she is a real and present danger to the American left

Amen.

Success is the best revenge. I hope she gets her revenge, and then some, on all the two-faced media whores, all the pseudofeminists like Pelosi, all the excruciatingly correct and even more hypocritical goody-two-shoes who want to be "in" far more than they want to really make things better. Go get 'em, honey; it's about time somebody did.

Val -

Gov. Palin as a success is worse than a Clear and Present Danger. To those Super Men and Women in the Leftist orbit - she is "KRYPTONITE."

-S-

How 'bout that Peggy Noonan?

Can she take it?
I believe she can.
Will she be rattled?
I believe she will not.
And if she didn't make Obama quake in his fancy shoes, they wouldn't be going after her like this.

That smell? FEAR.

well fine, but we hear today what Peggy (and her conservative compatriots) REALLY thinks about Palin, and it's HILARIOUS.

Fear? Nope, the quaking is from suppressed laughter.

Kryptonite? More like lead shoes for a sinking RNC.

Ohhh, this is fun.

I can guarantee all of you that this is the last Peggy Noonan piece I ever link to. One thing I always put in my writing is searing honesty regardless of the consequences. Noonan's off-hand remarks make me sick. She's no better than the "bubbleheads" she criticizes.

That said, JuliesJames, pundits don't elect presidents; the people do. If pundits ran things, McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore and Kerry would have been in the White House. They weren't. 'Nuff said.

Thin, thanks for the link. I'll never link to Noonan again now that I know she talks out of both sides of her mouth.

George, I hope you don't think I was playing "gotcha" here or being a jerk. Keep in mind that Peggy Noonan is a speechwriter, so her specialty is how to match oratory with a personality. She's responsible for some of the most eloquent speeches of the last 30 years of public life (Reagan's "Challenger" eulogy is my favorite); but she isn't an analyst or an operative. Remember, she has written very flattering things about Obama this year, and as recently as last week about his acceptance speech. But she's always been swayed by he-men and shows of testicular strength. If Noonan had said, "Palin gave a rather good performance last Friday that made McCain look interesting again, but it doesn't mitigate the cynicism which motivated his selecting her," her bad faith wouldn't have looked so awful.

Strictly from a performative point of view, I thought that Palin was totally charming at her coming out last Friday, her positions notwithstanding.

Peggy Noonan's explanation of her gaffe:

Open Mic Night at MSNBC
September 3, 2008
St. Paul

Well, I just got mugged by the nature of modern media, and I wish it weren't my fault, but it is. Readers deserve an explanation, so I'm putting a new top on today's column and, with the forbearance of the Journal, here it is.

Wednesday afternoon, in a live MSNBC television panel hosted by NBC's political analyst Chuck Todd, and along with Republican strategist Mike Murphy, we discussed Sarah Palin's speech this evening to the Republican National Convention. I said she has to tell us in her speech who she is, what she believes, and why she's here. We spoke of Republican charges that the media has been unfair to Mrs. Palin, and I defended the view that while the media should investigate every quote and vote she's made, and look deeply into her career, it has been unjust in its treatment of her family circumstances, and deserved criticism for this.

When the segment was over and MSNBC was in commercial, Todd, Murphy and I continued our conversation, talking about the Palin choice overall. We were speaking informally, with some passion -- and into live mics. An audio tape of that conversation was sent, how or by whom I don't know, onto the internet. And within three hours I was receiving it from friends far and wide, asking me why I thought the McCain campaign is "over", as it says in the transcript of the conversation. Here I must plead some confusion. In our off-air conversation, I got on the subject of the leaders of the Republican party assuming, now, that whatever the base of the Republican party thinks is what America thinks. I made the case that this is no longer true, that party leaders seem to me stuck in the assumptions of 1988 and 1994, the assumptions that reigned when they were young and coming up. "The first lesson they learned is the one they remember," I said to Todd -- and I'm pretty certain that is a direct quote. But, I argued, that's over, those assumptions are yesterday, the party can no longer assume that its base is utterly in line with the thinking of the American people. And when I said, "It's over!" -- and I said it more than once -- that is what I was referring to. I am pretty certain that is exactly what Todd and Murphy understood I was referring to. In the truncated version of the conversation, on the Web, it appears I am saying the McCain campaign is over. I did not say it, and do not think it. In fact, at an on-the-record press symposium on the campaign on Monday, when all of those on the panel were pressed to predict who would win, I said that I didn't know, but that we just might find "This IS a country for old men." That is, McCain may well win. I do not think the campaign is over, I do not think this is settled, and did not suggest, back to the Todd-Murphy conversation, that "It's over."

However, I did say two things that I haven't said in public, either in speaking or in my writing. One is a vulgar epithet that I wish I could blame on the mood of the moment but cannot. No one else, to my memory, swore. I just blurted. The other, more seriously, is a real criticism that I had not previously made, but only because I hadn't thought of it. And it is connected to a thought I had this morning, Wednesday morning, and wrote to a friend. Here it is. Early this morning I saw Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, and as we chatted about the McCain campaign (she thoughtfully and supportively) I looked into her eyes and thought, Why not her? Had she been vetted for the vice presidency, and how did it come about that it was the less experienced Mrs. Palin who was chosen? I didn't ask these questions or mention them, I just thought them. Later in the morning, still pondering this, I thought of something that had happened exactly 20 years before. It was just after the 1988 Republican convention ended. I was on the plane, as a speechwriter, that took Republican presidential nominee George H.W. Bush, and the new vice presidential nominee, Dan Quayle, from New Orleans, the site of the convention, to Indiana. Sitting next to Mr. Quayle was the other senator from that state, Richard Lugar. As we chatted, I thought, "Why him and not him?" Why Mr. Quayle as the choice, and not the more experienced Mr. Lugar? I came to think, in following years, that some of the reason came down to what is now called The Narrative. The story the campaign wishes to tell about itself, and communicate to others. I don't like the idea of The Narrative. I think it is ... a barnyard epithet. And, oddly enough, it is something that Republicans are not very good at, because it's not where they live, it's not what they're about, it's too fancy. To the extent the McCain campaign was thinking in these terms, I don't like that either. I do like Mrs. Palin, because I like the things she espouses. And because, frankly, I met her once and liked her. I suspect, as I say further in here, that her candidacy will be either dramatically successful or a dramatically not; it won't be something in between.

But, bottom line, I am certainly sorry I blurted my barnyard ephithet, I am certainly sorry that someone abused my meaning in the use of the words, "It's over", and I'm sorry I didn't have the Kay Baily Hutchison thought before this morning, because I could have written of it. There. Now: onto today's column.

I know Peggy Noonan to be a fair minded, lovely person. And I'm willing to accept her remarks here as explanation enough. I'm not ready to toss her aside. It isn't my favorite thing that when someone says something off camera, someone else has the right to sabotage that person just because he has a tape recorder in hand.