Peggy Noonan needs to lie down
Yes, we're back now. The computer is fixed, and I'm looking forward to catching up for the week I lost. (I'm already caught up through Thursday, so don't worry, this won't take long.) On Friday, Peggy Noonan penned a piece about the current political race. While I did love her a great deal when she worked with Ronald Reagan, I think in the past few years she's started to go off the rails:
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.
What is positively absurd is Ms. Noonan's convinced diatribe that George W. Bush wrecked the Republican party. While the president has a good deal of the blame (Harriet Miers, swallowing his veto pen for six years, Dubai Ports, bipartisanship with a party that hates his guts), the bulk of the blame needs to lie at the feet of those elected in Congress. They did the most damage for the party than anything else:
-- McCain/Feingold
-- McCain Lieberman
-- McCain/Kennedy
-- Pork spending
-- Earmarks
-- A virtual lack of any sort of leadership
That's six instances right there of why people have started having a "crisis of conscience" regarding the Republican party. And, need we remind Ms. Noonan that Bush won in 2000 and 2004, and the Congressional elections in 2002 and 2004 that he campaigned hard for were also wins. 2006 came on the heels of McCain/Kennedy, and it involved a base that was ticked at their elected officials for not only pushing an amnesty bill, but the fact they attacked us sent shockwaves through the party!
She's entitled to her opinion, but we expect the thought to have a bit of intelligence behind it. I'm sure she's frustrated with the president. Show me a Republican that isn't. No Republican we know of can say that they agreed with everything -- 100% -- of what the president has pushed, proposed, and signed. Not a one, Ms. Noonan.
Let's aim that rifle in the right direction. You can nick the president if you want, but if you want someone to blame for this fiasco, you better hit the Congressional GOP with both barrels if you're going to be intellectually honest.
Publius II
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.
What is positively absurd is Ms. Noonan's convinced diatribe that George W. Bush wrecked the Republican party. While the president has a good deal of the blame (Harriet Miers, swallowing his veto pen for six years, Dubai Ports, bipartisanship with a party that hates his guts), the bulk of the blame needs to lie at the feet of those elected in Congress. They did the most damage for the party than anything else:
-- McCain/Feingold
-- McCain Lieberman
-- McCain/Kennedy
-- Pork spending
-- Earmarks
-- A virtual lack of any sort of leadership
That's six instances right there of why people have started having a "crisis of conscience" regarding the Republican party. And, need we remind Ms. Noonan that Bush won in 2000 and 2004, and the Congressional elections in 2002 and 2004 that he campaigned hard for were also wins. 2006 came on the heels of McCain/Kennedy, and it involved a base that was ticked at their elected officials for not only pushing an amnesty bill, but the fact they attacked us sent shockwaves through the party!
She's entitled to her opinion, but we expect the thought to have a bit of intelligence behind it. I'm sure she's frustrated with the president. Show me a Republican that isn't. No Republican we know of can say that they agreed with everything -- 100% -- of what the president has pushed, proposed, and signed. Not a one, Ms. Noonan.
Let's aim that rifle in the right direction. You can nick the president if you want, but if you want someone to blame for this fiasco, you better hit the Congressional GOP with both barrels if you're going to be intellectually honest.
Publius II
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 4:08 AM
1 Comments:
It's good to see you're blogging again. Welcome Back. McCain should drop out. Among many other things, he violated Reagan's rule. What bothers me the most about him his is disregard for the constitution and playing fast and loose with the truth. Rawriter
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