Mock, Paper, Scissors

Death of the Media

…on the Sunday Talkies, I always get the impression that she just woke up from a three-day Mai Tai binge and just starts rambling to the pink elephant:

Now, when it is so obvious that she is contradicting herself within minutes that freakin’ Chuck Todd notices it, how can it be that she will have a dinner invite with all the other pontificating poltroons before the week is out?

It just boggles the mind.

(Also/too: what the hell is up with her hair?)

“The Republicans let Ronnie down, but the Dirty F***ing Hippies are still wrong on everything.”

Dame Peggington Noonington of the Brooklynshire Nooningtons, royal scribe of Lord Rupert, doth say that the Iraq clusterf*** haven given offense to thine Republican sensibilities, and that the pooch be-ith screwed royally.

It’s another mea culpa saying she got it wrong, but she had misgivings about it –sensed it dontcha know–yadda-yadda-yadda, but she never says who got it right, and she never will.

Drink-up, Bitchez, it’s a long retrospective and navel gaze, and she’s at least a pitcher of Mai Tai ahead of all of us.

Can the Republican Party Recover From Iraq? — The war almost killed the GOP. Whether it can come back is an open question –
by Peggy Noonan

Anatomy of a Column

ne Carte, s’il-vous plaît,” Peggy Noonan said as the suave man in the dinner jacket sat down at the Baccarat table opposite her at Shel Addison’s Casino. Noonan tried to keep her cool as the man bore a remarkable resemblance to her beloved Ronald Wilson Reagan, the greatest president of the last half of the last century, perhaps the greatest president ever.

“Sept à la banco,” the croupier said. Noonan smiled her Sphinx-like smile.

“Carte,” Noonan declared. The Croupier dealt her another carte. She turned over her hand, face up. An 8 of Diamonds and a Jack of Clubs, and raked in her winnings.

“Suivi,” Noonan said. “The house will cover you?” Noonan asked the Croupier.

“Oui Madame.” The croupier passed le shoe des cartes to the mysterious and stranger. “Monsieur, chargez-bien!”

The handsome stranger, who dealt une carte to himself–now le Banco–tucked it under the shoe, and une autre carte to Noonan, and then another carte to the shoe.

“Carte,” Noonan declared again. He flipped over his hand: King of Spades and the 9 of Hearts.

“I need another thousand,” Noonan said as she wrote a check to the Casino.

“I admire your courage Miss, uhh” the stranger said to Noonan.

“Noonan. Peggy Noonan,” she replied. “I admire your luck, Mister…uh?

“Romney. Willard Romney. I prefer my juice boxes shaken, not stirred.”

Noonan woke up with a start from her strange dream, slightly sweaty glowing buckets and bewildered she noticed that yet again she managed to have her Lanz of Salisbury nightgown on backwards. “How did that happen?,” she wondered.

She looked around her penthouse (the Aviary 2, so spacious, so luxurious) and noticed that the old black and white Philco television was showing a test pattern. “Faithful, and reliable technology,” Noonan noted with smug satisfaction.

“Dreaming about Mitt as James Bond could be worse,” Noonan muttered to herself, “at least it was dignified gambling and not horse racing. “Mr. Romney is looking good, as are his crowds,” she said to a potted plant nearby. “When the camera shows people in the stands behind him as he speaks, they no longer look as if they walked in off the street or put a bet on a horse and are straining to see if it breaks from the pack. Now they look like people watching their horse take the lead, with no one coming up the outside.”

Noonan stumbled into the kitchen and saw that her loyal maid Conseula had laid out the essentials for mixing her breakfast, and just moments later she poured herself onto the terrace overlooking Central Park enjoying the sunlight and a refreshing Mai Tai, so sweet. A few pigeons fluttered about cooing and strutting. She thought again about her dream where Mitt screwed up perhaps the most famous line in all of cinema.

“Mr. Romney has a tendency to litter his speeches with applause lines,” Noonan the once-professional speech writer muttered to herself. “They come one after another. It’s old-fashioned, and it’s based on the idea that that’s all TV wants, five seconds of a line and two seconds of applause.” Noonan took a thoughtful sip and continued on musing.

“You know what Republicans on the ground think when they look at Mitt Romney?,” she asked a pigeon that fluttered next to her. “Please don’t blow it,” she giggled as the bird flew away. “They think President Obama can’t win but Mr. Romney can still lose. So they’re feeling burly but anxious, hopeful yet spooked.”

“Applause-line speeches are not right for a time of crisis, because they do not allow for the development of a thought, a point of view, an insight,” she swigged back her now-empty glass, smacked her lips and chewed thoughtfully on the pineapple wedge.

“Campaign professionals like applause lines in part because they think that’s all a campaign speech is, a vehicle for a picture of people clapping,” she muttered to the birds and then realized she had just said five minutes ago that she liked the image of his audience standing behind him smiling. “They don’t care about meaning, they care about impression. But in the end, the impression is bad: distracted candidate barking lines, robotic audience clapping.” The birds looked confusedly at Noonan. “Er, well,” she muttered looking away.

“But people like to listen if you’re saying something interesting,” Noonan declared feeling herself wake up to her topic. The pigeons seemed to be smiling back at her, approving of how she saved herself from self-parody.

“As for the president,” Noonan hated calling this man sitting in Ronnie’s chair the president, but she carried on anyway, “his big campaign speech last week in Cleveland not only was roundly panned but was deeply revealing, ” Noonan grimaced recalling it. Cleveland, of all places! The birds all cooed sympathetically with her outrage.

“I listened once and read it twice: It wasn’t a case for re election, it was a wordage dump,” and not, she thought, like one of her own columns.

Once More, With Meaning
Romney can win, but he needs more than applause lines — by Peggy Noonan

Media Matters read the column, too.

Anatomy of a Column

eggy Noonan was splayed out, face-down, at peace with the floor of her office when the phone rang at the crack of eleven AM, and caused her to open one bleary, bloodshot eye. Wondering where the phone was, she searched about frantically in case it was her employer, Rupert Murdoch.

Noonan ascertained that the phone was hidden under the sombrero of a mariachi player who was snoring peacefully nearby.

“Guuuud m’ing. Meep, be…” Noonan said to the sombrero and then grabbed the phone, cleared her throat and tried again. “Good Morning, this is Peggy.”

“Nooner,” screeched her old nemesis Nancy Reagan, “are you in or out? I have secured a quart of cat piss and some water balloons and I know where Don Regan is having lunch today, if it’s the last thing I do, I’m gonna get that motherf…” Noonan cut Nancy off.

“Nancy, I’m at work now, you know how Rupert likes to listen in on calls, call me at home tonight and let me know how it goes.” Noonan rang off, but not in time.

“G’day, Peggs,” Rupert’s voice boomed over the disconnected intercom. “Quite a boozer you had going on last night. Iced to the eyebrows. You gonna write you column on the 40th Anniversary of Watergate? Due today. Don’t be late. Sounds like the old bat’s gonna have a jolly, what? Let me know how it goes.”

The intercom went dead. “Some day,” Noonan thought to herself, “I must learn how he does that.” She steadied herself, hung up the phone, and returned the sombrero to the snoring mariachi player. “The trumpet player,” she snickered. “Blow, Gabriel, blow.”

“Watergate of course was the mother of all leaks,” Noonan mused to herself as she mixed herself an eye opener from the impromptu bar that was somehow in her office. “A culture of secrecy always finds a leak,” she thought as she took a long, deep quaff of refreshment. She stood up on her tiptoes, stretching her ample calves, and gave Ronnie a little kiss on his card board cheek, one little birdlike hand fluttered up to the pearl necklace, a gift from the great man himself. “Thank God that we had no scandals in our Administration,” she whispered to the cardboard cutout of Ronald Wilson Reagan, the greatest president of the last half of the last century, maybe the greatest president ever.

“Unlike the current occupant of the oval office,” she grimaced. “What is happening with all these breaches of our national security? Why are intelligence professionals talking so much-divulging secret and sensitive information for all the world to see, and for our adversaries to contemplate?”

Noonan took a contemplative swig of Mai Tai, so sweet, so refreshing, and continued outlining her thoughts.

“What are they thinking? That in the age of Wikileaks the White House itself should be one big Wikileak?,” Noonan thought to herself as she mixed another Mai Tai.

The sombrero rang again. She answered it.

“Peggy, hi it’s me, Cokie, and you’ll never guess what just happened at Le Circ!”

Noonan grinned as the denouement of Donald Regan was reported. “Three balloons, Peggy, can you believe it, three balloons right on the kisser, and it smelled just dreadful. Oh, gotta go, George Will’s on the other line. Wait till he hears about this! Remember, don’t tell anyone Nancy finally got him!”

“Where was I?,” Noonan mumbled to herself. “Why is this happening? In part because at our highest level in politics, government and journalism, Americans continue to act as if we are talking only to ourselves. There is something narcissistic in this: Only our dialogue counts, no one else is listening, and what can they do about it if they are? There is something childish in it: Knowing secrets is cool, and telling them is cooler.” Noonan took a thoughtful bite out of the pineapple wedge, and slurped the juice as it tricked down her chin.

The phone rang again, and Noonan picked up the sombrero, put it down and picked up the phone.

“Peggy, as I live and breath, I finally got through to you! You’ll never guess who this is!”

Noonan felt her stomach flip-flop. “Colonel North, I told you to never talk to me again.”

Who Benefits From the ‘Avalanche of Leaks’?
They seem designed to glorify President Obama and help his re-election, by Peggy Noonan

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 picked up the princess phone in her boudoir at The Aviary 2 (her expansive new upper Eastside penthouse, so chic) to make a phone call and said to the dial tone, “Well Rupert, are you coming to my party in the Hamptons or are you not?”

The dial tone crackled away. “Crikey, Peg, you bluey, you take all the joy outta me lark. I’d be drongo to miss it. Can I bring a slab of VB and me relos? Enough ear basher,” and he rang off.

“The guest list,” Noonan muttered to herself, “is now complete.” She ran through her check list: catering, cater-waiters, bartenders, pool boys. With a satisfied smacking of her lips, she polished off her elevenses and rang the doorman to have her car brought around.

Noonan answered the door herself as the guests arrived–it is the little touches that always make a party, she thought to herself as she smoothed out the muumuu with matching bikini she had bought at Bergdorf and offered her guests a refreshing Mai Tai and pointed them to the pool out back.

“Oh, Peggy,” giggled Lindsey Graham, “you’ve out done yourself.” He took a fresh beverage from the waiter. “I simply adore the Pacific Rim,” and with that Senator Graham disappeared with the handsome Japanese waiter to the pool house.

“I simply adore the Pacific Rim,” and with that Senator Graham disappeared with the handsome Japanese waiter to the pool house.

Noonan grimaced a little when Rick Santorum handed her a jar prominently labeled Santorum Jelly. “We brought 40 of them to Iowa and returned with 38. Karen thought you might like some.”

“Too kind, too kind,” Noonan murmured accepting the jar. “Sarah and Bristol are out by the pool telling the most amusing story,” Noonan whispered conspiratorially, “about the Other Rick at the Governors’ sleep-over party in 2008.” Santorum made a beeline for Palin and Noonan chucked the jar over the neighbor’s fence. “Take that, Martha!”

“Summer vacations are treacherous things for politicians,” Noonan noted, “spend too much time clearing brush and you are labelled a dilettante. Spend too much time on the vineyard, and like Clinton, you are labelled as out of touch.” But, she murmured to herself, “even Ronnie, the greatest president of the last half of the last century, maybe the greatest president ever, even Ronald Wilson Reagan took a break now and then to ride his horse in Santa Barbara. Let me be clear, I’m not talking about Nancy.” George Will chuckled at her joke.

Just then Chris Christie ran naked through the crowd. “Cannonball,” he shrieked as he leapt into the deep end of the pool.

Just then Chris Christie ran naked through the crowd. “Cannonball,” he shrieked as he leapt into the deep end of the pool.

“I haven’t seen a splash like that since The Poisiden Adventure,” snarled a drenched Michelle Malkin. “What are you starring at, Coulter? Not getting in the water? Afraid you’ll dissolve?”

Coulter glared at Malkin, her Adam’s apple visibly trembling in her long, swan-like neck, as if she might suddenly cry.

“You stupid dick,” Malkin yelled, “Hormone replacement therapy does not give you a period.”

“Everyone is having a much better time here, at my party, my simple summer pool party than Barack Obama is having now in Martha’s Vineyard,” Noonan explained to a flower arrangement. “He’s been hearing unwanted advice–”Don’t go to Martha’s Vineyard!” his advisors must be saying to him.” Noonan paused to take a thoughtful sip of her Mai Tai.

“How could Obama not be depressed?” Noonan pondered as she nibbled on the sweet, refreshingly sweet, actually, Pineapple wedge garnishing her drink.

“He has made big mistakes since the beginning of his presidency and has been pounded since the beginning of his presidency. He’s got to be full of doubts at this point about what to do,” Noonan continued.

“His baseline political assumptions have proved incorrect, his calculations have turned out to be erroneous, his big decisions have turned to dust,” she said to the card board cut out of Ronnie that she brought in from Manhattan. Her little hands fluttered up to the pearl necklace, a gift from the great man himself, and her most prized possession.

“He thought they’d love him for health care,” she muttered to the blender jar that was whizzing up a replacement Mai Tai, “that it was a down payment on greatness. But the left sees it as a sellout, the center as a vaguely threatening mess, the right as a rallying cry.”

Noonan reached over to take a whack at a croquet ball. “He thought the stimulus would turn the economy around. It didn’t.”

Noonan continued, talking to an inflatable alligator raft. “He thought there would be a natural bounce-back a year ago, with Recovery Summer. There wasn’t.”

“He thought a toe-to-toe, eyeball-to-eyeball struggle over the debt ceiling would enhance his reputation,” Noonan frantically said to the Weber Grill. “The public would see through to the dark heart of Republican hackery and come to recognize the higher wisdom of his approach.” Noonan stepped on her muumuu and catapalted head-first into a bed of petunias.

“And they think that I’m crazy,” a stone cold sober Michele Bachmann said to her invisible friend near the ice chest.

The President’s Island Retreat
Is his visit to Martha’s Vineyard a sign that he’s giving up? — By Peggy Noonan

But Wait! There’s More!

Our intrepid spy and photo journalist DCap was there, and he took these exclusive pictures of the soirée chez Noonington:

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!

Anatomy of a Column

eggy Noonan was greeting her guests at her combined Halloween and Election Eve party. “Happy Halloween,” Noonan said as she opened the door to her Aviary II (so large, so chic, the new penthouse was).

“Trick or Treat,” her guests squealed as Peggy handed them their treats, airline-sized bottles of booze.

The costumes, Noonan noted, were not the traditional Ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties, nor things that go bump in the night, and she was sad for the lack of tradition.

Mostly Noonan’s guests seemed to prefer dressing as Democrat effigies (Pelosi clones, she noted with distaste, were scattered throughout the place), or as the more buffoonish Tea Partiers. “The O’Donnell witches with sex toys was funny the first time,” she sniffed. A little more creativity would be a welcome relief. Noonan of course was cunningly disguised as the most frightening thing she could think of: Nancy Reagan.

“Ah, Ronnie,” thought Noonan as her little bird-like hands fluttered up to her ever-present pearls, a gift from the great man himself, Ronald Wilson Reagan, the greatest president of the last half of the last century, maybe the greatest president ever. She took another thoughtful sip of her festive halloween Mai Tai.

“Unlike the current President, this wet blanket, this occupier of the least interesting corner of the faculty lounge, this joy-free zone, this inert gas,” Noonan grimaced. “The worst thing you can say about a president: He won’t even make a good former president.” and for some reason that made her smile benevolently at a parade lead by Ann Coulter dressed as a tampon dancing a conga line through the Aviary.

The television was tuned to Fox so that guests could watch the election returns, and the merriment engendered by the good, conservative results helped the party kick up a notch, as that appalling television chef says, “Bam.”

“Ah, Ronnie,” murmured Noonan to herself. “Conservatives talked a lot about Ronald Reagan this year, but they have to take him more to heart, because his example here is a guide.” She grabbed another Mai Tai off the tray from the cater-waiters she had hired from her new favorite bar, The Chelsea Pier, where she liked to sing karaoke.

“The point,” Noonan said to her potted palm, “is that Reagan’s career is a guide, not only for the tea party but for all in politics… He wasn’t in search of a life when he ran for office, and he wasn’t in search of fame; he’d already lived a life, he was already well known, he’d accomplished things in the world.”

Working up a head of steam on her topic, she grabbed Eric Cantor by his tiger tail and said, “You have to earn your way into politics.” Spotting Michele Malkin nearby, she grabbed her by the red-checked kerchief, and declared to her, “Ronald Reagan was an artist who willed himself into leadership as president of a major American labor union (Screen Actors Guild, seven terms, 1947-59.) “

The room seemed to go into a frenzy with the music and the news, the crowd was spinning every which way, and Peggy Noonan was frantically hurling herself into the swirling maelstrom of it all, spilling facts about her beloved Ronnie, and spilling her beloved Mai Tai to anyone who would listen.

The revelers suddenly hushed as Sarah Palin appeared on the screen. She was defending her form of political celebrity—reality show, “Dancing With the Stars,” etc. “Wasn’t Ronald Reagan an actor? Wasn’t he in ‘Bedtime for Bonzo,’ Bozo, something? Ronald Reagan was an actor.”

All eyes turned slowly to Noonan. “He was a great man and you are a nincompoop,” Noonan wailed at the TV, before flinging herself into a line of Madonna-Wannabees, lead by Lindsey Graham.

Americans Vote for Maturity, by Peggy Noonan

Everyone was there!

Our intrepid investigative photographer, DistributorCapNY was there!

(Hat tip: Batocchio alerted me that Nooner had gone nuts by Mooselini’s apostasy.)

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 was in her new favorite bar, the odd little place where one could sometimes find Nancy Reagan impersonators (“complete with a five o’clock shadow, just like the real thing”) hosting Karaoke night. The barkeep at The Chelsea Piers was discreet and he kept Noonan’s Hurricane glass replenished with Mai Tai, and so all was well.

“Today, of course, is a day of Miracles,” thought Noonan as she took a thoughtful sip of Mai Tai, and signaling Thor, the barkeep, to come over via the usual signal (a Benjamin waived in the air), she changed her order to the national drink of Chile, a Pisco Sour. So cool, so refreshing, so sour. Inspired and Inspiring, she noted with a satisfied pucker and smacking of the lips.

“Chile! Viva Chile! If I had your flag I would wave it today,” Noonan declared to the television mounted on the wall. “Chile needed this, but actually the world needed it, and that is why we, the world, are watching the rescue.”

“President Sebastián Piñera, in office five months when the mine caved in, saw the situation for what it was. Thirty three men in a hole in the ground, in a mine that probably shouldn’t have been open. A disaster, a nation riveted,” thought Noonan.

“Unlike our President Obama who sat by, helpless while oil spewed out of a hole in the bottom of the ocean,” Noonan grimaced. “Last summer Americans watched professionals and the government seem helpless to stop the Gulf oil spill, a disaster every bit as predictable as a mine cave-in. For months we watched on TV the spewing of the oil into the sea,” Noonan sniffed.

Thor strode back over to Noonan with a fresh Pisco. It’s amazing, isn’t it?” he said to her, gesturing to the television. “Chile can rescue those miners in the San José mines,” he continued, “while Massey Energy let about the same number of miners die in a mining disaster in West Virginia. Chile must have better regulations, or enforce them better, or something, huh?”

“The rescue of the Chilean miners is a smashing victory for free-market capitalism,” Noonan replied.

Viva Chile! They Left No Man Behind, by Peggy Noonan

Bonus! We have pictures of our favorite Coal Miner’s Daughter:

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 hung up the phone on room service and waited for the bell hop to bring her the bottle of Bacardi and other essential supplies she ordered. “Desperate times,” she said to no one there, “calls for desperate measures.” She took a swig from her fast-emptying First Aid Kit, the amusing name she had given for her Cristofle hip flask (so cunning, so chic).

The little notice on the desk in her suite warned of tornadic activity, and so Noonan was laying in supplies, just in case. “Being forewarned is forearmed,” she muttered to herself after tipping the bellhop a whole dollar, and proceeded to the mini bar to mix a make-shift Mai Tai.

“Tornadoes are tearing up the polical landscape, too” grimly thought Noonan as she took a contemplative sip of the sub-par beverage in a hard-water stained tumbler. “And the president, this president, this likable man who speaks so well at saying nothing, this man seems to be the eye of the hurricane.” Noonan giggled at her own mixed metaphor.

“Presidents do not speak to Rolling Stone,” she muttered with disapproval, but where else could he go to do some hippie punching as Jane Hamsher called it. “Hippie punching, such an amusing term, as if the Democrats could ever set up a narrative now for someone to take the blame after the midterms,” Noonan sipped thoughtfully.

“Everyone is distancing themselves from this president,” Noonan sniffed, “Unlike when Ronnie was president. Ronald Wilson Reagan, the greatest president of the last half of the last century, maybe the greatest president ever, was also unpopular at this point in his presidency,” her little bird-like hands had fluttered up to her ever-present pearl necklace, a gift from the great man himself. “But he didn’t do any elephant punching, and if he were a Democrat, there would be no donkey punches,” she declared.

Refreshing her Mai Tai, Noonan glanced at USA Today on the coffee table, the sad numbers of unemployed blazoned across the front page.

In an interview David Axlerod, the advisor to the President, said abortion will “certainly be an issue,” for Democrats. It will be raised “across the country.” At this point in history, with America teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, negative advertising is even more destructive, more actually wicked, than it was in the past. Noonan mocked him for that one, when the issue was so obvious.

Sirens were going off outside, and Noonan stumbled to the balcony door to see what was happening. Just then, the bellhop rushed into the room to evacuate her. Grabbing her hand as she was about the fling open the balcony door, he yelled “What the hell are you thinking, lady!”

“The issue this year is the size, role, weight and demands of government,” Noonan slurred at him as he lead her to the safety of the basement.

The Twister of 2010 — by Peggy Noonan

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

eggy Noonan decided that the new thrift of the Great Recession of 2007 was over and it was time to move on. She sold her little penthouse that she called the Aviary (so small, so chic) and moved to the Upper East Side, to a new penthouse with three bedrooms and 1,400 square feet. “I’ll call it ‘Aviary 2′,” she told her broker, who had nodded and moved slowly away.

Signing all the copious paperwork to take possession of the new penthouse had been exhausting, and having everything checked and double-checked and checked again was boring. Her wrist, so small, hurt, and Noonan worried that she might be developing a callus gripping the pen so tightly. Certainly her nails were chipping on the fake wood surface of the conference room table.

Her attorney from a prestigious law firm handed her yet another form to sign, after checking it first. “Peggy, by incorporating yourself as an LLC, you’ll be able to write off the whole $2million purchase price as a business expense.”

“Read my lips,” Noonan smiled at him and started making twitching, incoherent gestures, “No new taxes,” and peals of laughter were heard throughout the mortgage broker’s offices.

Peggy Noonan was directing the caterers, some of her new friends from the bar down at the Chelsea Pier, where to put the Ronald Reagan ice sculpture for her house warming party when her pink princess phone rang in the bedroom. She picked up her Mai Tai and wandered off in that direction.

“Hello, this is Peggy Noonan,” she said into the phone, trying to be as professional as possible because, well, you never know who it might be. Frostily, she said into the mouthpiece, “I have no idea who would vandalize the living room of the Aviary. No Juan, I gave you all my keys. Goodbye.” The doorman at her old building never liked her and often accused her of sundry crimes and misdemeanors. “A very small tip,” she said to herself, “as a going away present.”

The phone rang again.

“Oh, I hope you can make the party tonight! George will be here, too. It will be just like being in the Green Room before the show, but with better booze.” She sipped her Mai Tai, so refreshing, so sweet.

The guests were all able to make it, now that Lindsey Graham confirmed, the last hold out. She had been worried because the last party was only in December, that perhaps no one would show up. “Too soon, too soon, man-in-the-moon,” she mumbled.

“Slap my ass, and call me biscuit, Peggy, if that wasn’t the best damn Christmas party I had ever been to,” Lindsey told her, “Especially the part with the video of you and Jeff Greenfield…”

“Lindsey, the line is breaking up,” Noonan lied, “see you tonight,” she chirped as she hung up. She suddenly recalled how somehow or other her Tribute to Ronald Wilson Reagan (the greatest president of the last half of the last century, maybe the greatest president ever), a greatest hits of sorts of the speeches she had written for him, had been inadvertently swapped with a private tape that she wished had remained private.

At 8PM promptly, the buzzer buzzed its uncouth buzz, and Noonan plugged in the drink fountain, and Ronnie began serving Mai Tais through his nozzle. “That,” grimaced Noonan, “is unfortunate. I wanted something dignified, not that wretched little Belgian.”

Conseula, her long-suffering housekeeper and confident opened the doors, the guests entered. Noonan stood up, wobbly, took a step forward, and stepped on the hem of her dress and plunged, face first, into the crowd.

MPS Exclusive! Scenes from Nooner’s Party!

The always amazing DistributorCap was there, and took some pictures!

Jello shots with Michele and Mooselini! What flavor was that?

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

…white and male?

Sweet Baby Jeebus! Are we saying that Mai Tais are not just for dinner? Peggington Noonington is crushing on Brown, slurring him all the way to third base, with a wink and a nod.

(Hat tip: Scissorhead WonderingWilla)

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