Peggy Noonan eviscerates Sarah Palin

[JackBeck]

Peggy Noonan was probably Reagan's most famous speechwriter. She's also the woman who was caught on tape a while back bashing McCain's choice of Sarah Palin on MSNBC after she thought the mic was off. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122419210832542317.html">She unloads on Palin in the Wall Street Journal. As Joe has noted before, lead Republicans know the race is over. That's why they're going public, weighing in, trying to mark the territory with their best explanation for what went wrong. It isn't a good sign at all for McCain. And even worse for Palin. At some point, the talk is going to begin, if it hasn't already, as to whether the choice of Sarah Palin was the beginning of the end of John McCain's quest for the presidency. Bring her back in 2012, and the party may split in two. God, this is fun. It's been a long time since we could say that. Here's Noonan:

She doesn't think aloud. She just . . . says things.

Her supporters accuse her critics of snobbery: Maybe she's not a big "egghead" but she has brilliant instincts and inner toughness. But what instincts? "I'm Joe Six-Pack"? 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. In the past two weeks she has spent her time throwing out tinny lines to crowds she doesn't, really, understand. 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. You must address America in its entirety, not as a sliver or a series of slivers but as a full and whole entity, a great nation trying to hold together. When you don't, when you play only to your little piece, you contribute to its fracturing.

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.

http://www.americablog.com/2008/10/peggy-noonan-eviscerates-sarah-palin.html