Peggy Noonan: In the Tank

Sad.

Peg Noonan's great moment occurred when she stole some lines of poetry from a Canadian RAF pilot ("Slipped the surly bonds of Earth....Touched the face of God
") and put them into a speech delivered (very well, indeed) by Ronald Reagan.

Since then, she's authored a few interesting pieces--one recalls her essay on GWB's Second Inaugural which, rightly, questioned the NeoCon Project that Bush embraced.

Now, she's working desperately towards ...what? Book-sales?

Today, on Gov. Palin:

This is not a leader, this is a follower, and she follows what she imagines is the base, which is in fact a vast and broken-hearted thing whose pain she cannot, actually, imagine. She could reinspire and reinspirit; she chooses merely to excite. She doesn't seem to understand the implications of her own thoughts.

Obiter dicta in the same column:

Her supporters accuse her critics of snobbery: Maybe she's not a big "egghead" but she has brilliant instincts and inner toughness. But what instincts? "I'm Joe Six-Pack"? She does not speak seriously but attempts to excite sensation—"palling around with terrorists." If the Ayers case is a serious issue, treat it seriously. She is not as thoughtful or persuasive as Joe the Plumber, who in an extended cable interview Thursday made a better case for the Republican ticket than the Republican ticket has made. In the past two weeks she has spent her time throwing out tinny lines to crowds she doesn't, really, understand

Ms. Noonan doesn't get it, at all.

The Governor did not get where she got (nor maintain her popularity ratings at 80+% in Alaska) by 'exciting sensations,' or 'thinking deeply' about Ayers.

The Governor lives her convictions, Peggy. And her convictions need not be articulated for Flyover-Country Americans, who share a natural, instinctive, and deep revulsion for unapologetic domestic terrorists like Ayers. Nor does she have to yap about her convictions about the value of every single human life. (That's the Trig-thing, Ms. Noonan)

She doesn't have to issue a 15-page, footnoted paper on her convictions.

She personalizes them for us, Ms. Noonan. She lives them.

That's what we call "by example." It's a leadership form which is sorely lacking midst the Intellectualoids and Elite Political Classes.

Perhaps that's why you don't recognize its value--or its appeal.

HT: Jack at Ace