January 21, 2005
Losing Peggy
I saw Dorian Davis, one of my wonderful guest commenters, on Wednesday night before I left for DC. We were talking about our big-media must-reads. Mine are James Lileks, Mark Steyn and James Taranto. His are Peggy Noonan and Ann Coulter. I told him how I always loved Peggy, read all of her books right at the start of my political awakening but felt something had changed in her in the last few years. I find her columns harder and harder to read. Well, ahem Dorian, ahem. I'm surprised that woman who watched the Reagan revolution up close is alarmed by Bush's want to defeat tyranny wherever it may lurk. If Peggy Noonan no longer dreams big, who does?
Posted by Karol at January 21, 2005 05:33 PM | TrackBackTechnorati Tags:
A number of folks over at NRO have been trashing the speech too including WFB, who is characteristically nit-picky about W's precise word choice.
I thought it was ok, although not particularly memorable. I could have done without meaningless statements like "The History of Freedom". Sounds like a speechwriter was stretching to find a line that will be memorable.
But hey, if in 4 years there are several more democracies in the middle east, then people might look back on that line as great.
Posted by: J. Nathan at January 21, 2005 06:08 PMI've never understood Noonan's appeal. I think she's overrated and incoherent.
Posted by: Dave at January 21, 2005 06:28 PMWasn't Peggy writing speeches for Dubya as recently as a few months ago?
I just remember her going on MSNBC and comparing Bush to Churchill every time he gave a speech between '01 and '03.
Posted by: Steve at January 21, 2005 08:39 PMPresident Bush gives ambitious speeches, but does not follow them up properly. We don't have the military for our current needs, much less actually invading Iran and Syria.
Also, saying that we need to free the world is either irresponsible (in that we cannot) or insane.
Promoting liberty and tryiong to be a universal liberator are different things.
For reasons I set out in this post, I find myself in partial agreement with Noonan-- despite the fact that I, too, find her overrated and too affected.
Bush's rhetoric was powerful and sweeping, but it 1) doesn't really mean anything in the short-term, and is hence just a bunch of nice sentiments or 2) he really means it, which I think is close to being dangerously naive.
Posted by: ace at January 22, 2005 05:24 PM
