The last couple of weeks, Peggy Noonan’s column (Declarations)  in the Weekend Journal has become one of the most insightful looks into the Democratic Party nomination vis-a-vis Hillary Clinton and how her campaign is coming unglued.

Her making sense has been so pronounced, that even Lorna and I remarked on it this week:

MatthewTarpy:    actually peggy noonan (i know) had a good column about this
MatthewTarpy:    the premise was, can clinton loose good or not win bad
lornamatic:    i know, she totally did
lornamatic:    i have been like wtf, when did peggy noonan start making sense
MatthewTarpy:    i know
lornamatic:    but lately she’s been really good

While I’ve always been something of a fan of hers (her speech for President Reagan on the Challenger tragedy is probably one of the best presidential speeches of my life, and the “Boys of Pointe-du-Hoc” speech is un-real, as well as her latest book, John Paul the Great was an amazing biography of John Paul the Second), she sometimes goes out into la-la land.

Some highlights of the recent columns:

Does her sense of toughness mean that every battle in which she engages must be fought tooth and claw, door to door? Can she recognize the line between burly combat and destructive, never-say-die warfare? I wonder if she is thinking: What will it mean if I win ugly? What if I lose ugly? What will be the implications for my future, the party’s future? What will black America, having seen what we did in South Carolina, think forever of me and the party if I do low things to stop this guy on the way to victory? Can I stop, see the lay of the land, imitate grace, withdraw, wait, come back with a roar down the road? Life is long. I am not old. Or is that a reverie she could never have? What does it mean if she could never have it?
-Can Mrs. Clinton Lose? (02.08.08)

To top it all off, Mrs. Clinton has, for 30 years, held deep respect for her husband’s political acumen, for his natural, instinctive sense of how to campaign. And he’s never let her down. Now he’s flat-footed, an oaf lurching from local radio interview to finger-pointing lecture. Where did the golden gut go? How did his gifts abandon him? Abandon her? Her campaign blew through $120 million. How did this happen?

And it all happened in public and within her party. The dread Republicans she is used to hating, whom she seems to pay no psychic price for hating, and who hate her right back, are not doing this to her. Her party is doing this.

Her whole life right now is a reverse Sally Field. She’s looking out at an audience of colleagues and saying, “You don’t like me, you really don’t like me!”
-Confidence or Derangement? (02.15.08)

Rate this topic:

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...