by the Left Coast Rebel

I’ll never forget Peggy Noonan in the WSJ waxing fondly of the campaign and persona of Barack Obama. It flabbergasted me, it flummoxed me. I had spent less than an hour on the net researching ‘O‘ and was quite aware of his radical ties, shady past redistributionist proclivities. She knew these things as well. She was delusional, spacy, ridiculous. It was almost as if she wanted to become an Obamanation speechwriter.That is what she is, after all – a speechwriter. The Empress Hath No Clothing. As it were….

I have never written about her here so I had to get that out of the way. The funny thing is, as of late she has done the proverbial, ‘moistened finger to the air to check the wind of opinion’ and some of her op-eds are actually quite good. Populist angst anyone? If you can get around her,(and her sappy writing-style), I guess. Today’s WSJ piece from here is outstanding, especially the close. Listen:

When I see those in government, both locally and in Washington, spend and tax and come up each day with new ways to spend and tax—health care, cap and trade, etc.—I think: Why aren’t they worried about the impact of what they’re doing? Why do they think America is so strong it can take endless abuse?

I think I know part of the answer. It is that they’ve never seen things go dark. They came of age during the great abundance, circa 1980-2008 (or 1950-2008, take your pick), and they don’t have the habit of worry. They talk about their “concerns”—they’re big on that word. But they’re not really concerned. They think America is the goose that lays the golden egg. Why not? She laid it in their laps. She laid it in grandpa’s lap.

They don’t feel anxious, because they never had anything to be anxious about. They grew up in an America surrounded by phrases—”strongest nation in the world,” “indispensable nation,” “unipolar power,” “highest standard of living”—and are not bright enough, or serious enough, to imagine that they can damage that, hurt it, even fatally.

We are governed at all levels by America’s luckiest children, sons and daughters of the abundance, and they call themselves optimists but they’re not optimists—they’re unimaginative. They don’t have faith, they’ve just never been foreclosed on. They are stupid and they are callous, and they don’t mind it when people become disheartened. They don’t even notice.

And she is right. Right?

Via WSJ
Via Memeorandum