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Monday, January 06, 2003
New batty time, same batty Peggy
I think that the Wall Street Journal moved Noonan the Loon to Mondays because The Bachelorette is on Wednesday nights and poor Peg just couldn't concentrate on that Thursday deadline, what with all those cute guys after just one woman. But that's okay, because Peggy has found her Mystery Date, a steady guy as comfortable as an old shoe. He's uncomplicated by deep thoughts, a religious man, a family man, and best of all, he's not a cow's head suspended in formaldehyde. He just: George.
The whole world was watching, and America was watching with keen concentration, when he did his best work: his visit to ground zero and "I can hear you; the world hears you"; his Oval Office interview a few days after the attack when he said, "I am a loving man, but I have a job to do"; his speech to Congress in which he described the nature of the menace we face and spoke of American resolve; his spectacular live question-and-answer session with children when Vladimir Putin was meeting with him in Texas, in which both took questions from kids and Mr. Bush's humanity shined through; and a host of other public moments. The boy done good.
Yup. He was pretty "spectacular" handling those tough probing questions from those eight and nine year olds, and live no less. But wait, there's more...
But with Mr. Bush things aren't a big emotional drama. He seems stable. This is a relief. You get the impression he's like what he of course was, a businessman. When things work, good; when they don't, change. It's not personal. It doesn't have to be messy. It's not Shakespearean.
...and he's still that bright-eyed, fresh-faced businessman, doing the same thing to the country that he did to his businesses...plunging them into debt and chaos. You've got to admire that kind of steadfastness, that blinkered tenaciousness.
Peggy then clues us into why liberals just haven't taken the steady, rock-solid, emotionally vacant, George Bush to our collective bosoms:
Liberals like their leaders interesting. I always think this may be because some of them have not been able to fully engage the idea of a God, and tend to fill that hole in themselves with politics and its concerns. If the world of government and politics becomes your god, and yields a supergod called a president, you want that god to be interesting.
Well, I wouldn't say that we make government and politics a god (especially those of us that are atheists...which would be...kind of absurd) but we do tend to like our leader, also known as the "Leader of the Free World", to sometimes have deep thoughts or express an interest in something other than reading baseball box scores or avenging the the near asassination of his dad ("After all, this is a guy that tried to kill my dad."). We see the world as a kind of complex place that sometimes requires complex answers. We're funny that way.
Peggy finishes with a flourish:
Conservatives, on the other hand, don't look for god in government, for part of being a conservative is holding the conviction that there is no god in government. They like complicated personalities in their TV shows and from actors and opera singers, but they want steadiness and a vision they can agree with from their presidents. Actually I think conservatives want their presidents the way they want their art: somewhere in the normal range. They don't like cow's heads suspended in formaldehyde and don't understand that as high art; by 1998 they thought Bill Clinton was the political version of a cow's head in formaldehyde, and they didn't like that either.
And so my liberal friends say: Why do people like Mr. Bush? And they want an interesting answer. But I do think part of the answer is: Because he's not complicated and perhaps not even especially interesting as a person. We just love that.
"Bill Clinton was the political version of a cow's head in formaldehyde"
Just roll that phrase around in your mouth. Mull it over. Think about it.
It's somewhere in the Peggy Noonan "normal range".
Enter at your own risk.
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No More Mr. Nice Blog on Peggy
Jesse at Pandagon on her too
Looks like a Peggy pile-on. She wishes...
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