Peggy on Trump, Me on Peggy (No, this isn't a menage a trois story)
I have despised Peggy Noonan for a long time. She is a fanatic who tries to dress in the clothing of morals and reason, but it is really a mask of deceit. After reading her last column, I knew I had two choices: froth at the mouth without ceasing or respond point by point as to why she lacks all moral heft.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-week-they-decided-he-was-crazy-1470354031
After very specific, valid examples of why Donald Trump is temperamentally unsuitable to be President, she continues:
Subject to an unprecedented assault by a sitting president who called him intellectually and characterologically unfit for the presidency, Mr Trump fired back-at Paul Ryan and John McCain.
So--it's an assault when the President of the US agrees with Peggy Noonan. I almost see her point, as agreeing with her usually assaults my intelligence, but I think it's hyperbolic at best to call President Obama's observation about Trump an "assault," especially when Trump has verbally attacked the President for years upon years.
By the way, Peggy--Not really unprecedented, you kooky historian, you.
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-normal-for-a-sitting-President-in-his-final-term-to-comment-as-frequently-on-the-primary-campaign-minutiae-of-the-opposing-party-as-President-Obama-does
But this is where my blood started to percolate:
Mr. Trump spent all his time doing these things instead of doing his job: making the case for his policies, expanding on his stands, and taking the battle to Hillary Clinton.
So, the same woman who claims to want less divisive politics thinks that the nominee's job is "taking the battle to Hillary Clinton." Okay, then. Good luck with that, btw.
She goes on to savage Hillary Clinton, equating her "crazy" to Trump's. Of course, Hillary Clinton is not remotely crazy, but Peggy can't resist a vindictive shiv against any woman, particularly one as accomplished as Hillary Clinton.
But this is what galls me:
He got it all, was the unique outsider who shocked the entire political class with his rise. He should be the happiest man in the world, not besieged and full of complaint. All he had to do was calm down, build bridges, reach out, reassure, be gracious.
As if he hasn't been Donald Trump all along--all he had to do was be a completely different person. But hey--why should the GOP faithful take any blame for voting for him in droves? Peggy doesn't want to criticize them. Because they are the people she has embraced and for whom she has made excuses for decades. And, of course, she has had nothing to do with that, not her, with her slurs about Blacks and Muslims.
In fairness, he could not unite the party. That isn’t possible now-it is a divided party, which is why it had 17 candidates. Mr. Trump won with just less than half the vote, an achievement in a field that big, but also while representing policies that the formal leadership of the party in Washington finds anathema. He was the candidate who would control illegal immigration, who wouldn’t cut entitlements, who opposes an interventionist foreign policy, who thinks our major trade deals have not benefited Americans on the ground. And he won, big time.
Right. She's ignoring that Trump's closest rival was the demented Senator Cruz. And that Paul Ryan--psst, he's the formal leadership of the party in Washington--is eager to control illegal immigration and opposes an interventionist foreign policy, like most Republicans in Congress today.
Her closing:
I end with a new word, at least new to me. A friend called it to my attention. It speaks of the moment we’re in. It is “kakistocracy,” from the Greek. It means government by the worst persons, by the least qualified or most unprincipled.
So--she is trying to fuse Trump to Clinton, because after all, they are equally ill-qualified in Peggy's astigmatic vision. Fact-ignoring isn't solely a Trump purview, because Hillary Clinton is exceedingly well-qualified by any normal metric. As for "unprincipled," Peggy and her conservative comrades have spent decades trying to apply that epithet to Hillary Clinton, yet despite the many investigations (footed by the American people and primarily instigated by the GOP), Hillary has never been found guilty of anything. Fact-checkers show, time and again, that she is more factually accurate than any other candidate. The American people don't trust her, but no one would trust a person as long-vilified and "assaulted" as Secretary Clinton has been. Propaganda works. Companies don't spend millions on advertising because it helps the economy.
What kills me is the explicit wish that Donald Trump would just stay on message and win the Presidency, because he could. Noonan isn't alone; I hear this echoed by GOP operatives day and night. Every thinking political professional knows that Donald Trump is not just unfit for the Presidency, THEY'VE KNOWN IT BEFORE HE EVEN ENTERED THE RACE.
And if, by some odd miracle, they didn't know it before--they've known it for months as he has shown contempt for and ignorance of the Constitution, he has no interest in or knowledge of facts and policies and is too arrogant and self-involved to attempt to learn them, has race and religion-baited like David Duke on steroids, has encouraged violence at his rallies, has shown contempt for women and journalists who happen to be women, who constantly, continually makes claims that are immediately proven to be false, oh, yeah, and attacked a Superior Court Judge born in Indiana for being of Hispanic descent and therefore unfit to judge the case on fraud perpetuated by . . . TRUMP UNIVERSITY.
But if only he would stay on message, Noonan and her ilk sigh, things would be great.
If only he weren't a sociopathic narcissist, he could be President!
To quote Loralei Gilmore, "Oy to the vay."
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-week-they-decided-he-was-crazy-1470354031
After very specific, valid examples of why Donald Trump is temperamentally unsuitable to be President, she continues:
Subject to an unprecedented assault by a sitting president who called him intellectually and characterologically unfit for the presidency, Mr Trump fired back-at Paul Ryan and John McCain.
So--it's an assault when the President of the US agrees with Peggy Noonan. I almost see her point, as agreeing with her usually assaults my intelligence, but I think it's hyperbolic at best to call President Obama's observation about Trump an "assault," especially when Trump has verbally attacked the President for years upon years.
By the way, Peggy--Not really unprecedented, you kooky historian, you.
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-normal-for-a-sitting-President-in-his-final-term-to-comment-as-frequently-on-the-primary-campaign-minutiae-of-the-opposing-party-as-President-Obama-does
But this is where my blood started to percolate:
Mr. Trump spent all his time doing these things instead of doing his job: making the case for his policies, expanding on his stands, and taking the battle to Hillary Clinton.
So, the same woman who claims to want less divisive politics thinks that the nominee's job is "taking the battle to Hillary Clinton." Okay, then. Good luck with that, btw.
She goes on to savage Hillary Clinton, equating her "crazy" to Trump's. Of course, Hillary Clinton is not remotely crazy, but Peggy can't resist a vindictive shiv against any woman, particularly one as accomplished as Hillary Clinton.
But this is what galls me:
He got it all, was the unique outsider who shocked the entire political class with his rise. He should be the happiest man in the world, not besieged and full of complaint. All he had to do was calm down, build bridges, reach out, reassure, be gracious.
As if he hasn't been Donald Trump all along--all he had to do was be a completely different person. But hey--why should the GOP faithful take any blame for voting for him in droves? Peggy doesn't want to criticize them. Because they are the people she has embraced and for whom she has made excuses for decades. And, of course, she has had nothing to do with that, not her, with her slurs about Blacks and Muslims.
In fairness, he could not unite the party. That isn’t possible now-it is a divided party, which is why it had 17 candidates. Mr. Trump won with just less than half the vote, an achievement in a field that big, but also while representing policies that the formal leadership of the party in Washington finds anathema. He was the candidate who would control illegal immigration, who wouldn’t cut entitlements, who opposes an interventionist foreign policy, who thinks our major trade deals have not benefited Americans on the ground. And he won, big time.
Right. She's ignoring that Trump's closest rival was the demented Senator Cruz. And that Paul Ryan--psst, he's the formal leadership of the party in Washington--is eager to control illegal immigration and opposes an interventionist foreign policy, like most Republicans in Congress today.
Her closing:
I end with a new word, at least new to me. A friend called it to my attention. It speaks of the moment we’re in. It is “kakistocracy,” from the Greek. It means government by the worst persons, by the least qualified or most unprincipled.
So--she is trying to fuse Trump to Clinton, because after all, they are equally ill-qualified in Peggy's astigmatic vision. Fact-ignoring isn't solely a Trump purview, because Hillary Clinton is exceedingly well-qualified by any normal metric. As for "unprincipled," Peggy and her conservative comrades have spent decades trying to apply that epithet to Hillary Clinton, yet despite the many investigations (footed by the American people and primarily instigated by the GOP), Hillary has never been found guilty of anything. Fact-checkers show, time and again, that she is more factually accurate than any other candidate. The American people don't trust her, but no one would trust a person as long-vilified and "assaulted" as Secretary Clinton has been. Propaganda works. Companies don't spend millions on advertising because it helps the economy.
What kills me is the explicit wish that Donald Trump would just stay on message and win the Presidency, because he could. Noonan isn't alone; I hear this echoed by GOP operatives day and night. Every thinking political professional knows that Donald Trump is not just unfit for the Presidency, THEY'VE KNOWN IT BEFORE HE EVEN ENTERED THE RACE.
And if, by some odd miracle, they didn't know it before--they've known it for months as he has shown contempt for and ignorance of the Constitution, he has no interest in or knowledge of facts and policies and is too arrogant and self-involved to attempt to learn them, has race and religion-baited like David Duke on steroids, has encouraged violence at his rallies, has shown contempt for women and journalists who happen to be women, who constantly, continually makes claims that are immediately proven to be false, oh, yeah, and attacked a Superior Court Judge born in Indiana for being of Hispanic descent and therefore unfit to judge the case on fraud perpetuated by . . . TRUMP UNIVERSITY.
But if only he would stay on message, Noonan and her ilk sigh, things would be great.
If only he weren't a sociopathic narcissist, he could be President!
To quote Loralei Gilmore, "Oy to the vay."