Friday, May 02, 2014

WE TRIED THAT, PEGGY

Here's Peggy Noonan writing from Rome, where she watched two popes become saints this week and then sat down to write, as usual, about how awful President Obama is:
To be in Europe is to realize, again and at first hand, that America has experienced a status shift. Europeans know we are powerful -- we have the most drones and bombs and magic robot soldiers -- but they don't think we are strong. They've seen our culture; we exported it. The Internet destroyed our ability to keep under wraps, at least for a while, our embarrassments. People everywhere read of our daily crimes and governmental scandals. The people of old Europe thought we were great not only because we were wealthy but because we were good. We don't seem so good now. And they know we're not as wealthy as we were.

In these circumstances it would be quite wonderful to have a leader who is a deeply believing enthusiast who could tell the world -- and us -- that we can, and will, turn it all around.
You know what? We had a leader like that not long ago. Was he a deeply believing enthusiast? Oh yes -- until his last day in office. Did he look at our problems and tell America and the world that we could, and would, turn things around? Oh, absolutely. He said that all the time.

His name was George W. Bush, and if you think Europeans liked America more in his second term than they do in Obama's, well, take a look at Pew's numbers:





Compare 2013 to, say, 2006, and the favorability of the U.S. is improved in every European country that was surveyed in both years.

But who are you going to believe -- a respected polling firm doing multiple scientific surveys? Or Peggy Noonan picking up gut impressions from her contact with a totally unrepresentative sample of extremely Catholic Europeans?

****

Noonan goes on to lament Obama's failure to rally the American public around ... well, here, let her explain:
How wonderful it would be to see an American president appreciate all the possibilities of becoming a great energy-producing nation -- all the new technologies and jobs, all the rebound they'd bring. To have a leader who feels and conveys a palpable joy in the transformative nature of this new world. Instead what we see is a ticket-checking approval, coupled with a wary, base-pandering, foot-dragging series of decisions such as the latest delay of the Keystone pipeline. It looks like a kind of historical lethargy, or listlessness.
Renewing the optimism of a dispirited America by singing the praises of the nation's industrial might? What I love about Noonan's idea is that it's just so .... communist.





But wait: Noonan's calling for a president who "conveys a palpable joy" when he sees an oil derrick? I've got it: she's endorsing Rick Perry!

Oh, my goodness -- first James Carville called him a dark horse, then Dick Morris said he could make a comeback in 2016, and now this. It's Perrymania! We have a new front-runner!

9 comments:

Mustang Bobby said...

Sometimes an oil derrick is just an oil derrick, but methinks Ms. Peggy has some unresolved issues...

Victor said...

I hope that after Piggy broke into The Pope's sacramental wine closet, that she left enough for the next Mass.

If she drinks a liter or two of Grey Goose a day, she could probably easily knock back a case of wine or two in one sitting/leaning/lying on the floor.

Unknown said...

Someone please explain to me how pundits like Noonan and Dowd are allowed to turn in the same damn column every frigging week and continue in their jobs. It's just embarrassing now.
We get it, ladies; you don't approve of Obama, because he's not "manly", like W, and he's not "strong" like Reagan.
Doesn't Obama understand that you're not a "real" president until you have some big-time scandals and prosecutions of your WH staff? What a piker...

LitttlePig said...

The people of old Europe thought we were great not only because we were wealthy but because we were good.

Oh, horseshit. Drinking scotch and vodka doesn't make you one with 'the people of old Europe', Dame Peggington.

Pops said...

You guys maybe did not see the new Grey Goose ad? Peggy Nooney-tunes saying "I dont drink that often except every day and I always drink Grey Goose when I dream of St.Ronnie. Now give me my drink".

Victor said...

I met a vodka-soaked barroom hag in The Greenroom...
Doo-do-roo!

Glennis said...

becoming a great energy-producing nation -- all the new technologies and jobs, all the rebound they'd bring.

Isn't American oil production at an all time high right now?

Also, too, Pegs might want to check on why the President's Jobs Bill didn't pass.

Roger said...

We used to keep our embarrassments under wraps; then, the Wall Street Journal started publishing Pegaloon online.

Ken_L said...

Noonan inadvertently illustrates one reason why the US is not held in very high regard in many corners of the globe (I'm not in Europe, but I'm not in America either). It's nothing to do with the quality of presidential leadership on offer; it's the fact that the president has assumed such a quasi-monarchical role where the elected legislators spend most of their time preening for the cameras and manoeuvring for their next election (or celebrity job). And when we see the 2016 presidential contest shaping up as feasibly between the wife of one recent president and the brother and son of another, we tend to wonder what happened to government by the people. In short, we shake our heads and wonder how such a damaged political economy and culture of unaccountability can manage to even make the country function, let alone do anything for anyone else.