I have had my problems in the past with Peggy Noonan's often-maudlin columns, but this latest one is the first of hers that I can't bear to finish reading. It is just that bad. I can't even read the excerpt Kathy featured. When I got to paragraph number three, and this:
He doesn't seem to be suffering, which is jarring. Presidents in great enterprises that are going badly suffer: Lincoln, LBJ with his head in his hands.
-- it was all over. Lincoln had a crazy wife, and presided over the American Civil War. LBJ was famous for being a bullshitter, among other things. If an American president sent Noonan an email asking her to give him her bank account number so he could deposit $2,000,000 in it for "safekeeping" would she consider it?
The rest devolves into "everything Bush has done has been a failure blah blah blah," which does indeed make her sound like the Chimpyburtler Impeachanista contingent. I'm no fan of many of Bush's ideas, especially the immigrant-coddling (and was that "failure" such a bad thing? did she want that to succeed? -- and as for Iraq, what "failure" is she talking about? did she really think it would be easy?), but we need to stop moaning about what a "failure" he is just to make ourselves feel better for voting him into office. As usual, it's all about the ego and wanting to feel good about ourselves. Why can't we grow up?
