Peggy Noonan is Shallow and Stupid

I read Peggy Noonan's piece today in the WSJ. For those of you not familiar, Peggy used to write speeches for Ronald Reagan, a politician on whom she seemed to have a rather embarrassing midlife crush. She likes to style herself as mature and in touch with the genius of the common man. She indulges in the shopworn canard that the Left/Progressives/Democrats etc are childlike and effete. That we just cannot grasp how the world works. We think too much etc. You know the schtick....

True to form, today she recommends that John Edwards cannot be president because he was caught primping his hair before a television appearance a few years back. According to Noonan, such a man cannot lead the country. (She makes no similar judgments regarding Rudy Giuliani's appearances in drag, John McCain's off color jokes about Chelsea Clinton or his musical ditties regarding the bombing of Iraq. Nor does she mention Mr.Reagan's extreme experiments in Bryl Cream. These are somehow the actions of mature and wise men.)

And thanks again to Salon.com for unearthing this little tidbit from Ms Maturity in 2004:

Mr. Bush is the triumph of the seemingly average American man. He's normal. He thinks in a sort of common-sense way. He speaks the language of business and sports and politics. You know him. He's not exotic. But if there's a fire on the block, he'll run out and help. He'll help direct the rig to the right house and count the kids coming out and say, "Where's Sally?"

He's responsible. He's not an intellectual. Intellectuals start all the trouble in the world. And then when the fire comes they say, "I warned Joe about that furnace." And, "Does Joe have children?" And "I saw a fire once. It spreads like syrup. No, it spreads like explosive syrup. No, it's formidable and yet fleeting." When the fire comes they talk.

Bush ain't that guy. Republicans love the guy who ain't that guy. Americans love the guy who ain't that guy.

This is the type of BS that -- had she a conscience -- would make Ms. Noonan blush as only a mature woman can. It is very apparent that Mr. Bush is not "the guy" she imagined and likely never was. He is callow, faint of heart, short on compassion, and woefully short on common sense, a trait Ms. Noonan usually loves. Suggesting that he was anything else (particularly by 2004), and then besmirching Mr. Edwards as some sort of effete girly man is either delusion or hackery.