I think we need to educate Peggy Noonan a little about the Israeli occupation, then she’ll be even more effective. Here she is on the Republican primary battle being over. Let’s have a debate between her and the neoconservatives, David Brooks. WSJ:
Finally, in foreign affairs the Republican candidates staked out dangerous ground. They want to show they’re strong on defense. Fine, we should have a strong defense, the best in the world. But that is different from having an aggressive foreign policy stance, and every one of the GOP candidates, with the exceptions of Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman, was aggressive. This is how their debates sounded: We should bomb Iran Thursday. No, stupid, we should bomb Iran on Wednesday. How could you be so foolish? You know we do all our bombings on Monday. You’re wrong, we send in the destroyers and arm the insurgents on Monday.
There was no room for discretion, prudence, nuance, to use unjustly maligned terms. There was no room for an expressed bias toward not-fighting. But grown-ups really do have a bias toward not-fighting.
They are allowing the GOP to be painted as the war party. They are ceding all non-war ground to the president, who can come forward as the sober, constrained, non-bellicose contender. Do they want that? Are they under the impression America is hungry for another war? Really? After the past 11 years?
The GOP used to be derided by Democrats as the John Wayne party: It loved shoot-’em-ups. Actually, John Wayne didn’t ride into town itching for a fight, and he didn’t ride in shooting off his mouth, either. Etc.
Peggy Noonan blithely floats around in her own cloud of smug self-satisfaction and writes from her Upper East Side Manhattan home. Occasionally she is capable of lucid thinking and reasonable conclusions in her writing, but the smug factor never drops below a 9 out of 10
Irish Catholic Noonan has always cast herself as a woman of the people, up from immigrant roots, even while shilling for the GOP. Finally, a limit is reached.
“But that is different from having an aggressive foreign policy stance, and every one of the GOP candidates, with the exceptions of Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman, was aggressive. This is how their debates sounded: We should bomb Iran Thursday. No, stupid, we should bomb Iran on Wednesday. How could you be so foolish? You know we do all our bombings on Monday. You’re wrong, we send in the destroyers and arm the insurgents on Monday.”
Go Noonan! You can be spot on sometimes. Phil on the I/P conflict. Most of the Peggy Noonan’s Chris Matthews of the world know the story. To afraid to take a stand based on UN resolutions and International law.
Peggy Noonan is a curious case. She made her carrier as GOP flack, but her specialization were more feminine approaches like “real compassion” etc. I recall her rather strange piece supporting the coming war with Iraq where she expressed a conviction that Bush Jr. will obtain enormous political capital from the shining victory in Mesopotamia which will allow him to force necessary concessions from Israel and thus peace in the Middle East.
That was a reversal of neo-con writing on the topic, namely that Palestinians, deprived of Saddam’s support, will abandon foolish hopes and make all the concessions needed for the peace in the Middle East.
A minor heresy, to be sure, and hidden in a case for war, so her peacenik impulses did not deprive her of good standing in establishment commentariat.
Noonan is not an intellectual, but she has two strengths. She is a good stylist, although sometimes she gets a little overboard with pretty prose. She also tends to know what is popular and what is not. Right now the opinion polls show that foreign policy is the ONLY area where voters trust Obama significantly more than GOP candidates (now, just Romney). People are a bit scared of GOP muscular tone! Wars are expensive, gasoline is expensive, there is a see of red ink.
RE: “I think we need to educate Peggy Noonan a little about the Israeli occupation, then she’ll be even more effective.” ~ Weiss
MY COMMENT: I suspect that she may already know far more than you/we realize.
SEE: “10 things you might not know about security measures”, By Mark Jacob and Stephan Benzkofer, Chicago Tribune, 4/08/12
ENTIRE COMMENTARY – http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-04-08/news/ct-perspec-0408-things-20120408_1_security-measures-security-blanket-tareq-salahi
* To elaborate, the neocons in Cheney’s office and at the Pentagon succeeded in having it named “Homeland Security”. Why were they so determined to introduce the concept of the “homeland” into the American vernacular? Where else in the world had the “homeland” concept been used (besides Nazi Germany) ? What were the neocons trying to associate (perhaps via “transference” and/or similar techniques) the U.S. with in the minds (at least subconsciously) of Americans and perhaps other “Westerners”?