment Knows Best? Do conservatives take inspiration from Mr. Romney's newness? Or do they take comfort and security from Mr. McCain's rugged ability to endure, and to remind? It is along those lines the big decision will be made. * * * On the pundit civil wars, Rush Limbaugh declared on the radio this week, "I'm here to tell you, if either of these two guys [Mr. McCain or Mike Huckabee] get the nomination, it's going to destroy the Republican Party. It's going to change it forever, be the end of it!" This is absurd. George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party, by which I mean he sundered it, broke its constituent pieces apart and set them against each other. He did this on spending, the size of government, war, the ability to prosecute war, immigration and other issues. Were there other causes? Yes, of course. But there was an immediate and essential cause. And this needs saying, because if you don't know what broke the elephant you can't put it together again. The party cannot re-find itself if it can't trace back the moment at which it became lost. It cannot heal an illness whose origin is kept obscure. I believe that some of the ferocity of the pundit wars is due to a certain amount of self-censorship. It's not in human nature to enjoy self-censorship. The truth will out, like steam from a kettle. It hurts to say something you supported didn't work. I would know. But I would say of these men (why, in the continuing age of Bill Clinton, does the emoting come from the men?) who are fighting one another as they resist naming the cause for the fight: Sack up, get serious, define. That's the way to help. http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html

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01-25-2008, 11:51 AM	#2
Hotrod Self Appointed Expert aka Dortoh Join Date: Aug 2003 Posts: 25,136 Adopt-a-Bronco: Miss I	The Clintons are "high minded" on the surface but "smarmily duplicitous underneath, meanwhile jabbing hard at the groin area. They are a slippery pair and come as a package. The nation is at fair risk of getting them back in the White House for four years." Could not have said it any better.

01-25-2008, 12:40 PM	#4
Rohirrim Partisan Human Cannonball Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Twixt Hell & Highwater Posts: 48,833	This is absurd. George W. Bush destroyed the Republican Party, by which I mean he sundered it, broke its constituent pieces apart and set them against each other. He did this on spending, the size of government, war, the ability to prosecute war, immigration and other issues. Well, that's a fact. The GOP is still in denial about it. As far as the Billary/Obama stuff goes, I'm surprised that everybody is falling for it. This kind of intra-party crap has been going on in the Dem Party since Humphrey/McGovern. It's centrists vs. lefties. You can see the press blatantly lining up behind Obama. Why do you think Emmanuel and Teddy told Bubba to cool it and why he told them to shove it? They are Obama backers. This is also why the press tore into Clinton like a pack of pit bulls when he was president and never stopped. They despise his, and Billary's, center-right politics. They despise that she may get the nomination and not represent the hard left, of which they are all members. Why does Bill Maher call Billary "GOP Lite?" Man, I sure hope Ron Paul launches a third party run or I'll have no political stuff to get into. Watching a Billary/McCain contest would be like eating wet toast.

01-25-2008, 02:04 PM	#6
Bronco Bob Tastee Freeze Join Date: Dec 2002 Posts: 9,464 Adopt-a-Bronco: Champ Bailey	Rohirrim has it pegged exactly. The Clintons are too far to the right for the left wing media, and too far to left for the right wing media. Peggy Noonan, Chris Matthews, Maureen Dowd, and the rest of the left wing loons have been teeing off on the Clintons since 1992. They made a concerted effort to kill Al Gore's presidential bid too. Who do you think was the one who came up with the nonsense about Al Gore inventing the internet? Expecting an objective article from them on the Clintons would be about like expecting one from Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity on the Clintons.

01-26-2008, 12:01 AM	#9
Spider Mr Diplomacy I survived Tebow Mania at the Mane Join Date: May 2001 Location: Elway was just an arm =MacGruder Posts: 84,438 Adopt-a-Bronco: Von Miller	After hearing some of the talk on right wing Radio , then hearing Ed Schultz rail aginst the Clintons , I saw`Clips of the Clintons on TV , I am changing my way of thinking About Hillary , I have been running around claiming the Dems have no back bone , Spineless cowards , seeing the Clintons battle both the left and the right , and not backing down , gives me a new respect for Hillary ...Yeah the Clintons are hitting below the belt , but as a ex street fighter , there are no rules in fighting , and the way the Clintons are out # , cant blame them for hiting low ........