Peggy Noonan Leaves the Dark Side Behind

I’ve always thought of Peggy Noonan as a gifted writer, but not a great thinker. She was the one who put inspiring words in the empty spaces of Ronald Reagan’s mind. It’s always been a curiosity to me that we credit people who read lines with having written those lines, of having had those thoughts. Sarah Palin at the Republican convention, we now know, could no more have penned those words as a monkey could sit down at a computer and write a sonnet.

And when Ronald Reagan spoke, Peggy supplied the words. And we all pretended that it was Ronnie. Willing suspension of disbelief, I guess. Politics as a stage show.

I just got done reading a piece by Noonan in the Wall Street Journal (Palin’s Failin’) that gives me pause. She’s more than eloquent. She is deeply thoughtful, insightful and honestly reflective. It’s not that I agree with her that Sarah Palin does not measure up – of course I do. It’s the depth of her perception, and her basic honesty in saying things that her base will not like.

There has never been a second’s debate among liberals, to use an old-fashioned word that may yet return to vogue, over Mrs. Palin: She was a dope and unqualified from the start. Conservatives and Republicans, on the other hand, continue to battle it out: Was her choice a success or a disaster? And if one holds negative views, should one say so? For conservatives in general, but certainly for writers, the answer is a variation on Edmund Burke: You owe your readers not your industry only but your judgment, and you betray instead of serve them if you sacrifice it to what may or may not be their opinion.

Noonan uses a high-profile platform to talk to her base about things they know but do not talk about. Sarah Palin is not qualified to be vice president. She’s not qualified for much of anything.

…we have seen Mrs. Palin on the national stage for seven weeks now, and there is little sign that she has the tools, the equipment, the knowledge or the philosophical grounding one hopes for, and expects, in a holder of high office. She is a person of great ambition, but the question remains: What is the purpose of the ambition? She wants to rise, but what for? For seven weeks I’ve listened to her, trying to understand if she is Bushian or Reaganite—a spender, to speak briefly, whose political decisions seem untethered to a political philosophy, and whose foreign policy is shaped by a certain emotionalism, or a conservative whose principles are rooted in philosophy, and whose foreign policy leans more toward what might be called romantic realism, and that is speak truth, know America, be America, move diplomatically, respect public opinion, and move within an awareness and appreciation of reality…. But it’s unclear whether she is Bushian or Reaganite. She doesn’t think aloud. She just . . . says things.

Noonan, of all people, has to give Palin the benefit of the doubt. Yet she’s lost her resolve. She’s a Republican – the column I cite was written to declare that John McCain had not lost yet another debate. And she’s tried – she’s given her seven weeks when most of us checked out at the Katie Couric interviews.

This is not a leader, this is a follower, and she follows what she imagines is the base, which is in fact a vast and broken-hearted thing whose pain she cannot, actually, imagine. She could reinspire and reinspirit; she chooses merely to excite. She doesn’t seem to understand the implications of her own thoughts. … No news conferences? Interviews now only with friendly journalists? You can’t be president or vice president and govern in that style, as a sequestered figure. This has been Mr. Bush’s style the past few years, and see where it got us.

Christopher Buckley, son of William F. and a successful man in his own write, recently endorsed Barack Obama. The result was predictable – he had to leave National Review, the powerful conservative magazine his father founded. It remains to be seen now what will become of Noonan. Will she join Mr. Buckley in the abyss?

In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics. It’s no good, not for conservatism and not for the country. And yes, it is a mark against John McCain, against his judgment and idealism. … At any rate, come and get me, copper.

Indeed they will. Come to the force, Peggy. Leave the Dark Side. We can use your voice.