Mock, Paper, Scissors

Anatomy of a Column

eggy Noonan awoke with a start and discovered to her chagrin that she was in a multiplex theater of some sort, about to watch a debased entertainment of some sort, and in her hand was a waxy cup containing an icy drink of some sort.

“Oh no,” Noonan murmured to herself, “I’m not at that dreadful Palin movie again, am I?” A quick look around the nearly empty theater afforded her no succor. When she saw the Palin biopic, the theater was just as empty. She reached into her Channel bag (so supple, so chic) and poured the contents of her First Aid Kit (the clever name she had given her Christofle flask–so comforting, so chic) into the Coke. “Liberate me, Cuba,” she said to no one in particular, as she swigged a giant sip.

The screen flickered to life and the usual previews and admonitions played out, and then someone who bore a remarkable resemblance to Margaret Thatcher appeared on the screen. “Maggie, Maggie,” Noonan muttered. “Where’s Ronnie?,” she sighed.

“The left in America has largely thrown in the towel on Ronald Reagan, but in Britain Thatcher-hatred remains fresh. Why?,” Noonan queried the twelve-foot Thatcher, who for some reason did not reply.

“Because she was a woman,” Noonan replied to the screen. “Because women in politics are always by definition seen as presumptuous: They presume to lead men.”

Margaret Thatcher carried on, and paid no attention to Noonan.

Standing up, rather wobbly, Noonan shrieked at Thatcher, “David Lean wouldn’t be allowed to make movies today, John Ford would be forced to turn John Wayne into a 30-something failure-to-launch hipster whose big moment is missing the toilet in the vomit scene in Hangover Ten!”

The theater attendant escorted Noonan out of the complex.

“Our movie culture has descended into immaturity, deep and inhuman violence, a pervasive and flattened sexuality. It is an embarrassment,” she shouted at the perplexed teen.

“Well,” he replied to Noonan, as he put her into a waiting cab, “It’s not Bedtime for Bonzo.”

Oh Wow! Some highlights of 2011, by Peggy Noonan

Anatomy of a Column

eggy Noonan stepped up to the open mic at The Chelsea Pier to tell her joke, cunning and short and cute. She had just heard it that morning as she was being frisked at her favorite Airport, her favorite because it was named after the greatest president of the last half of the last century, perhaps the greatest president ever, Ronald Wilson Reagan:

“Ten years ago, Steve Jobs was alive, Bob Hope was alive, and Johnny Cash was alive. Now we are out of jobs, out of hope and out of cash.”

Crickets, as they say.

Back at the bar, she asked her favorite barkeep Juan-Carlos what had gone wrong. “The TSA man’s joke was as good a summation of the current moment and the public mood as I’ve heard,” she said thoughtfully as she polished off a refreshing Mai Tai, and proceeded to enjoy the pineapple wedge, so sticky, so sweet. The prize for the best joke tonight is to have your drinks tab on the house. Noonan was determined to win.

“Maybe it was the way he said it?” JC replied. Juan Carlos liked to be called JC. The other, less handsome barkeeps often bitched that “the other JC only thinks he’s the son of God.” Noonan felt uncomfortable addressing him as her Savior, though admittedly she would gladly have communion with him. “Eat for this is my body,” she murmured to herself.

Noonan considered delivery as a possibility as she enjoyed a new Mai Tai.

The television bolted to the ceiling was showing in the ticker that the president’s jobs bill had failed. Noonan smiled slyly. “It’s not that it lost, it’s that nobody noticed,” she said with smug satisfaction taking a long pull on the short straw. “It failed because he was for it.”

Noonan tried that line on JC. “No ma’am, that’s not funny either.” Noonan grimaced.

Noonan remembered that Ronnie had once told her that being President was hard, but comedy was harder. They both laughed over that line. Her hand fluttered up to her ever-present pearls, a present from the great man himself.

“Juan-Carlos, do you know who looks most surprised by the rise of Herman Cain? Herman Cain!”

JC shook his head back at her, and continued to polish empty glasses. Noonan took a thoughtful sip of Mai Tai. “Well, ” she muttered to herself, “Mr. Cain’s strength is not his charm.”

Juan-Carlos was not even pretending to listen any longer. Noonan wondered why she continued to tip him if wasn’t going to listen to her. Then he bent over to pick up something on the floor and she remembered why she tipped him. She dropped another napkin on the floor and sighed.

“Jon Huntsman is not actually a blue-blood, patrician Rockefeller Republican, he just plays one on TV!”

JC brought her a fresh Mai Tai without her even asking. She smiled and gratefully slurped. “Ah, nectar!”

“People say that Chris Christie’s endorsement of Mitt is a huge boon!” JC smiled at her and shook his head “No” again.

“The first joke was the best one, Miss Noonan, give it another try.” He indicated that the open mic line was empty. “Just say it like the man said it to you. It’s in the delivery, I guess.”

Taking a gulp of liquid courage, Noonan waddled to the stage again, and stomped up the rickety steps, her ample calves stretching and contracting on each riser.

“Ten years ago, Steve Jobs be alive, Bob Hope be alive, Johnny Cash be alive. Now we outta jobs, outta hope an’ outta cash.”

This Is No Time for Moderation
America can’t trim and tweak its way back to economic dynamism — by Peggy Noonan

Anatomy of a Column

eggy Noonan lifted her head up off the desk at the Aviary 2, the clever name she gave to her new Penthouse in the sky (so expansive, so chic), paperclips and sticky notes adhered to her face, to see who was calling her at this ungodly hour of the morning. She hadn’t had her elevenses yet, and last night’s pineapple wedge was fetid and smashed into the carpeting around her thick ankles.

The phone displayed a picture of George Will in his navy whites playing with his fleet of remote-controlled boats re-enacting the battle of Trafalgar in his backyard pool.

Picking up the phone, she put on her best professional voice, “Admiral, good to hear from you,” but it came out “Ad marble gooby daf beer doo!”

“Jesus Peggy, I thought I’d get you before you uncorked you lunch.”

“I’m as sober as a judge, George.”

“Bork! Bork! Bork!” they both barked at each other laughing. “What can I do for you, George?”

“Peggy, have you seen Obama’s speech yet? They released it already. He profanes the good name of Ronald Reagan. As the keepers of the Reagan Legacy, we need to act!”

Noonan always giggled at the way Will inserted himself in the sacred trust. Peggy wrote the speeches, Will only played Jimmy Carter in the practice debates. Hardly the same. Her perfectly manicured hands fluttered up to the pearl necklace, a gift from the great man himself, perhaps the greatest president of the last half of the last century, maybe the greatest president ever.

“What do you have in mind, George?”

“We need to co-ordinate our attack in our columns this week!” he blurted. “If we both go after Obama’s speechifying from the position that he is no Reagan–and only we two can do this–we can take him down a notch or two before he hypnotizes the lemmings with his devilish oratorical powers!”

“Bloody hell!” Rupert Murdoch’s voice crackled into the phone, “Peg, that’s a fair dinky bonzer! Will, you dunny rat, fair suck of the sav, eh!”

“What the…” Will shouted into the phone.

“Pay not attention, George, Rupie retains the right to listen in on his employees now and again.” And then added, “Think of it as helping him as he has withdrawals from the recent unpleasantness in the UK.”

“Just looking for good oil, mate.”

Will hung up.

Dodgy bloke, eh Peg? His idea cracked me fat. Anyway, it’s a ripper. Jump on it, and don’t hit the turps.

“Dodgy bloke, eh Peg? His idea cracked me fat. Anyway, it’s a ripper. Jump on it, and don’t hit the turps.” and he crackled off.

***

Noonan was seated at her stool (“Miss Peggy Noonan” was engraved on the brass plaque–her prize for so many wins at Karaoke night) at The Chelsea Pier’s long bar, hitting the turps as it were. A Mai Tai, so refreshing, so sweet was nearby, as was her notebook with scribbles of thoughts, bits of phrases. “Research,” she said to herself, “that’s the key ingredient of my columns and the secret of my cunning success.” She thoughtfully slurped on the pineapple wedge in her glass.

She kept one flinty eye peeled on the TV bolted to the wall above the bar currently playing selected scenes from Will and Grace. A large Callista Gingrich impersonator sat down next to her and yelled at the bartender, “Who does a gal have to blow around here to get a drink?”

Who does a gal have to blow around here to get a drink?

Noonan grimaced at the coarse language, but wrote it down anyway.

“I’m really looking forward to hearing our President speak, aren’t you? Obama always says the right things to reassure us, doesn’t he?”

“We have to “eat our peas.” Noonan replied dryly. She waived a Benjamin over her glass and told the barkeep to give the faux Callista a refresh of whatever it was that she was drinking.

“Well, he excites me anyway,” Callista continued. “His last speech thrilled me, what about you?” she asked sipping on her (free) drink. “Thanks for drink, hon.”

“He was boring in the way that people who are essentially ideological are always boring. They bleed any realness out of their arguments. They are immersed in abstractions that get reduced to platitudes, and so they never seem to be telling it straight. And he was a joy-free zone. No matter how much the president tries to smile, and he has a lovely smile, one is always aware of his grim task: income equality, redistribution, taxes. Come, let us suffer together…”

The faux Callista turned a false eyelash to Noonan. “Say, you’re somebody famous, aren’t you? I’m sure I’ve seen you on TV, right?”

Noonan smiled shyly, extended her hand–momentarily putting down her Mai Tai–and introduced herself, listing all the pundit shows–This Week, Morning Joe, etc.– her news paper column, magazines, her books, and of course mentioned that she was Ronald Reagan’s speechwriter, “Morning in America,” and “Touching the Face of God.” Exhausted, she sat down in the warm glow of her celebrity.

“No, no, that’s not it. I know! You’re Mrs. Brady from the Brady Bunch right? You’re the one who got crabs from boinking some ex-mayor, right?”

The Power of Bad Ideas
What we’ve got here is far worse than a failure to communicate, by Peggy Noonan

But wait! There’s More!

Our good friend and Scissorhead Nonnie9999 from Hysterical Raisins presents us with this candid photo of the master grinding out a column. Thanks, Nonnie!

Anatomy of a Column

eggy Noonan always picks up the phone when Rupert calls.

“G’day, Mate. Look it, Nooners…”

“Rupert, I wish you wouldn’t call me that. It means something here, you know.” Lowering her voice she added, “something unsavory.”

“Don’t I know that,” he laughed into the phone, “I got the whole dossier on you and Jeff Greenfield. Lookit, don’t be a Mickey Mouse on me, I need you to be a good little jillaroo and teach the jumbucks. A few of them got ‘roos loose in the top paddock.”

Peggy sat down hard. Talking to her boss, the head of Newscorp always gave her a headache, and so she reached for her First Aid Kit, the clever name she had given her silver flask from Cristofel (so small, so chic), and pulled a good sip.

“Peggy, thing is some of the blokes don’t know Bourke Street from Christmas, so teach ‘em some journo. Think of it as summer camp.”

“Punditry 101,” Noonan clarified, “you want me to teach them to be pundits?”

“I know you are no conch, Nooner, so I’ll make it worth your while. Open tab at your favorite boozer. A buck’s night, if you like.”

Noonan’s ears pricked up.

***

Peggy Noonan opened a bleary eye and stared at the unwashed face of a child who was just staring at her.

“Consuela! Dammit, bring a pitcher of bloodies. I think I’m hallucinating again, there’s an urchin dans ma boudoir giving me the stink eye!”

Silence. And then she recalled the phone call with Rupert.

(more…)

Anatomy of a Column

eggy Noonan put the handset back in the cradle of her pink princess phone in the boudoir of the Aviary 2 (the upper east-side Penthouse she bought for nearly $2M in the spring, so spacious, so chic). She paused for a moment before reaching for her Mai Tai and sipping thoughtfully, wondered where she was going to meet some ordinary Americans.

Mr. Murdoch’s instructions had been undeniably clear: Noonan was to write about how out of touch the President is with something he called real Americans, as if this creature existed. “Fuck it, Peggy, I’m an Australian billionaire, what the fuck do I know about your fucking little people? Obama went to goddam Indiana, so find some goddam Indians that want to talk about how much they fucking hate him.”

Noonan had tried to explain the dynamics to the Boss: “When you’re president and you go to Indiana, you take the bubble with you. Your bubble meets Indiana; your bubble witnesses Indianans. But you don’t get out of the bubble in Indiana.”

“Do I have to fucking do everything here?” was the reply before he slammed the phone on her. It was now a few Mai Tais later, and Noonan had a plan. “If you can’t take Mohammed to the Mountain, you can take some Mai Tai to Mohammed,” she noted. She was going to go to middle america and find out what they think of the President, as the boss suggested.

If you can’t take Mohammed to the Mountain, you can take some Mai Tai to Mohammed.

Calling her building’s concierge, Noonan arranged to have her driver meet her out in front of her fancy address. Noonan put on some comfortable clothes, nothing too fancy, just a sweater set from Bergdorf’s and a plain Chanel skirt. Because she was in a hurry, she didn’t bother switching bags, and picked up the Hermes, even though it did not match the Prada boots she was wearing. “A fashion don’t,” she giggled to herself.

She rolled down the glass partition. “Take me to middle America, James, and don’t spare the horses,” Noonan chirped pleasantly to the driver.

“Alfonso. My name is Alfonso. Where’s middle America, Ms. Noonan?”

Noonan paused, slurped some refreshment (so soothing, so sweet) from her “First Aid Kit” (the clever name she had given her Christofle flask, so smart, so cunning) and said she thought it was somewhere around Midtown. She locked her door just thinking about it.

Noonan paused to consider The Bubble that the President–that unlikable man, that man sitting in her beloved Ronnie’s chair, his cheap Florsheim shoes on the Great Desk itself–finds himself in. “You cannot shake the bubble. Wherever you go, there it is,” Noonan murmured to herself in the back of the Town Car. Ronald Wilson Reagan, the greatest President of the last half of the last century, maybe the greatest President ever, was a man of the people, “at least until the people tried to kill him, and then he was trapped in the Bubble,” she grimaced, her little bird-like hands fluttered up to the ever-present pearl necklace, a gift from the great man himself.

You cannot shake the bubble. Wherever you go, there it is.

“And the worst part is that the army of staff, security and aides that exists to be a barrier between a president and danger, or a president and inconvenience, winds up being a barrier between a president and reality.” Noonan noted to herself as she watched some bums picking through the garbage near the Park.

“James, stop the car! We found a real American!” She rolled down the window, waived a Benjamin at one of the men and asked him for his name. She didn’t understand his reply, so she called him Willie, which seemed like the name a man of his class might have.

“I think we all agree Mr. Obama badly needs, is an assistant whose sole job it is to explain and interpret the American people to him. Someone to translate the views of the people, and explain how they think. An advocate for the average, a representative for the normal, to the extent America does normal.”

The man starred at Noonan, and started walking towards the Benjamin. Noonan tried to engage him again.

“Do you think the anti-TSA uprising was genuine, Willie? Are you worried about getting groped when you fly?” The man made a rude gesture to Noonan, who screamed at Alfonso to gun it.

“The Special Assistant for Reality
Obama needs to hear a voice from outside the presidential bubble,” by Peggy Noonan

MPS Exclusive!

Our intrepid photojournalist, DCap, caught Noonan trying to infiltrate the workings of the common person, which was her Plan B after Plan A failed.

Anatomy of a Column

eggy Noonan completed watching the “Death Valley Days” marathon on her old black and white Philco television set in the back bedroom at the Aviary 2, the name she christened the new Penthouse (so large, so chic), when she buzzed the concierge.

“A horse, a horse, half my kingdom for a horse,” she whispered into the phone. They quickly made arrangements for a riding lesson in The Park. Watching her beloved Ronnie in the greatest western television series ever inspired Noonan to give horseback riding another try, her previous attempt had ended in failure at the Reagan Ranch in the hills above Santa Barbara, and of course 30 years of mocking from her nemesis, Nancy Reagan.

Noonan shuddered thinking about Nancy’s scratchy voice bellowing over the hills, “Hey Ronnie look! A horse with two asses!”

“This time,” Noonan sniffed, “things will be different.”

Just like for the GOP, she mused. “Whatever word means the opposite of snakebit, that is what the Republican Party is right now.” Noonan took a thoughtful sip of her Mai Tai as she changed into her riding togs, red coat, and black boots, funny cap, and just as quickly changed her mind. “Western saddle, that’s what Ronnie would want.”

Changing into denim jeans, and a plaid flannel blouse, Noonan mused further on the luck of the GOP. “One reason they are feeling hope is that they have received two big and unexpected gifts from President Obama,” she grinned to herself, “The first, of course, was his political implosion—his quick descent and speedy fall into unpopularity, which shaped the outcome of the 2010 elections.” She cursed under her breath while struggling with the skinny jeans that seemed to stop at her ample calves. “Fuckin’ cleaners must have shrunk them,” she snarled as she took a deep quaff of Mai Tai, and tried to peel off the jeans. She worried that she might look like a turtle that rolled onto its back as she struggled to pull them off, writhing on the floor.

“Obama’s second gift, of course, is how he reacted to the election’s outcome in a way that suggested he’s still in his own world, still seeing a reality no one else is seeing,” Noonan huffed, out of breath. Noonan giggled at the thought of the very smart and unlikable man sitting at her beloved Ronnie’s desk not being aware he was not political enough, too serious, too substantive, and no one could see the size of his achievements.

Grimacing, Noonan thought about how the media was going to treat the incoming GOP freshman class, “The mainstream media this January will be looking for the nuts,” she thought as she slurped the pineapple wedge. She had seen this before when the new Republican Congress came in in 1994. The spirited Helen Chenoweth, freshman from Idaho, talked a little too much about “black helicopters.” She was portrayed as paranoid and eccentric. Bob Livingston, from New Orleans, went to his first meeting of the Appropriations Committee wielding a machete. The new speaker, Newt Gingrich, was full of pronouncements and provocations; he was a one-man drama machine.

***

Iced to the eyebrows, Noonan poured herself out of the cab at the stables in The Park and asked the driver to stick around for the return trip home.

“Howdy, Ma’am. What do you want to do today,” the friendly instructor asked her.

“As Mrs. Patrick Campbell once said, I don’t really care what people do as long as they don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses,” Noonan said as she slipped off her coat, and Lady Godiva-like, mounted her steed.

Obama’s Gifts to the GOP, by Peggy Noonan

World Exclusive Photos!

Our intrepid photojournalist, DistributorcapNYC was there!

Today, Nooner gives us a a sober look at the Teabaggers, and she rightfully sees that they are an effort to rehabilitate the Republicans. This much of her thesis is true.

Chimpy McStagger really did screw the pooch and destroyed the brand. At the end of his term the GOP was tattered and torn, on its knees and wondering what happened. They couldn’t get a war hero elected to the oval office, and they foisted a world-class grifter on the public stage. There was not a single thing that they could point to for their decade-long, power-drunk reign of terror to be proud of. They had bankrupted the country, lost two wars, and created a monster of unbridled executive power and overreach.

The Teabaggers changed that, according to Peggers.

Suddenly the GOP had new purpose and meaning, the Teabaggers breathed life into the party, and they shook off the remaining spiderwebs from Blam-blam and Chimpy’s Great Adventure and started fresh, new-born, as it were.

And so far as it goes, I can agree with Peggington. Then, she takes a big gulp from her Mai Tai, and the handfuls of Xanax, and suddenly she goes down the rabbit hole (so cunning, so chic) into her strange and dipsomaniacal world where truth and reality have no bearing:

In a practical sense, the tea party saved the Republican Party in this cycle by not going third-party. It could have. The broadly based, locally autonomous movement seems to have made a rolling decision, group by group, to take part in Republican primaries and back Republican hopefuls. (According to the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, four million more Republicans voted in primaries this year than Democrats, the GOP’s highest such turnout since 1970. I wonder who those people were?)

Because of this, because they did not go third-party, Nov. 2 is not going to be a disaster for the Republicans, but a triumph.

Well, where to start… even though the Pegster lives in her little fantasy world, even with a vestigial sense of being a journalist, she must know that the Teabaggers are anything but a genuine movement, autonomous or otherwise. There is a Dick Army, Newt Gingrich, Karl Rove, there is a host of the GOP establishment that is directing and pulling strings, making their little puppet-monster dance. She knows it, but she also knows that if she wants to remain on the cocktail party circuit in the Village (and Nooner does, oh, she really does), she has to get on board, too.

And so the rest of her column is some sort of sing-along, off-key hymn praising the Teabaggers, something that only just a few months ago Peggers wouldn’t do.

But here’s a quick give away. Read the following paragraph from her essay:

The first: the tea party is not a “threat” to the Republican Party, the tea party saved the Republican Party. In a broad sense, the tea party rescued it from being the fat, unhappy, querulous creature it had become, a party that didn’t remember anymore why it existed, or what its historical purpose was. The tea party, with its energy and earnestness, restored the GOP to itself.

Now, substitute Noonan for the GOP, and it all becomes clear:

The first: the tea party is not a “threat” to Peggy Noonan, the tea party saved Peggy Noonan. In a broad sense, the tea party rescued Noonan from being the fat, unhappy, querulous creature she had become, someone who didn’t remember anymore why she existed, or what her historical purpose was. The tea party, with its energy and earnestness, restored Noonan to herself.

And that’s all you need to know about today’s screed from Mai Tai-ville.

Anatomy of a Column

eggy Noonan adjusted her clever disguise (Over-sized Chanel sunglasses–Lunettes en Française–and Gautier silk scarf), and made her stealth entrance into the Atlantic City Casino. Glancing about to see if the paparazzi had spotted her, she made her way to the cashier to buy some tokens for the slot machines.

Noonan had seen the incessant advertisements on the television for the state lotteries, and she was going under cover to do some old-fashioned journalism about gambling, to understand the appeal.

A brief discussion with the concierge revealed that Casinos and gambling were no longer thought of as a sin as before. Give government the right to reap revenues from the public desire to gamble, and you’ll soon have government doing something your humble local bookie never had the temerity to try: convince the people that gambling is a moral good. “This,” sniffed Noonan, cannot be true.”

Noonan looked about the room at the silver-haired ladies starring slatternly into the displays from the slot machines. “I’ll start over there,” she thought, and waddled over to the bank of machines, inserted a token, and pulled the lever. The machine whirred, and blinked, flashed some lights, and a siren went off as a series of fruit displayed and suddenly the infernal machine belched out tokens, a shower of them, all different colors into her bucket. Noonan felt the color leave her face, and seemed a little dizzy for a moment. The older ladies looked at her with jealousy and rage, and Noonan stuck her tongue out at them.

And so the afternoon went, drop a token in the slot, pull a lever, and the merry tinkle of tokens filling into her bucket. Now and then a waitress showed up with a Mai Tai, on the house. “What a wonderful business model,” Noonan grinned to herself, “free drinks just for playing a game. Rather like how the Democrats keep the poor enslaved,” she grimaced.

Noonan could not help but think of Greece, corrupt and corrupting state. “Over decades the Greeks turned their government into a piñata stuffed with fantastic sums and gave as many citizens as possible a whack at it,” she sniffed to herself as she pulled the lever.

A bit bored, and iced to the eyebrows from all the free Mai Tais, Noonan glided rather majestically to the roulette table, where she spotted her old friend, Bill Bennet, the Secretary of Education under Ronald Wilson Reagan, the greatest president of the last half of the last century, maybe the greatest president ever. She sat next to him.

“Peggy, it’s good to see you. I’m here, um, doing research,” he mumbled under his breath. “Don’t tell Elayne you saw me here.”

“Me too, Bill,” Noonan replied as she showed him the bucket of tokens she had won.

Noonan spotted that no bets were on the red 80 (her lucky number, the year that Ronnie became president, so handsome, so strong), and put the bucket on it.

The croupier asked her the value of the bet, to ensure that the house could cover it, if she should win.

“Americans weren’t born to be accountants. It’s not in our DNA! We’re supposed to be building the Empire State Building,” she replied, dryly. Another Mai Tai arrived, like magic.

“Come to Momma, you sonofabitch,” Noonan squealed as the wheel spun and the ball bounced about.

It was now Morning in Atlantic City, and Noonan was seeing a thousand points of light as she was escorted out of the Casino, penniless, paparazzi snapping away.

Revolt of the Accountants, by Peggy Noonan

Bonus Tracks!

The amazing DCap was there, and managed to get some pictures of Noonan’s night of debouchery!

Anatomy of a Column

eggy Noonan walked off the stage at The Chelsea Piers (her favorite new watering hole) to thunderous applause after she finished singing the venerable smash hit of the Reagan era, Xanadu. She even wore her roller skates on stage, and did a little pirouette as her big finish. “This time, I will beat Nancy Reagan,” she thought to herself, triumphantly. Her nemesis, a Nancy Reagan impersonator — “complete with five-o’clock shadow, just like the real one” — would take to the Karaoke stage later in the program, so there was time to sit down and enjoy some refreshment that an admirer had sent to her.

“Ah, nectar!” she said as she took the first sip of the Mai Tai, so sweet, so refreshing, like a little vacation in your mouth.

“Unlike the vacation that The President is taking in Martha’s Vineyard,” she grimaced to herself. All presidents take vacations, and all are criticized for it, the wrong place, the wrong time. She noted to herself that Bill Clinton also went to the Vineyard, “Clinton even had it poll-tested before he went,” she smirked.

“But we knew Clinton, we got him: Southern Governor. Good old boy, drawlin’, flirtin’ bad boy. And we got Dubya, Texan, black sheep from a good family. And Ronald Wilson Reagan, we got Ronnie, Midwesterner, serious, humorous, patriotic, the greatest president of the last half of the last century, maybe the greatest president ever.” Her little bird-like hands fluttered up to the ever-present pearl necklace, a gift from the great man himself.

“But,” she sighed, “we don’t get this man, this horrible little man, this wretched , sleek, cerebral, detached academic from Chicago by way of Hawaii and Indonesia. We don’t know that guy.” Noonan took a thoughtful sip of the Mai Tai, and the waiter brought her a refill, another gift from the admirer. Noonan smiled shyly and accepted the fresh drink.

“Obama doesn’t fit any categories, people think he is a Muslim, and this leads to criticism of his leadership. We want him to be a guy we know, be someone we get,” she thought. “And,” she sneered, “he doesn’t get us. He is focused on what individually interests him. He relies most on his own thinking. He focused on health care, seeing the higher logic. The people focused on something else.”

Noonan noted dryly that the Nancy Reagan impersonator was singing Afternoon Delight off-key, and realized that victory was in her grasp. “Take THAT, Nancy,” she muttered as she gulped down the rest of the Mai Tai.

The judges always ask the contestants to stand and they listen to the applause from the audience to judge who wins, and so when her name was called, Noonan dutifully stood up, the roller skates slid out from under her and she crashed into a nearby table before skidding to a stop on her ample derrière and passed out.

The Nancy Reagan impersonator took the prize from the judges hands, and the waiter brought her the bill for the Mai Tais. “I get you, Noonan. I completely get you.”

We Just Don’t Understand, by Peggy Noonan

UPDATE: DistributorCap has discovered an important video of an earlier performance of Peggington Noonington’s:

Anatomy of a Column

eggy Noonan had just finished being inappropriately patted down and walked through the X-ray thing that seems to function as a mammogram, with her arms up straight, at Reagan National airport.

“I didn’t really want a freelance mammogram, and I’m not sure it’s right that you give me one,” she whispered to the TSA prison-matron. They took her First Aid Kit away (the amusing name she had given her hip flask, Christofle, so chic, so elegant) telling her it was too big, and held more than was allowed by law. She was brusquely told to sit down “over there.”

Noonan padded over to a bank of chairs in her stocking feet and proceeded to slip on her well-worn Weejan loafers. It was yet another grim trip into the gaping maw that had become airline travel. “Some things should not be commodities,” she noted. Sitting next to her was an elderly gentleman wearing a full Cleveland: plaid polyester pants, white belt and shoes, and a short-sleeved blouse of dubious quality and heritage.

Her little bird-like hands fluttered up to her ever present pearl necklace (so classic, so comforting in a rough storm of life) that the greatest president of the last half of the last century, maybe the greatest president ever, Ronald Wilson Reagan, had given to her.

Cleveland leered at her, his rheumy blue eyes dully sparkling, “What’cha in for, sweetheart?” He looked amused as if he might put one of his knobby hands on her knee.

“I have to tell you that it’s not polite to block my path and attempt to force a conversation.”

After the requisite lecture about bringing on liquids, the TSA agent told her she could empty the flask and then bring it on board. They were not amused when she asked for ice.

“No one has any sense of proportion anymore, now that we are a service economy, forced to interact with each other, every day, in person and by phone and email. And it makes us all a little mad.”

She stumbled onto the plane, so garish and full of the unwashed masses yearning to breath free, and struggled to get her Louis Vuitton into the overhead bin. The nice young steward came over to help her. She handed him her bag, sat down in her seat and fiddled with the air nozzle.

“I’m sorry, lady, I’m checking this bag in. It’s too big and too heavy to safely stow overhead.”

“I’m not paying you to be rude to me,” she snapped back, reading the card about what to do in an emergency, and noting the location of the evacuation slides.

We Pay Them to be Rude to Us, by Peggy Noonan

UPDATE: – We have photographic proof that Peggington Noonington was on that flight:

All the illustrations are courtesy of DistributorCapNY – my very good friend and talented artist!

UPDATE 2: Our good friend and Scissorhead, LibHomo, has an excellent reaction to Nooner’s usual dithering.

Anatomy of a Column

eggy Noonan was at peace with the floor — so flat, so cool– when the barkeep at The Chelsea Piers, — her new favorite spot where she once saw a 6-foot Nancy Reagan impersonator with a 5 o’clock shadow, “just like the real thing,” she mused– shouted out last call.

She waived a Benjamin and a fresh Mai Tai made its appearance, so cool, so sweet, so refreshing on these hot days and nights.

“Oh, crap, last call” she thought, “I was just getting comfortable.”

Noonan had been commiserating that after buying the new Penthouse that she had to make some budget changes to the staff, and it had been tough to put her driver, Pedro, on reduced hours. “Miss Noonan,” Pedro had said to her, “what about my children? I want them to have a better life than me.” The strain of it had forced her to seek refuge at the Piers, as she liked to call it. She wasn’t even sure if Pedro was still waiting for her outside.

“And that,” grimaced Noonan, was the crux of the matter. “The biggest political change in my lifetime is that Americans no longer assume that their children will have it better than they did. This is a huge break with the past, with assumptions and traditions that shaped us.”

She took a thoughtful sip, “Ronnie would never let pessimism like this take over the country, he’d cut some taxes, or deregulate something, perhaps a bank, and everything would be better. Ronald Wilson Reagan, the greatest president of the last half of the last century, maybe the greatest president ever, was always sunny and cheerful. Just being around him turned frowns upside down.

“It was always Morning in America when you have a can-do President,” Noonan whispered to the floor.

Unlike that dreadful man now sitting at Ronnie’s desk, that unlikable, professorial man, so cool and unfeeling, detached. Does he have a sense of what people are feeling deep down?

Noonan wasn’t sure of what she was feeling deep down, mostly numb, when she was suddenly aware of two size 14 red pumps on either side of her, and a general tugging as the gigantic Barbara Bush impersonator gave her the deadman’s lift to her own wobbly feet.

“Are you all right, Peggy,” a deep voice boomed at her. “It’s time to leave.”

“Drudge says that Americans in London are trading in their passports over tax issues and Newsweek sold for $1.”

“I’ll see if Pedro can get you home.”

America Is at Risk of Boiling Over
And out-of-touch leaders don’t see the need to cool things off. — by Peggy Noonan.

Anatomy of a Column

eggy Noonan was waiting in the hospital to visit Dick Cheney, watching all the interesting people rushing past, receptionists filing papers, and deliveries of flowers and reports. It was a maelström of activity. She kicked off her well-worn loafers and wiggled her toes in the mechanically-cooled air. Bliss!

Richard Cheney–who didn’t like being a Richard, he preferred being a Dick–had gone in for heart surgery, again, and again, she was waiting to visit her old friend. They had served together in the Bush 1 White House, and had bonded over speeches and happy hours. “When he’s gone, there will never be another Dick like him,” she thought.

Noonan noted that Dick was the last of his kind, though not the last of his generation. “A serious man, a man who thinks deep thoughts, a battered veteran of life who’s absorbed its facts and lived to tell the tale,” she said to herself.

Looking about, to see if she was being watched, she pulled out of her purse (Dooney & Burke, so cunning, so chic) her First Aid Kit, the amusing name she had given to her hip flask, and took a quick swig.

“We live in a nation—a world—badly in need of adult supervision,” she mused as she put away the flask, “And we are not going to get it from that horrible man who is sitting in Ronnie’s chair,” she grimaced.

“The president is young, too young, at 48. Clinton was immature, too at 46. Kennedy was 43. There ought to be a law. Then again, George W. Bush was 54, and he was hardly mature either.” She reached for the First Aid Kit again.

When the attendant told her that Cheney was able to see her, she wobbled into the elevator and up to his room. The machines, so efficient, so cold and efficient, were clicking and buzzing. One machine made an interesting beep noise now and again and something else made a sucking noise, like the one Ross Perot said was taking Middle America’s jobs away. There was her friend, her Dick, sitting up in bed looking bright-eyed and none the worse for his surgery.

“Good to see you Peggy,” he growled at her.

“Good to see you, too,” she hissed back. They both laughed at the insider joke of their public images.

The beeping machine went silent, and she saw the line go flat. “Should I call the nurse, Dick?” Her little bird-like hands fluttered up to her ever-present pearls, a gift from Ronald Wilson Reagan, the greatest president of the last half of the last century, maybe the greatest president ever.

“Naw, I don’t have a pulse anymore. I don’t know why they have me hooked up to that fucking machine. Some fucker is making a fucking buck off of that. Good thing the US of A is paying for this, I sure as hell won’t!” he roared with laughter, and Noonan joined him.

Noonan glared at Cheney, and said, “A-hem…” and suddenly he made a kind gesture to his old friend.

“Where are my manners, Peggy?,” he said as he offered his pill tray to her.

Youth Has Outlived Its Usefulness — by Peggy Noonan

(Hello Crooks, Hi Liars! Welcome to MPS, it is good to have you with us.)

Anatomy of a Column

eggy Noonan was at the Sports Center at Chelsea Piers, so close and yet so far from her new favorite watering hole where she had been recently 86′ed while singing “Afternoon Delight” on the Karaoke. Noonan was working up a sweat on the recumbent bike, and working off a three-alarm Mai Tai hangover, and watching the television set, and peddling, peddling. All around her were pretty young things, so uncreased, so untried, peddling and playing with iPods and phones and whatnot. Noonan looked up at the TV.

“The new Shamwow guy is not as good as the old Shamwow guy,” she mused. “Just like so much else in our society today.” The bike switched gears or intensity on the fat burning program all on its own. Noonan stared at her wide-ish feet and ample calves spinning, spinning, like the lilies of the field in that bible verse, except they were toiling.

“Unlike the current President,” Noonan grimaced. That man, that unlikable, yet well-spoken man, who had united a fractured Republican party: Social conservatives hated the social provisions, liberty-minded conservatives the state control, economic conservatives the spending. “Now they have something that they can fight together.”

“The last time the Republicans were so united was during Ronald Wilson Reagan — the greatest president of the last half of the last century, maybe the greatest president ever — administration.” Yes, the irony was that this time the GOP wasn’t fighting for something, they were fighting against something.

Of course, the Republicans must show that they are worthy of the electoral bounty coming their way. Are they ready to govern, or just to win?

“Whatevs,” Noonan giggled to herself.

The people are fed up with being told what they must do, unstoppable oil gushers, joblessness, and the Democrats were fiddling with healthcare and forcing the nannystate on them. “People want control of their destiny.”

The exercise bike shifted on its own and went up a steep incline. Her little bird-like hands touched the display which told her she had gone a mile. “Fucker,” she muttered to herself, “But I suppose it is for my own good.”

The Town Hall Revolt, One Year Later — by Peggy Noonan

Anatomy of a Column

eggy Noonan woke up with a start. She was on her patio, face down in a potted geranium, looking eye to eye with a bug, and when she lifted her head, she had an assortment of garni in her hair, and potting soil on her face. It was not Morning in America, but it might be time for elevenses, and she was thirsty. The sky looked foreboding, like a summer storm was on the way.

Noonan stumbled over the scattered Mai Tai glasses and climbed under the ladder that the window washers had left when she ordered them to go home for the day. Bumping the ladder, the bucket of soapy grey waited dumped on her head. Cursing, she poured herself into The Aviary 2 (her new penthouse on the Upper East Side, so large, so chic, so expensive), and made her way to the bathroom.

After a brief vomit (so 80s, but she was determined to keep her girlish figure), she looked at herself in the mirror and was horrified by the thing she saw. She needed a drink to steady her nerves.

Stumbling into the pantry, a small, dark animal hissed and ran out of the room tripping her. “When did I get a cat?,” was quickly followed by, “Where did I leave the rum?” There would be time to learn about the cat, perhaps later. Ice cubes and a pineapple wedge were the essential things now. “One needs priorities and a plan,” she mused.

Unlike that man, that grim, professorial man who now occupies the oval office, a man who seemed to be letting oil gush onto America’s shores, without stopping, without a plan. Yes, Obama had consulted his experts, his credentialed fellow professors and fellow Nobel Laureates, but he had not consulted people who actually do things. “He looks bewildered all the time,” she said to herself as she took a swig from her glass, “like he does not know what to do when confronted with the unexpected. His job is to always have a plan, and he has nothing,” Noonan thought as she smacked her lips and poured another Mai Tai, so refreshing, so cool.

Noonan searched for the laptop. “Murdoch is a slave driver,” she mumbled to herself. She knew that she had about an hour to meet her deadline, and no thesis, nothing to say, and nothing in play. Still, a deadline is a deadline.

The first crack of thunder drew her to the sliding doors to the patio, where she saw the laptop on the patio table, the screensaver of a grinning Ronald Wilson Reagan, the greatest president of the last half of the last century, maybe the greatest president ever, his eyes twinkling as the first drops of rain came down.

Noonan ran to the hall closet and grabbed her umbrella and made a dash to the door, clicking the fast-release button, which shot open the golf-sized umbrella in the middle of her living room. Noonan charged towards the sliding door anyway, missed, hit the wall, and knocked off a huge Venetian mirror that shattered on the floor. She ditched the umbrella, leaped over the thousand shards of light glittering on the floor to rescue the laptop, to rescue Ronnie.

Triumphant, she returned to the welcome embrace of the Aviary, set the machine down on the desk and began to type.

A Snakebit President, by Peggy Noonan

…I thought K-Lo said that Noonington was sober.

Anatomy of a Column

eggy Noonan was comfortably settled into the cab and heading uptown to pick up her essential supplies for the long holiday weekend, now that the Great Recession is over. Pulling in front of Park Avenue Liquor, Noonan told the cabbie to wait for her while she did her shopping.

“Wait for you? Lady, no one leaves the meter running during the Depression. It’s your dime.”

Noonan’s entrance into the store was blocked by the automatic door. It wouldn’t open. She stood in front of the door and took a tentative step, and nothing happened.

“Just like our President’s response to the disaster in the gulf,” she though grimly. “Things do not work the way you expect them to work, the way that they should work, the way that they must work.” Her little bird-like hand fluttered up to her ever-present pearls.

“The problem,” she mused, “is that he is detached, aloof, remote, cerebral. Ronnie would have had this under control within hours.” Ronald Wilson Reagan, the greatest president of the last half of the last century, perhaps the greatest president ever, would have never let a natural disaster — even a man-made natural disaster — ever get the better of him. She could picture him starring down the CEO of BP, “Mr. Hayward, plug-up that leak!” She felt like swooning, just thinking of it.

But now it was a month later, “oil, black gold, Texas tea, just washing up on shore, unused, unusable, wasted, wasted, so much waste,” she grimaced. She tried pushing on the door. It did not give.

“Just like his own party,” Noonan thought. “Half of them voted for Hillary and never liked him. James Carville doesn’t like him, there’s that, too.” She started hopping up and down on the mat in front of the door, supposing that it was a weight-related mechanism and that she was too petite to trigger the door. When the door did not open, she started doing jumping jacks, “Maybe it was a motion sensor that was calibrated for a taller person,” she pondered as she leapt up again and again.

A small group of street people were gathering about to watch the well-dressed lady have some sort of fit in front of the liquor store. One man dressed in rags asked her if he could help. He’d seen bad cases of DTs before, but nothing like this.

“Yes,” Noonan growled in frustration, a light perspiration breaking on her forehead from all the strenuous exercise, “do you think the President is losing support because he is doing nothing about illegal immigration? Why is he dithering when so many are suffering from unwashed hoards pouring over the border?,” she asked the jobless man. He backed away slowly.

She felt a tap on her shoulder, turned to see the cabbie. “Lady, the entrance is over here, you’ve been hopping in front of the exit.”

He Was Supposed to Be Competent — by Peggy Noonan

Wonkette has a post up with Dame Peggington Noonington drinking Fox’s Major Garrett under the table, and then who knows what happened?! He has pictures, and if her damn bag wasn’t in the way, you could see the Mai Tai.

…keeps her smile so white.

Dear Mr. Murdoch,

I just wanted you to know that Peggy Noonan is my favorite part of The Wall Street Journal.

Regards,

Buster

Anatomy of a Column

eggy Noonan was suddenly aware that she was aboard an Alien spaceship, confused, and washed with bright lights, horrible unflattering lights, and strange beings peering at her, Aliens, tall willowy beings, stared at her, staring with their huge, cruel, empty and glittery eyes.

Noonan had been enjoying some refreshments (so cool, so sweet) at her new favorite bar at the Chelsea Pier. She had been preparing to sing her rendition of Fever at the Karaoke and that was the last thing she remembered when the bright lights and strange figures appeared.

“So, it’s come to this,” she thought, “Alien abduction.” She tried to reach for her ever-present pearls, and to her horror found that in her fear that her arms would not move, not even to bring the Mai Tai to her chapped and thirsty lips. Shuddering, she thought “I’m disconnected from my reality, my world, my body.”

“Just like the president,” she grimaced to herself.

The new, young president, so untried, so cool, so cerebral, so disconnected from what the people want. It seemed peculiar, Noonan thought, how well his team connected with the mood of the people in 2008, and ever since then, nothing. Less than nothing. Bupkiss.

“Obama’s healthcare proposal is as popular as George W Bush,” Noonan noted with grim satisfaction. He is only in his first year, his numbers are falling, and he’s done nothing, she noted. “There’s something tired in all this disconnect, something old-fashioned, something sclerotic and 1970′s about it,” she thought.

Maybe the new decade is the 1970s again, recession, inflation, dissatisfaction, all of it lead to the glory that was the ’80s and Ronnie. “Maybe a new leader will emerge from the fog, maybe that Scott Brown in Massachusetts, so handsome, so smart…” she thought.

Noonan longed for the strong leadership of Ronald Wilson Reagan, the greatest president of the last half of the last century, maybe the greatest president ever. Obama does not listen to what the people want. “Ronnie would listen to what the people wanted from a leader and he would give it to them: tax cuts.”

One of the tall willowy Aliens approached her, with some sort of shining tool, a weapon perhaps, or maybe it is one of the infamous probes she had heard about. “Well, this is it,” she sobbed to herself, and she braced herself to be violated in the vilest way, even more vile than Jeff Greenfield, so long ago and far away. The lights suddenly went bright on her. She felt faint.

“Ladies and Gentlemen of the Chelsea Pier, Miss Peggy Noonan is Miss Peggy Lee!” and the 6-foot tall Nancy Reagan drag queen handed the mic over as the finger snapping opening for Fever began.

Image Courtesy of the Amazing DistributorCapNY

Slug the Obama Story ‘Disconnect’ — by Peggy Noonan

…and does not liketh what she sees.

“Forsooth,” sayeth Dame Noonington, “the networks let on a man light in the loafers,” taking a mighty quaff from her tankard of Mai Tai. “Can the coarsening of the culture be far behind?”

“Nay, nay, nay!” sayeth Dame Noonington who shaketh her heavy head, “this cannot passeth,” as she quaffed again mightily from the tankard and belched, “I declareth no!”

And then Dame Noonington passeth out and dreamed sweet dreams of Saint Ronnie.

(There might be more kids, Nooner’s column is a real cultural warrior bomb.)

That swine Graves comments! Get thee anon!

Anatomy of a Column

eggy Noonan was sitting on one of the cunning bar stools down at the Chelsea Piers where she had once been, ingloriously, eighty-sixed from the stage by a six-foot Nancy Reagan impersonator with a 5-o’clock shadow (“just like the real Nancy,” Noonan snickered to herself) just as she was getting to the crescendo of Memories.

Noonan was starring into her rapidly diminishing Mai Tai, so cooling, so sweet, and wondered if Grenadine comes from Granada, that beleaguered land of off-shore unaccredited medical schools that Ronald Wilson Reagan, the greatest president of the last half of the last century, maybe the greatest president ever, liberated from the icy grip of communism in 1983.

“Hudson Austin, tear down that curfew,” Noonan had suggested Ronnie say when he declared war on Grenada.

“Ronnie was decisive in his decision, and effective in his execution,” murmured Noonan to her pineapple wedge, “unlike the current president, the usurper to Ronnie’s desk, that likable man who speaks so well and says nothing, the man who dithers and dawdles.” She gave the barkeep the universal signal for another round, a Jackson in her empty glass. Absent mindedly, her free bird-like hand fluttered up to her ever-present pearls.

Ronnie was a master strategist, Noonan concluded. He did not go into Granada and face down those other Caribbean nations without ensuring that his GOP base would support the drastic action. “And that,” Noonan declared, “is the difference.” But Obama isn’t really declaring war on Afghanistan, Noonan continued, but he is redeclaring it, indecisive and uninspiring, it is little wonder that the public has yawned and moved on.

Now, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, George W. Bush—when they addressed the nation about the wars they led, they received immediate support.

Looking at the TV, Noonan noted that the cadets of West Point, so brave and handsome, so handsome and brave, so sophisticated and sober, the young men and women who have seen their peers ship away, sometimes to never be seen again, or worse, to be seen again, wounded. To address these young people, some of whom may die executing your plan, well, they are not your backdrop, Mr. Obama. Even when George W. Bush used them as a backdrop, he at least gave them Republican tear-jerking bellicosity.

“I, I -ay, yiyiyi,” murmured Noonan, “you would think by now someone would have told Obama the rule of not calling attention to himself.”

Noonan started counting the number of times Obama said “I”, and quickly ran out of fingers. Balancing precariously on the cunning bar stool, Noonan crossed her legs, ample calves compressed, she removed one shoe, a comfortable well-worn loafer, unlike the mortal sin Mika Brzezinski wore on television, and continued counting all the times Obama said, “I”.

“Fifteen!” she said aloud, shocked.

“Yes, Ma’am,” the barkeep replied. “Mai Tais are a lot of work, rum, and pineapple. I’ll keep the change, too.”

Obama Redeclares War — by Peggy Noonan

Bonus!! I’ve been playing with the movie software, again…

You’ve loaded up your iPhone with Yelp for restaurants and Shazam for music. Now get ready to download a dose of “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” from a popular political figure of the past: the Gipper.

Kill me now, please…

Yup, this is the latest from the Children’s Anthology of Fart Jokes Ronald Reagan Library, where they are hoping to indoctrinate a new generation of the Youngs to the hipness that is RR, “the greatest president of the last half of the last century, maybe the greatest president ever^TM.”

She dedicated a Peggington Noonington post to me.

I suggested the other night that I should put together my collected works of The Further Adventures of Peggy Noonan, and call it Cocktails with Peggy Noonan, and well, the rest is now history.

Anatomy of a Column

eggy Noonan was cocooned in the warm and welcoming arms of her Town Car on her way back from Park Avenue Liquor (where she had just bought the makings for her traditional Thanksgiving old-time Mailbu Baked Apple — coconut rum, cranberry juice, apple juice, and dried apple rings as a garnish). Noonan’s driver lurched the car forward in the terrible afternoon traffic. Noonan took a swig from her dainty flask that she affectionately called her First Aid Kit. “You never know when you might have an emergency,” she giggled to herself.

Last Thanksgiving, it looked as if a hard year was coming, and it was and it did. The holiday was shadowed by a sense of economic foreboding—Wall Street failing, companies falling and layoffs coming. It isn’t over—no one thinks it’s over. But the mood of this Thanksgiving looks to be different. “Kinder, gentler,” mused Noonan.

It had been like this once before, after the transformative presidency of Ronald Wilson Reagan, the greatest president of the last half of the last century, maybe the greatest president ever, and the tragic and inept presidency of the first Bush had started and nearly destroyed Ronnie’s legacy. It was like all the magic had been used up, the oxygen left the room, and the great plodding had begun.

George Bush #43 was another transformative presidency and so Noonan was not surprised that there seemed to be no magic, no oxygen in this new presidency of that man, that likable man, that man now sitting at Ronnie’s desk. One of Noonan’s friends had said he was thankful to see a person of color sworn into the office of the President.

Most of Noonan’s friends were grateful that he had not wrecked the economy as predicted. “Give him time, time, time…” Most of her friends said that they were grateful that the economy had not cratered as predicted. “At least not for us, not for our class” thought Noonan as she looked at all the shuttered and empty store fronts. Noonan was grateful to have been raised in America that taught well the rules of survival—perseverance, discipline. She took another delicate swig from her First Aid kit.

Some of Noonan’s friends were grateful for good health, or for having health insurance, “That will stop soon,” Noonan declared to the empty back seat, “if the Democrats get their way.”

The car inched its way through rush hour, and at every lurch and stop, it seemed someone came running over to either wash the windows or to smudge them. Noonan rolled down her window to ask one of them what he was grateful for.

“My kid learned to fish, so maybe we’ll eat better this year. What are you grateful for, lady?”

“I’m grateful for Bergdorf’s Christmas windows, and television,” she murmured. “We’re in another golden age of TV, you know.”

Noonan tapped the glass that separated her from the driver. “What are you grateful for,” she asked breathlessly.

“The glass partition,” he said as he rolled it back up.

Still Here After a Rough Year
We’re serving up a new gratitude this Thanksgiving. — By Peggy Noonan

Illustration courtesy of the amazing DCap

Anatomy of a Column

Yes! Verily, this doth be a second or bonus “Adventures of Peggy Noonan” for this week. Peggington Noonington doth been a busy-eth pundit this week, indeed.

eggy Noonan could not sleep, no amount of Bennies, no wine, nothing could make her fall asleep and it was three in the morning. “Too early to start the new day, and too late to conclude the old day, I’m in Limbo” she thought; her flannel Lanz of Salsbury nightgown, so soft, so warm, was hardly even wrinkled, the lace collar was pert. No tossing, no turning, no entering The Land of Nod. Noonan even tried reading some of the collected speeches of Harry Reid, usually a sure-fire cure for her insomnia. Nothing. Not even a yawn.

“Sensitivity is the bane of an educated mind,” she mused. “Maybe some of my friends are awake, I’ll make a few calls…”

“Mrs. Johnston, quit calling, Levi is over 18 and can make his own decisions, ” snarled MoDo and hung up. “Well,” thought Noonan, Maureen is awake.” Instinctively she reached for her ever-present pearls, and crossed her substantial ankles.

“Cokie,” whispered George Will, sounding constipated and clenched. “I told you never to call me at home,” and he hung up.

Noonan was greeted with the sound of vomiting when she called Mark Penn’s number, and she hung up quickly, the princess phone made a nice, heavy click in the cradle, so solid, so comforting.

Unlike the situation in Afghanistan, Noonan thought. The president, that likable man, that unqualified man, that man now sitting at the desk of Ronald Wilson Reagan, the greatest president of the last half of the last century, maybe the greatest president ever. Ronnie, so strong, so decisive, with such a vision of world-wide democracy, would never “dither” as Dick Cheney put it. “But was Obama dithering,” wondered Noonan, “or is he just being partisan?”

“And that’s the real question,” declared Noonan to her empty boudoir at the Aviary (her penthouse, so small, so chic) “why is Obama not holding Afghanistan discussions with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Hadley, Feith, and Wolfowitz and other Republicans of note? They are the grownups and used to be the foreign-policy establishment, and they know a thing or two about the region. They’ve known it, intimately for the Bush I and Bush II presidencies, and many of them knew about the region during Ronnie’s presidency, and the unfortunate and unsuccessful colonization of Afghanistan by the Soviets, back when we called Afghanistan’s Mujahideen Freedom Fighters, before we called them terrorists.”

Noonan fixed herself a Mai Tai and turned on the thrusty, old RCA television (“flat panel my ass!”), which flickered to life. “Ah, Dragnet. Such a good show.”

“Just the Facts, Mr. President” — by Peggy Noonan

Anatomy of a Column

eggy Noonan was absent mindedly doodling little Hitler mustaches on pictures of Barrack Obama when the telephone rang and startled her such that she spilled her Mai Tai in her lap, unceremoniously drenching her crotch with chipped ice, and the glass was now rolling about on the floor. Thinking quickly, she gathered up her skirt, like a midwestern farm wife with peas or something in her apron, and answered the phone.

She tried to say “You have reached the office of Peggy Noonan…,” she wanted to sound like an answering machine, hoping to get the rude intruder into her busy afternoon off the phone, but because she had not swallowed her last sip (and truth be told she had a mouthful of pineapple wedge, too) it came out sort of like gargling. “Mu hab weeee duh woowice duh Piggeeee Mooman…”

“Please hold for the President of the United States,” the officious voice on the other end of the line said. Noonan quickly gathered up the pictures of the now-Hitlerized (and be-horned) Obama and shoved them, guiltily into her desk drawer. “Thank God that we do not yet have video phones,” which suddenly made her worried about her lipstick, starring at the lipstick-smeared glass on the floor. Holding the phone with the crook of her neck, and the ice and rum from her Mai Tai in her skirt, she used her free hand to fish through her Dooney and Burke looking for the tube.

“Modern life,” thought Noonan, “is essentially flying your freak flag, proudly.” Securing the tube ( “Southern Peach,” so delicate, so subtle ), she began to apply it when the phone crackled to life.

“Peggy, so good to talk to you,” the brisk voice at the other end of the line began.

“Mmmblaefgh,” Noonan replied, lipstick smearing on the white Princess phone, and on her teeth.

“Fine, fine, thanks for asking.” Obama replied. “Look, we are trying to put together a centennial celebration of Ronald Reagan, and frankly you are about the only person left from his administration that is not in jail or dead. Yet. Will you do us the honor of joining the commission?”

“Woo Wiii, plbgthhhh!” Noonan squealed like a teen into the phone.

“Excellent. Thanks, Peggy. By the way, my brand is just fine.” The phone clicked and the likable man who sits now at Ronald Wilson Reagan’s desk was gone.

President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts, 11/9/09– by President Barack Obama

Hello Crooks, Hi Liars – more Noonan (and other pundits) can be found here.

Anatomy of a Column

eggy Noonan was sitting in the dark in the Aviary (the name she gave to her penthouse, so small, so chic). She found the dark strangely soothing, calming even. “In the dark, no one can hear you think,” she mused as she sipped her third Mai Tai. Noonan had a headache, and the light hurt, so she sat in the dark, sipping, sipping, sipping.

“The dark,” thought Noonan, “is underrated, unloved, misunderstood. Like moths we rush to the light, never appreciating the softness of the night, soft edges, like well worn loafers, comfortable shoes.” She looked towards her feet, propped up on the ottoman, but couldn’t see them in the dark. But she knew that they were there, below her ample calves even if she could not see them, or feel them. She believed in them.

Unlike the current occupant of the White House, so young, so untested. The man was born in that optimistic period, Camelot, and came of age during the Reagan Years, he never had any wants or needs not met, so easy, such a life would be. He was handed the world on a platter, the golden goose…

The best of times and the worst of times. The problem today is that no one trusts that tomorrow will be better than today. The world was like that during the Carter years, too, the malaise, the lack of purpose. The problems were intractable, insurmountable, incurable, and that man, that wretched peanut farmer, just put a sweater on and told everyone to turn down the heat. She sipped thoughtfully, and nibbled on the pineapple wedge, so sweet, dribbling down her chin into her freckled décollatage.

“And then, Ronnie!” she declared to no one there.

Ronald Wilson Reagan, the greatest president of the last half of the last century, maybe the greatest president ever brought his incurable optimism to the country, the sad Jimmy Carter was washed away in a burst of California sunshine, so bright, so golden. “Yes,” she thought, “in 1982 inflation was over 20% and unemployment was in the double-digits, but we all had faith in Ronnie! It was morning in America then, but not so much now. Twilight, now it is twilight in America.”

“The biggest problem right now,” thought Noonan, “is not government spending, huge deficits, foreign ownership of our debt, world terrorism, two wars, pandemics of pig flu or nuts with nukes. The biggest long-term threat is that people are becoming and have become disheartened.”

The door from the hallway opened, and light spilled into the Aviary, and she saw the silhouette of a tall, broad shouldered man. He stepped into the room with a swagger. “Ronnie,” she whispered, suddenly demure, blinking in the bright light spilling into the room. Instinctively, her little bird like hands fluttered up to her ever-present pearl necklace.

“Aw, fuck,” her son yelled in from the hallway, “you forgot to pay ConEd again, didn’t you?”

We’re Governed by Callous Children — by Peggy Noonan

eggy Noonan was staring at the glasses at Cost Plus, rows upon rows of glasses, all sorts of glasses, so plentiful, so reasonably priced, though not elegant, but given the way that Consuelo, Noonan’s trusted housekeeper kept breaking glasses it seemed more practical than buying replacements from Pottery Barn.

“Times,” thought Noonan, “are tough all over. We all must make sacrifices.” She put a dozen glasses in her cart. It was just in the nick of time, too. The last Mai Tai glass had broken just that morning when Consuelo arrived and started cleaning. “Sometimes,” Noonan thought darkly, “I think she does it on purpose because she doesn’t want to wash them.” She wondered how much each glass would hold, including the pineapple wedge.

The economy was weighing heavily on her mind. She had seen tent cities, not personally, of course, but on the news, tent cities springing up all over, like so many mushrooms after a warm rain, one especially large tent city outside of the state capitol of California, Sacramento, where Ronald Wilson Reagan once lived when he was governor of that wretched place, before he sprang, fully formed like Botticelli’s Birth of Venus on the clamshell of the national stage.

Ronald Wilson Reagan, the best president of the last half of the twentieth century, maybe the best president ever, never blamed his predecessors for the troubles he inherited, unlike the current President. “No, Ronnie,” thought Noonan, “would just roll up his sleeves and get to work and start solving the problems.” Smugly, she thought about how Ronnie freed the hostages on his first day in office.

“The problem with the current president, that likable man, that man who speaks so well and says nothing,” thought Noonan, “is that he has not rolled up his sleeves and freed his hostages yet. It’s been 10 months, and he inherited a mess, but so did Ronnie.”

“What the President needs to do is own the problems, ‘It’s Not My Fault’ is a terrible policy position. No one likes that. It is unbecoming, it is unpersuasive,” thought Noonan, as she careened over to the champagne flutes, her little cart, a little red wagon sort of thing, full of zombie glasses and martini glasses, wobbling in front of her none-too-steady legs.

Noonan spotted some flutes, so cunning, so chic, on the lowest shelf, and bent down to examine them, and toppled over, heels over her ample derrière. There was a terrible crashing noise, worse than when Consuelo threw the last Mai Tai glass against the wall that morning.

Rising up, she faced a grimacing store manager. Stammering, Noonan smiled enigmatically, “It was an accident, I’m sure that you can see I didn’t mean to do it. And besides, the aisles are too narrow…”

“Excuses are like assholes, lady. Everybody has one. You break it, you buy it. Store policy” he said to her as he started calculating the bill.

It’s His Rubble Now — by Peggy Noonan

Anatomy of a Column

eggy Noonan told the cabbie to wait for her, and then rather regally, she entered Park Avenue Liquor. The doors parted before her with a gentle swooshing noise, and like a luxury cruise liner coming into port, Noonan entered the store.

Noonan gave a familiar nod to the man behind the counter, he looked up and smiled, his skin so burnished, so smooth and his smile so dazzling. “Here,” thought Noonan, “is an example of immigration done right.”

The man, a refugee-immigrant from one of the Middle Eastern countries, probably liberated by George W. Bush, the greatly underrated former President now in political exile — no one wanted to remember him, let alone talk about him — this immigrant, this man, this immigrant man was now successful, working in the heart of Manhattan. “To think that just a few short years ago he was herding goats in someplace unpronounceable,” Noonan thought as she reached for a wobbly shopping cart, “and here he is now, an American success story, working for an honest living in Manhattan, the greatest city in the greatest country on earth.” She felt warm inside and glad to be supporting this turbaned fellow in his Great American Success Story by purchasing her supplies at his store, and happy in knowing that the Middle East wars were just, and good, and right. Her immigrant, he was just one of a thousand points of light.

Noonan noted that the great contribution of the immigrants to American society is the work ethic, so proud, fiercely proud of their new lives, these immigrants, the successful ones anyway, create their own jobs, open their own businesses, give a shot in the arm to blighted neighborhoods in dreary and dreadful non-Manhattan places.

Ronald Wilson Reagan would be proud of them. The greatest president of the last half of the last century, perhaps the greatest president ever admired the plucky determination that he saw in immigrants as they mowed the lawns, folded the laundry, nannied the babies. “They don’t ask for things that they don’t need, they don’t feel entitled to all the good things, they work for them. They don’t buy what they cannot afford, they live simply using their wits and their gritty determination as their currency.” Noonan, too, admired that ethic, unlike what she saw in the Senate this week.

“The problem with the Baucus bill is that healthcare will become another unpaid entitlement,” Noonan thought as she careened her little shopping cart, so small, so chic, down the Rum aisle. “The Democrats keep adding, adding, adding to entitlement programs without a care in the world, with no idea how to pay for them. Here, during the worst recession in her lifetime, the Great Recession as some dare to call it, the one that is being blamed on the GOP for reckless tax cuts and reckless spending — ridiculous charges — here, in such dreadful economic times, the Democrats want to take on yet more deficits, and if you oppose then they say you don’t care about your fellow human beings and that you therefore love and support the insurance companies.”

Noonan shot down the aisle towards the produce. “The problem, of course, is that unlike my Successful Immigrant from the Gulf, expanding the nanny state takes responsibility and dignity away from the people who need it most.” Her little bird-like hands gripped the shopping cart even tighter.

At the check stand, Noonan unloaded her cart: the 17-year old J. Wray Nephew Jamaican rum, the French Orgeat, and the Dutch Orange Curaçao, the fresh pineapples and the imported Morello cherries, and was starting to write her cheque, when she noticed that her immigrant, he of the burnished skin and dazzling smile, he had one of her recent columns pinned up on the wall behind him. She smiled and handed over the cheque.

Peggy shyly pointed to the column, “I wrote that,” she murmured and handed over her ID. The man looked at the ID, and looked at the column, smiled another dazzling smile and tore up the cheque. Noonan was touched, this immigrant, this man with nothing, less than nothing, this fine man with burnished skin, this refugee from a war-torn land was giving her purchases back to her because he was a fan, a loyal fan, so handsome, so smart.

“I’m sorry, Miss Noonan, for you, cash only. Your last several cheques have bounced.”

There Is No New Frontier — by Peggy Noonan