Leah A. says:
I really thought it couldn't get any worse than the despicable column she wrote about those three young American muslim doctors-to-be, whom a fellow luncher at Stoney's reported to the police. Managing to turn the eavesdropper into their victim, Noonan imagined what had happened at Stoney's, after reassuring us that she had paid close attention to the details of the story; in her mind's eye the three young men in their muslim gear (actually only one of them was wearing a religious cap) garnered strange looks from the locals, became sullen, and decided to play their 9/11 joke on the hapless woman, whom, despite the claimed close attention, Noonan still appeared to think was the waitress, rather than another luncher. Surely, Peg argued, the men should have known their presence would discombobulate the locals, why couldn't they have done something as simple as smile and introduce themselves, thus reassuring all present, presumably, that they were not terrorists. That all three men had denied talking about 9/11, making a joke or attempting a hoax, and that the police and the security tape from the toll booth had cleared them of every one of the rumored charges against them went unmentioned by Noonan. In the end she celebrated the hospital's decision (since rescinded)to deprive them of their internships.
If Leona Hemsley was the queen of mean, Peggy is its princess.
This column is worse, but what they have in common is her too little remarked upon penchant for lies. That's why she finds those fantasy rhetorical devices so congenial; they allow her to tell untruths, without appearing to be lying, or perhaps, even to be aware that she is, which is why she was such a perfect speech writer for Reagan...and Bush pere.
The lies here are too many to fully document. Start with calling the memorial the triumph of the political over the personal. (Who really thinks that Peggy Noonan saw more than five minutes of the memorial, if that?) Nothing could have been more personal, or intimate than each of the eulogies for each of the three Wellstones, and each of their three friends and associates who died with them. Nor were there any boos when Republican Senators entered; and if there were some later on, they came from so small a fraction of the audience that I couldn't hear it watching on Cspan.
I think it was Digby in another comments section who mentioned that it's an odd political rally that never mentions so much as the name of the opponent.
When in the guise of channeling Wellstone lecturing his sons for having blown this tribute, (to their father, mother & sister, please remember), Noonan goes further into fantasy by having Paul ask them to imagine a reverse scenario, a funeral for Trent Lott, in which Democrats and the Democratic party get attacked, one has to ask, what on earth is she talking about? There were no such attacks Tuesday. Didn't happen. The eulogizers spoke with passion and much affection and humor, but always and only in support of the people and ideas that mattered to the Wellstones and their friends. The passionate response of the audience was born of grief and love, for those who had been lost, and for the values that need not be lost.(And the reason for the choice of a venue with a large seating capacity was because so many people wanted to be there, and even so, people were turned away.) Interesting that in Peg's fantasy world, exhorting people to get out and vote as a tribute to a fallen Senator becomes a cynical political ploy, thereby revealing the contempt she and a few other contemporary Republicans have for the very concept of voting.
What Noonan, the divorcee who embraces the notion that parents (other parents that is)who divorce are being selfish and injuring their children, can't understand is that there was no division in the Wellstone's lives between their political beliefs and how they actually lived their lives. Naturally, the intimacy they share within their family was of a different nature than the connection they shared with constituents, but that connection was also an extension of the core values that informed even their closest and most intimate relationships. As was also true of their lost friends, Mary McEvoy, Will McLaughlin, Tom Lapic. Did Peg find it lacking in class when the President of the U of M in his eulogy for Prof. McEvoy mentioned her tireless commitment to special education and announced an annual award to be given in her name for an academic whose work connects to public service? Was that too political for her taste. For John Kennedy's? For John Adams? (To both of whom she maintains a direct line of communication)
In a spirit of magnanimity worthy of Paul Wellstone, let me say a good word for one Republican. Rod Gramms is as conservative as they come; I doubt there is a single issue I'd agree with him on, but apparently he really did care about his senatorial comrade. As quoted in the StarTribune, he confined himself [to this statement "They can do what they want. We're here tonight to say goodbye to a friend. That's all I'm thinking right now."
