Remember this from the gal who helped press the Obama crease — Peggy Noonan.
Peggy, is a thoroughly establishment Republican who was jilted by GW and felt embarrassed by the unwashed conservative riffraff that opposed Obama vociferously. She wrote this paean to Obama in October of 2008.
The case for Barack Obama, in broad strokes:
He has within him the possibility to change the direction and tone of American foreign policy, which need changing; his rise will serve as a practical rebuke to the past five years, which need rebuking; his victory would provide a fresh start in a nation in which a fresh start would come as a national relief. He climbed steep stairs, born off the continent with no father to guide, a dreamy, abandoning mother, mixed race, no connections.
He rose with guts and gifts. He is steady, calm, and, in terms of the execution of his political ascent, still the primary and almost only area in which his executive abilities can be discerned, he shows good judgment in terms of whom to hire and consult, what steps to take and moves to make. We witnessed from him this year something unique in American politics: He took down a political machine without raising his voice.
A great moment: When the press was hitting hard on the pregnancy of Sarah Palin’s 17-year-old daughter, he did not respond with a politically shrewd “I have no comment,” or “We shouldn’t judge.” Instead he said, “My mother had me when she was 18,” which shamed the press and others into silence. He showed grace when he didn’t have to.
There is something else. On Feb. 5, Super Tuesday, Mr. Obama won the Alabama primary with 56% to Hillary Clinton’s 42%. That evening, a friend watched the victory speech on TV in his suburban den. His 10-year-old daughter walked in, saw on the screen “Obama Wins” and “Alabama.” She said, “Daddy, we saw a documentary on Martin Luther King Day in school.” She said, “That’s where they used the hoses.”
Suddenly my friend saw it new. Birmingham, 1963, and the water hoses used against the civil rights demonstrators. And now look, the black man thanking Alabama for his victory. This means nothing? This means a great deal.
Yep she wrote that happy horse manure in the Wall Street Journal. For all that is holy how could so many be so wrong, so oblivious to what was known then!!
In 2014 Scott Johnson writing at Power Line revisited the column A meditation on Peggy Noonan. We had our fill by then and mentioned it in several articles relating to Ms Noonan. Our purpose in bringing this up is to remind people that the political insight of the New York and Washington elites is really quite pathetic.
We prefer remembering these: DLH
