I know there are more important things upon which I could be spending my time than pointing and laughing at Peggy Fucking Noonan.
After all, this is a woman whose job duties apparently consist entirely of getting properly whacked on Percocet and Dubonnet, sitting down at a computer and jabbing at random keys until the word count hits 1200, and then wandering off to fellate the mouldy corpse of Ronald Reagan which she has stashed behind her office door. I’ve seen apes in zoos flinging their shit at the wall who could churn out a more coherent column (although most of them now seem to have gotten jobs at The Washington Post).
However, it’s early Saturday morning down here in the upside down world of Oz, I’m stuffed to the gills with deep fried cheesecake with yuzu jam and honey-infused Jack Daniels, and I really can’t be bothered to rouse myself for anything other than shooting at big, dumb fish in a tiny barrel.
Peggy it is then.
Peggy thinks that the Joe Soptic Super PAC ad is an appalling personal attack that makes Obama “look perfidious and weak” and so he should disavow any such combative behaviour, but she also seems to think that Mitt should stop being so nice, take his gloves off and start fighting back. This seems a little inconsistent, but it’s hard to type and make a coherent argument at the same time, especially when you have your pearls clutched in one hand and a mason jar of gin in the other.
This somehow leads into the two following paragraphs, a mishmash of patronising and pointless pablum, studded with odd metaphors and cultural references, which I would describe as the height of Peggy’s inanity if I didn’t already know what nuggets of gold-plated crap are coming up further down the page.
The ad’s cynicism contributes to a phenomenon that increases each year, and that is that we are becoming a nation that believes nothing. Not in nothing, but nothing we’re told by anyone in supposed authority.
Everyone knows what the word spin means; people use it in normal conversation. Everyone knows what going negative is; they talk about it on Real Housewives. Political technicians always think they’re magicians whose genius few apprehend, but Americans now always know where the magician hid the rabbit. And we shouldn’t be so proud of our skepticism, which has become our cynicism. Someday we’ll be told something true that we need to know and we won’t believe that, either.
Of course, it’s always possible that Peggy will be the one telling us and we won’t believe it because we won’t have a fucking clue what she’s talking about. Anyway, after that Peggy dumps on Mitt a bit more for being a wussy man, before she starts talking about the last thing she remembers with any clarity, the Reagan years, when men were men and Peggy was always a little bit damp.
Some of the unperturbed sunniness you see modern political figures attempting to enact may be traceable to Ronald Reagan, the happy warrior who set a template for how winners act. But the Reagan of the 1950s and 60s was often indignant, even angry. When he allowed himself to get mad, or knew he should be mad and so decided to feign anger, it was a sight to behold. “I’m paying for this microphone,” he famously snapped to the moderator of the 1980 primary campaign debate in Nashua, N.H. He didn’t win that crucial state by being sunny.
A lot of politicians misunderstand this part of their art. A few months ago I talked with a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate. I asked to hear the outlines of the candidate’s planned appeal to voters. The candidate leaned forward and said with some intensity, “I’m going to tell them I can get along with people. I can work with the other side.”
This was a great example of confusing the cart with the horse. Why would anyone vote for you, especially during a crisis, only because you play well with the other children?
Now, you might assume that Peggy’s point is that behaving like a smug prick looks presidential if you are a Republican but, in fact, she’s somehow building herself up to a lament about the lack of discussion of issues by modern politicians.
What are your issues, where do you stand, what will you do when you get to Washington? If you believe in something and mean to move it forward the people will give you a fair hearing, and if you make clear that you hope to make progress with the help of a knack for human relations, that’s good too.
But this cult of equability, this enforced, smiley, bland dispassion – Guys, we’re in a crisis, you’ve got to know how to fight, too.
And you’ve got to fight on the issues.
Both candidates wasted some time this week calling each other names in a sort of cheesy, noneffective, goofy way. “Obamaloney.” “Romney Hood.” Actually goofy isn’t the right word because goofy is fun, and there’s no wit or slash in what they were doing.
Calling Mr. Romney’s economic plans Romney Hood was dim because everyone likes Robin Hood, so Romney Hood sounds kind of like a compliment. Now and then the foes of a candidate accidentally do him a good turn.
Can you guess what’s coming next? No, not Zombie Reagan, but the very next best thing!
The Soviets thought they were disparaging Margaret Thatcher when they called her the Iron Lady. She was cold, wouldn’t bend, couldn’t compromise. The British heard the epithet and thought: Exactly! And exactly what we need!
An admiring nickname meant as an insult was born. Mr. Romney should go with it, lay out how he’ll save taxpayers from the predators of the liberal left and call that Romney Hood.
God does not love me enough that Mitt Romney would start calling himself Romney Hood.
But he and his supporters should drop the argument that if we don’t change our ways we’ll wind up like Europe. That’s a mistake because Americans like Europe, and in some complicated ways wouldn’t mind being a little more like it. In the past 40 years jumbo jets, reduced fares and rising affluence allowed a lot of Americans, especially the sort who vote, to go there. The great capitals of Europe are glamorous, elegant and old, the outlands are exquisite. What remains of the old Catholic European ethic that business isn’t everything, life is everything and it’s a sin not to enjoy it, still has a lure. Americans sometimes think of it as they eat their grim salads and drink from their plastic water bottles.
What the Jesus pole-dancing fuck? That’s just beyond parody. I don’t know whether to start with the grim salads, or the exquisite European outlands, or the majestic awfulness of “a lot of Americans, especially the sort who vote“, so I’m just going to suggest that you go back and read that paragraph again, carefully savoring every word. That is prize winning, Grade A, pure Bolivian crap.
From there, it’s all downhill I’m afraid. Nothing could reach the heights we have just scaled, and I don’t really have the will to pick through Peggy’s remaining effluvia when I can hear a liquid breakfast calling me. I’ll just note that Peggy seems possessed of twin ideas.
First, that our President never talks about important issues, when he has spent the last three and a half years (and more) talking about nothing else.
Second, that Mitt might actually have the ability or the will to talk about issues, when it is increasingly clear that he knows nothing about anything beyond the sheltered worlds of his family, his companies and his church (where his word was law and no one ever questioned him), that he can’t talk about any of his alleged achievements because they’ve all been poisoned at the root and that, even if he wanted to talk about issues, every single one leads unfailingly into a discussion of his taxes or his business practices or his flip-flopping.
When Americans go to Europe they see everything but the taxes. The taxes are terrible. But that’s Europe’s business and they’ll have to figure it out. Yes what happens there has implications for us but still, they’re there and we’re here.
What Americans are worried about, take as a warning sign, and are heavily invested in is California—that mythic place where Sutter struck gold, where the movies were invented, where the geniuses of the Internet age planted their flag, built their campuses, changed our world.
We care about California. We read every day of the bankruptcies, the reduced city services, the businesses fleeing. California is going down. How amazing is it that this is happening in the middle of a presidential campaign and our candidates aren’t even talking about it?
Mitt Romney should speak about the states that work and the states that don’t, why they work and why they don’t, and how we have to take the ways that work and apply them nationally.
Barack Obama can’t talk about these things. You can’t question the blue-state model when your whole campaign promises more blue-state thinking.
But Mr. Romney can talk about it.
Both campaigns are afraid of being serious, of really grappling with the things Americans rightly fear. But there’s no safety in not being serious. It only leaves voters wondering if you’re even capable of seriousness. Letting them wonder that is a mistake.
Peggy – Mitt is screwed. He knows it. We know it. Even Ann Coulter and the Red Staters know it. The person who doesn’t seem to know it is you.
Thymezone
poker
Spaghetti Lee
If your salad is too grim, maybe add a little more dressing?
syphonblue
If Peggy doesn’t like the rhetoric, maybe she should just keep on walkin’.
jl
Thanks SPat.
How come you can write good drunk, but Nooners can’t?
Edit: Maybe because you are more careful about the meds?
Bort
–Nooners
Take, for instance that Massachusetts health care plan. That seems to be working fairly well…
Linda Featheringill
Peggy said
Sounds nice. But not like Europe. Mediterranean, maybe. But not like the rest of the continent.
Linda Featheringill
@Spaghetti Lee:
The grim salads:
Actually, I don’t remember ever meeting a grim salad. What is the proper greeting? Do I offer sympathy or politely pretend I don’t notice?
Edited. I can’t spell.
japa21
Sometimes I wonder why I allow myself to read posts like this. Not because of the comments of the poster, but because it subjects me to reading the “thinking” of people like Noonan.
Apparently the only religious ethic in Europe is the Catholic one, you know the one that says enjoy life to the fullest, except that isn’t the Catholic ethic at all.
Taxes are high in Europe, true, but it is mainly a proghressive tax like the US had back in the 60’s and even the wealthy (for the most part) feel it is worth it.
California is the only blue state apparently, except so is, for example Illinois, which although still struggling is doing better since it raised taxes, both personal and corporate. In fact, doing better than many states who did nothing or even lowered taxes despite the forcasting of doom by Republicans that it would drive companies away and cause massive unemployment.
Fortunately, my lunch had had plenty of time to settle before reading this.
hitchhiker
Peggy Noonan lamenting the failure of W. Mitt Romney to be more like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan is like one long juicy fart.
Reagan set a template for how winners act? Really? They sell arms to terrorists in Iran so they can fund wars that congress has declared the USA has no business fighting. This is her template for winners and how they act.
Oh, my. Then this:
Why would anyone vote for you, especially during a crisis, only because you play well with the other children?
Maybe it’s because I’m currently listening to David Corn lay out the sad history of the R’s incomprehensibly stupid debt limit crisis in “Showdown,” but that strikes me as one of the most vicious things anyone could say.
Doh, Peggy. In a crisis you don’t think of your job as “playing” and you don’t imagine that there are “sides” and you don’t disparage the people who share your responsibility to manage that crisis as “children.” You effing man up and stop posing and get shit done.
The villain of that book is the Tea Party, with Boehner a close second. What a disgusting story.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Is this woman a drug adicit, is that her problem? Because the California she describes isn’t the California I live in.
jl
Yeesh. I wrote my joke question to SPaT before I finished the post.
re CA.
Sutter did not strike gold, Marshall did. The Gold Rush nearly ruined Sutter.
The movies were not invented in CA.
And to be specifiic, ‘California’ did not build the universities. Gigantic philanthropic gifts from Railroad and Gold and Siver Rush, and real estate robber barons built the famous private universities. And the California government built the famous, and not so famous but still very damn good, public systems.
And in turn, the California government through the public universities, along with federal research funding built a lot of the techy stuf needed for the internet. I think the actual packet transmission system was first tested between several CA universities, which included public and private campuses.
And Obama could, should he choose to, make the CA experience the center of his campaign, being a prime example of the ruin caused by GOP economic and regulatory policies.
BillinGlendaleCA
Nooners wants to talk about California, really? Peggy you really, really don’t want to talk about California and why it’s in it’s current fiscal problems. It really won’t reflect well on St. Ronnie.
japa21
BTW, you better get ready for a tongue lashing from Drum. You are making charges about Noonan that are most certainly false which is a no-no among civilized people.
sb
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Yeah, this. I mean, we have our issues but, what the hell?
gbear
@Spaghetti Lee: The salad is never grim at Applebee’s.
NancyDarling
Sarah, you old two-fisted drinker, you can out-write and out-think Peggers with a mason jar of gin in each hand.
I just spent two weeks in California and it is surprising to hear that they are ‘going down’. (You naughty people can insert the appropriate joke here.) Yes, California is beset by some worrying problems, but they can fall along way before they are red-state Arkansas, or Mississippi, or Alabama, etc.
I might add that the above mentioned states would not quite be Bangladesh, but they would be considerably worse off with out Blue State largesse–states that Peggy thinks are the problem.
Steve
@Bort: I think we should take the plan where states create jobs by offering companies massive tax breaks to move their facilities from another state, and go national with it.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Yes, let us take a moment to pause and thank St Ronald for the crazy homeless person that turd created because he didn’t want to pay for medical care for the insane.
LesGS
If California is going down, it’s because we took our first big gulp of the Norquist flavored kool-aid back in 1978 with Prop 13.
jl
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Thanks I forgot to mention that.
California was hurt by GOP economic and financial regulatory policies more than most of the rest of the country.
But, the economy is bouncing back quicker now. Espeically coastal Northern California, one of the Soshulist International rot spots ruining our great United States.
You want a job, and want a hell of time finding an apartment? come to SF Bay Area, the heart of sochulist liberal degeneracy and rot. LA is lagging behind, but is starting to move.
BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: The first message on the “internet” was sent from UCLA to Stanford. It was the first 3 letters of ‘login’ and then it crashed.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
And and the frap is talk about the depress state of California? My rent just went up, my sister’s house is almost back to value it had during the bubble, my commute is steady getting worse and worse and I was just listing to the City of San Jose advertise they were looking for new cops on the radio of all things. Mighty strange economic depression if you ask me.
jl
@BillinGlendaleCA: I think the first successfully running packet transmission system was a four node system between Berkeley, Stanford, USC and UCLA. At least I remember some plaque where the old UCLA computer center used to be giving the history said that.
Edit: The plaque gave which two campus had the first successfully running system, but I forget which ones, except it claimed one of them was UCLA.
Turgidson
@japa21:
A big chunk of California’s current problems (though certainly not all) can be attributed to the rabid anti-tax fundamentalism of the Republican minority in the legislature + the 2/3 majority required for a budget to pass, which, praise FSM, we finally ditched last year. That might explain California’s crumbling infrastructure, crappy public schools (in part…also too prop 13), escalating higher education costs, etc etc etc.
What a shock that Nooners skated right on by this little detail. Because her “team” wants it this way. Because the only way to convince people that government doesn’t work is to prevent it from having a chance to.
xian
@BillinGlendaleCA: here in california republicans are going the way of the whigs
kc
Her columns are even more fun to read if you imagine them being read aloud by Nooners herself, interspersed with hiccups and occasional dainty lady belches.
danimal
Peggy, put down the whisky and listen carefully. The Republicans in California have so thoroughly screwed up in California that they are virtually extinct at the state level. Using CA as a warning is a good idea, but you have it backasswards.
If national Republicans continue to use the same tactics and messaging that have been used by CA Republicans, they will not exist in ten years.
Violet
Yes, just associate Mitt with “take from the rich and give to the poor” and watch how all the anti-tax teabaggers flock to him. That’ll work swimmingly.
Waynski
The Republican tears are so, so sweet.
Punchy
Who went and declared today “TL;DR Blogposts Day”?
I fear if Freddie Frenchname and Sarah Sure and Lengthy ever got in a blog war, the world would quickly run out of bytes.
geg6
Oh my. The drunk dolphin lady has lost it again.
For my money, Jennifer Rubin has surpassed Nooner’s sick psychosexual blatherings. I though nothing could top Sister Peggy’s slobbering all over that senile old fuck Reagan. But Rubin is throwing herself, naked and trembling wih desire, at the Rmoneybot’s feet. Say what you will about Reagan, at least he was human. Can’t say the same thing about Evil Data Willard.
JGabriel
No posts for 18 days?
Sarah, where have you been? Your absence was noticed.
.
BGinCHI
Peggy, where did the magician hide the rabbit?
Was it consensual?
JCT
@LesGS: Ah yes, Prop 13, this is what happens when you cap a major revenue stream. I was in high school in Los Angeles when that went through.
And Sarah, I can’t believe you actually read Noonan’s meanderings — you probably lost 20 IQ points by the time you were done.
Thoughtcrime
Romney’s melting faster than the witch in “The Wizard of Oz”.
And his flying monkeys and Winkie guards are powerless to help him.
MikeBoyScout
We all await Nooner’s knife twist in to Slick Willard’s back when she evaluates his lame VP selection.
Have another Mai-Thai Peggy.
scav
Could a grim salad be a word salad spun very verrrry slowly to the tolling of great bells and with delicate lace hankies to sop up the tears as they’re spun out of the sodden leaves?
Spaghetti Lee
‘California is doomed! Doomed I say!’ is an old wingnut saw that dates to the 70’s at least. Of course it’s oblivious to reality-are they ever not oblivious? One of my favorite practitioners of it is a libertarian acquaintance who is currently a grad student at Cal Tech. For some strange reason, he didn’t want to get his education in the libertarian paradises of Alabama or Oklahoma.
KG
@danimal: and it’s only going to get worse for the GOP out here with redistricting taken away from the legislature and jungle primaries. I suspect that a couple of the statewide races in two years will end up with two Democrats in the general.
Spaghetti Lee
It is most uncouth to call attention to Peg’s love of the liquors-it’s not like she writes any better when sober.
jl
” Peggy thinks that the Joe Soptic Super PAC ad is an appalling personal attack ”
That seems to be the take of the corporate media. and they are idiots.
The ad is directly related to policy, the policy problems that will result from a mega rich leveraged buy out artist designing tax and other economic policies, and inevitable results of vulture crony capitalism and an inadequate social safety net.
Edit: and note that ordinary folk, if not the super rich, understand that adequate health care is part of social safety net.
The ad is a personal attack on Romney only in so far as that found economic and social policies will not let extremely wealthy people mooch off of our society at their whim. Which, I guess, from their point of view is a personal attack on their money, which to them, is a very personal attack.
But I think average people can see it for what it is, which is why that approach is working. Having the truth behind the ad also helps.
Legalize
Haha, oh dear, looks like Wimpy Willard is calling for a truce:
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/romney-to-obama-please-stop-attacking-my-business-taxes.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
I hope the answer from Team O is one word: “No.”
Culture of Truth
Reagan – at least the one I saw – was a dimwit and a liar. Peggy was his enabler and I’m sure she knows it more than anyone. It explains the frantic attempt to cement an artifical legacy by name every non-moving object, aircraft carrier and the ocean after him.
Turgidson
@xian:
The one source of joy and pride from election night 2010 is that the tidal wave of braindead Teabagging stupidity was stopped cold at the California border. Dems held the line in every major race. Watching those contemptible shits Whitman and Fiorina in particular get beaten silly was particularly soothing on an otherwise awful, awful night.
Haydnseek
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: It’s not the California I live in either. Businesses are fleeing! Run for your tax-hating lives! Oh, wait. You say California is the EIGHTH largest economy in the world? Never mind…
Valdivia
Ms Sarah as usual you were a tall cold drink on a hot muggy DC afternoon.
@jl:
loved your summary of how the Cali universities came about.
Culture of Truth
Is sniffing glue, or is like horse tranquilizers or something?
MikeJ
@JGabriel:
Swimming the pacific to get from the Home in Spokane to kangarooland.
Brachiator
Sweet Mother of Jesus. Does Noonan not know that one of the most blistering editorial cartoons ever was the LA Times Paul Conrad’s depiction of Ronnie Reagan as an evil Robin Hood?
These dopes couldn’t find a clue if you gave them GPS, radar, a seeing eye dog and a pair of Google glasses.
jl
@Valdivia:
Hey, I can name some of the obscure little private CA schools that turned that filthy robber baron money down.
Stockton could be rockin’ right now as a high ed high tech central, except UOP had too much morals.
Quincy
That article is just one long rambling collection of disparate thoughts that passed through her head while typing. It would be rejected in a freshman comp class for lack of anything resembling a coherent argument or even paragraphs that relate to each other in any way.
Where does Noonan’s rep for boozing come from by the way? Is that just beltway gossip that became common knowledge or is there a specific incident I missed?
4tehlulz
hmmm…
As funny as it is to see Mitt cry uncle, I have to wonder where he’s going to go when the Obama campaign laughs in his face.
Turgidson
@jl:
My wife and I are both itching to move out of the SF apartment we’ve lived in for nine years. Can’t. It’s rent-controlled. Finding a comparable or nicer apartment anywhere we’d like to live in the city would both be very difficult to do given how hot the rental market is, and cost us at least another grand per month.
We’re getting close to being ready to buy a home, but that’s no picnic either around here. Home prices fell during the bubble-burst, but didn’t really crater in the bay area except in the far-flung suburb/exurb areas. And now they’re starting to tick up a bit again.
jl
And hate to pile on, but is not old Christian Democratic Catholic Europe that part with the demographic, economic and social dynamism problems?
Head to those degenerate (Edit: shoshulist) sin pots northward to find some dynamic economies going on right now.
Violet
I have to say, the “grim salad” is quite an image. Makes me think of those wilted iceberg lettuce salads with perhaps a slice of over-chilled cucumber or out-of-season tomato on top. They’re offered up in the “entree comes with house salad” category and seem to be most prevalent in small towns in red states. Why does Peggy hate red state voters and their grim salads?
TheOtherWA
Gee, why did California have budget problems? Let me think… Could it be the conservatives who decided to appeal to peoples base desires and get Prop 13 on the ballot? How about the 3/4 majority in the state legislature required to pass any tax increases?
Gee, that might have something to do with it. But please, Peggy, keep attempting to blame it on being a blue state. Have another pill, sweetie. Can’t hurt you now.
Turgidson
@4tehlulz:
Yeah, because all those times the Romney campaign has asked for apologies went sooooo well for them. I’m sure this demand for a gentleman’s agreement (that he of course has no intention of keeping himself) will go even better.
Oh, Mittens. If you weren’t such a contemptible piece of lying filth, I might feel bad for you.
jl
@Turgidson: I am in process of moving right now. Was a nearly a continuous 24/7 process for three weeks finding a comparably priced place, had to move due to owner move in eviction.
Tiny but totally cool Euro style studio (prolly cause landlords are European).
And I consider myself very lucky.
JGabriel
@MikeJ: Danke.
Martin
Holy shit.
Romney has said fuckall about issues – at least no specific policy. He spent months and has done nothing but tout his business experience, with hardly a word on his experience as governor. And now he wants Obama to not talk about his business experience at all?
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeak. Holy fuck that’s weak. That’s little girl weak, Mitt.
jl
@Violet: We do not have to eat ‘grim salads’ in California, thank you vary much.
Except if you are into them, they can be found.
TheOtherWA
So many fine writers in the blogosphere, and yet Nooners is still employed. What happened to the meritocracy?
Kidding! There ain’t no meritocracy in DC and likely never will be.
Valdivia
@jl:
:)
and please no need to feel bad about piling on, I think we all feel it’s our duty!
@Martin:
not just weak but typical lying crap. He has been going personally at Obama for 3 years now. Asshole.
Tom65
He steals from the poor
And gives to the rich
Romney Hood
Romney Hood
Stupid git
/Python
Violet
@jl: I encountered quite a few “grim salads” on a recent road trip through various red states. I know from whence I speak.
BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: Not to belabor the point; but there were 4 uni’s: UCLA, UCSB, Stanford & Utah. The first message, as your plaque attests, was between UCLA and Stanford. Back in my long lost undergrad days, being that I was in a strange major that required Econ and Engineering, I spent a great deal of time in Boelter Hall. On the 5th or 6th floor, in the back of the building, they had refridgerator sized peice of electronics in the middle of the room. Sort of a place of honor, I could never figure out what it was. I found out 20 years later that it was the packet switching box.
MikeJ
@Martin: Romney thinks “talking about the issues” means saying “the economy sucks” and nothing else. Sadly for him, people want to know about his plan to fix it, and don’t really buy the idea of giveaways to millionaire tax dodgers.
Which is why not releasing his taxes hits so hard. Tax cuts are his only idea, and only for rich people who already don’t pay their fair share.
Tom65
Oh Holy Fuck:
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/romney-to-obama-please-stop-attacking-my-business-taxes.php?ref=fpa
Ann Coulter is gonna hack up her Adam’s Apple now, for sure.
Hill Dweller
@Martin: This comes a day after Willard’s surrogates called Obama a “wuss”.
Culture of Truth
Harry Potter once saw the Grim in his salad.
jl
@BillinGlendaleCA:
No problem. Thanks. I obviously got the history garbled. My time at UCLA was more recent, so probably everything moved around. But there is a plaque there that gives all the firsts, and the campuses involved, at least the ones UCLA can brag about belonging to. I need to brush up on the history.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@JGabriel:
I’m glad it was noticed. I have been touring the Australian wilderness, eating too much and ignoring politics. It’s been lovely, but Nooners dragged me back in. A food post next I think…
Dennis SGMM
@TheOtherWA:
It was Prop 13’s inclusion of commercial real estate that made for the fucking. At the time that Prop 13 emerged many California home owners were paying insane and rising tax rates set by their county assessors. The framers of Prop 13 were devious enough to include commercial RE which changes hands at a glacial rate compared to homes in much needed relief for home owners.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Punchy:
I love you too, Mr grumpy face…
danimal
@Martin: I’d call him a pu$$y, but that’s just an unfair comparison to cats. What a wimp.
Good gawd, after all the poo the GOP has flung at Obama, you’d think they’d be prepared for some pushback. They really don’t know what they’ve done to our national discourse, and they really don’t like it when Dems fight back forcefully. Get used to it.
Petal to the metal, Obama. Keep the pressure on!
BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: There was an article in the UCLA Alumni magazine back in 1999 for the 30th aniversary.
jl
@Sarah, Proud and Tall:
” I’m stuffed to the gills with deep fried cheesecake with yuzu jam and honey-infused Jack Daniels ”
If any of us are still alive after your recommendations, given I am sure with grandmotherly kindness and love, we will thank you.
Edit: please throw in a non grim salad and some shrimps on the barbie, so we have a fighting chance.
Dennis SGMM
@Tom65:
Sweet Jesus on a skateboard, this guy wants to be the president?
Tehanu
Classic IOKIYAR, innit? It reminds me of a nasty vice principal I had in about 5th grade, who would accuse you of some misdemeanor (such as dropping an eraser) and when you said, “But I didn’t drop it!” would put her face next to yours and scream, “Stop being so defensive!”
LanceThruster
I was almost drinking age when CA Prop 13 was on the ballot. Thought it sounded sensible at the time (was too young/stupid at the time to realize the misdirection/hidden agenda involved). Was Howard Jarvis the sly fox, or a tool?
Did not know what a time bomb it would turn out to be and a giveaway for corporate land barons –
http://www.resetsanfrancisco.org/tax-reform/discussion/system-failure-californias-prop-13
http://www.closetheloophole.com/
DanF
Was Bush Sr. accusing Michael Dukakis of aiding and abetting armed robbery and rape when he ran the Willy Horton ads? Why yes. I think he was.
LanceThruster
@Dennis SGMM:
An essential point to make.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Tom65:
I don’t think Mr. Romney understands how this works. You see, this is a political campaign. It’s a lot like those wonderful boxing matches that were so popular in this country when you were a young lad.
When your opponent throws a hard right jab to the face, the appropriate response is to throw up your guard and counter with a hard shot to the body, if you can. Asking your opponent to please, please stop hitting you in the face is frowned upon. Ask one of those sporting fellows at the country club if you don’t believe me.
gwangung
Psst. Someone should tell the Republicans that the number of people with High Net Worth are growing faster in Europe than in America.
eyelessgame
Why am I reminded of (I think) Adlai Stevenson: “We have reached an agreement with the Republicans. They will stop lying about us, and we will stop telling the truth about them.”
The Other Chuck
“perfidious”? Really?
Does nooners even know what words mean? Maybe she meant “pusillanimous”, hit ‘p’, got an autocomplete of all the other random fifty-cent word-salad Bacos® she throws into all her other columns, saw “perfidious” and decided what the hell, one fancy word’s as good as another.
bemused
@4tehlulz:
That’s astonishing. Mitt is pleading for no talk of business or taxes!!! That stuff is personal! Damn, he’s running scared and I love it.
Ash Can
@kc:
Hell, reading these excerpts, I envisioned her slumped over on her bar stool, her drink in one hand, her head laying on the bar, slurring/sobbing this prose aloud. Poor gal just can’t handle her liquor.
techno
What Nooners may or may not understand about the attack on Romney for being Mitt Gekko is that most voters are actually amazingly pissed off about this issue. Now a LOT of politicians and “deep” thinkers from both parties would prefer that Vulture Capitalism isn’t the issue this year, but they would surprised at how many voters think it should be.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Quincy:
I suspect that it’s just the belief that one would need to be six sheets to the wind to write the shit she writes….
butler
Someone clearly hasn’t read their Randian Bible lately! In Atlas Shrugged, Robin Hood is explicitly condemned by the “heroes” as the root of all evil. He’s literally the worst person in history, according to Rand. He’s the patron saint of looters and moochers.
Of course, most sane non-Randians do like Robin Hood, because he rights injustice by taking from plutocrats and helping the needy. Which is why calling someone “Robin Hood in Reverse” aka “Romney Hood” would be a bad thing for that person.
Or to simplify for Peggy. Good thing “in reverse” = Bad thing!
Uncle Ebeneezer
So…she’s endorsing Lexington Steele?
EriktheRed
@Thymezone:
Liquor.
Uncle Ebeneezer
So…she’s endorsing Lexington Steele?
Ira_NY
Is it true that the Soptic ad has never actually been aired as a paid for commercial?
LanceThruster
@Shawn in ShowMe:
And if one or the other has been bribed/threatened to take a dive so that the boxing match is more akin to a pro-wrestling bout, it’s bad form to actually acknowledge that the fix is in.
Rmoney for all his posturing about his unquestionable bona fides (No, really. Try asking him a question about them!), appears not to be able to find his mom-jeaned ass with both hands.
Turgidson
@danimal:
This is also the same political party that ran an ad suggesting that a rabid pack of Muslim terrorist wolves would eat your children if you voted for John Kerry.
So they can take their false outrage and shove it so far up their asses that they choke on it.
Turgidson
@eyelessgame:
Truman said stuff like that regularly – Adlai may have too. Either way, if Obama was to dignify Romney’s WATB crying with a response, that’s what it should be. “as soon as you stop lying about me, I’ll stop telling the truth about you. Think it over, Willard.”
Matt
Shorter Peggy: “Mittens should start lying about California moar.”
After all, an honest discussion of what’s wrong there would feature the damage that asinine GOP anti-tax silliness has caused.
Sarah, Proud and Tall
@Thymezone:
@EriktheRed:
I didn’t touch her, I swear.
Martin
@Dennis SGMM: Prop 13 would be tolerable if commercial wasn’t included, and if your tax liability was the 5 year running average of the rate and your assessed value. When prices are jumping all over as they do here in CA, that’d smooth the whole thing out, and you’d have several years before you had to fully respond to market appreciation. (Effectively) freezing the assessed value is just idiotic. And it pisses some people off to no end to have to pay more than their neighbor simply because they haven’t lived there as long.
Martin
@Sarah, Proud and Tall: I think the joke is: Liquor? But I don’t even know her!
Citizen_X
Remember back when California hosted universities and labs capable of successfully sending robot probes to other planets? That was a can-do California! How sad a place it is now.
Gee, maybe some of us think that business and taxes are actual “issues.”
Darkrose
@jl:
Your Kink Is Okay; It’s Just Not My Kink.
FFredPalakon
Every time Peggy Noonan starts talking, I expect Groucho Marx to show up.
CW in LA
Peggers doesn’t like spin, does she?
Funny, know when I remember first hearing about spin, and when it quickly became ubiquitous? Remember whose administration was hailed as being masters of spin?
Yep, St. Ronnie’s. And indeed, since Peggers’ job was to put words in the old fart’s mouth so he wouldn’t sound quite so senile, it’s fair to say she was one of the practitioners of this spin industry.
In short, sow the wind, reap the whirlwind, ya sad old sot.
jim filyaw
my reaction on noonan’s suggestion that willard glom on to ‘romneyhood’. wtf! how do you square the idea of someone who robs the rich for the benefit of the poor with that group photo of rich smug pricks holding up dollar bills?
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
By the by Sarah, as somebody that grew up in Spokane and then moved to Melbourne four years ago, you’re my favorite hometown micro-celebrity. Next time I fly home to see my folks I’ll stop by Shady Pines and offer scotch in exchange for an autograph. And yes, I’ll mind the squirrels.