PEGGY NOONAN: Be Reasonable: As Iowa sizes up the candidates, so do I (and disses Hillary)

The Wall Street Journal ^ | December 28, 2007 | PEGGY NOONAN

[Aristotelian]

By next week politically active Iowans will have met and tallied their votes. Their decision this year will have a huge impact on the 2008 election, and a decisive impact on various candidacies. Some will be done in. Some will be made. Some will land just right or wrong and wake up the next day to read raves or obits. A week after that, New Hampshire. The endless campaign is in fact nearing its climax.

(snip)

Hillary Clinton? No, not reasonable. I concede her sturdy mind, deep sophistication, and seriousness of intent. I see her as a triangulator like her husband, not a radical but a maneuverer in the direction of a vague, half-forgotten but always remembered, leftism. It is also true that she has a command-and-control mentality, an urgent, insistent and grating sense of destiny, and she appears to believe that any act that benefits Clintons is a virtuous act, because Clintons are good and deserve to be benefited.

But this is not, actually, my central problem with her candidacy. My central problem is that the next American president will very likely face another big bad thing, a terrible day, or days, and in that time it will be crucial--crucial--that our nation be led by a man or woman who can be, at least for the moment and at least in general, trusted. Mrs. Clinton is the most dramatically polarizing, the most instinctively distrusted, political figure of my lifetime. Yes, I include Nixon. Would she be able to speak the nation through the trauma? I do not think so. And if I am right, that simple fact would do as much damage to America as the terrible thing itself.

[Aristotelian]

Ahha! Hillary's personal failings make her unqualified for the job of president.

[Yehuda]

“Hillary’s personal failings make her unqualified for the job of president.”

And this is News?

(just kidding....,(:>)

[counterpunch]

Peggy Noonan is obviously just anti-woman...

[AGreatPer]

“Experience”................ Yea Right.

[Saundra Duffy]

Mitt Romney made it onto her reasonable list. Whew!

[txflake]

Hillary is a fatally flawed character who loves to cut deals with other devils.

Bill's no longer a stud, and worse, he name-drops the Bushes.

Time for them to pick out a nice dachau in Russia or pagoda in China. Whichever country offers the heaviest ashtrays and most valuable silver worth stealing.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

[RhoTheta]

"Also we can't have a president who spent two minutes on YouTube staring in a mirror and poofing his hair. Really, we just can't."

Works for me...

[Carry_Okie]

I forgot Rudy Giuliani. That must say something. He is reasonable but not desirable. If he wins somewhere, I'll explain.

Maybe it would have something to do with his being venal, corrupt, depraved, and bull-headed, with a passion for "solutions" that in the hands of leftists would end up being horrible precedents.

[claudiustg]

-—Mitt Romney? Yes. Characterological cheerfulness, personal stability and a good brain would be handy to have around. He hasn’t made himself wealthy by seeing the world through a romantic mist. He has a sophisticated understanding of the challenges we face in the global economy. I personally am not made anxious by his flip-flopping on big issues because everyone in politics gets to change his mind once. That is, you can be pro-life and then pro-choice but you can’t go back to pro-life again, because if you do you’ll look like a flake. The positions Mr. Romney espouses now are the positions he will stick with. He has no choice.-—

Mitt! Mitt! Mitt!

[Arthur McGowan]

I love Peggy Noonan. But I never read anything of hers without feeling that she is just too outrageously generous, kind, and charitable to too many people who are really, really evil.

[Route66]

You mean it does not matter to you that he changed his mind on all these positions just prior to running for President and it does not matter to you that he may not be sincere in any of them, only that you think he’s stuck with them because if he changes again he’ll look like a flake?

I guess it matters to me.

[llevrok]

Mrs. Clinton is the most dramatically polarizing, the most instinctively distrusted, political figure of my lifetime. Yes, I include Nixon.

Says it all.

[definitelynotaliberal]

I think it is a tactic. Anybody reading the article would be flabbergasted to come up on her characterization of Joseph Biden and Christopher Dodd as ‘reasonable’. So the reader surmises that it is a comedy/parody and keeps going. Then you get to the crux of the matter, which is that Edwards, Hillary and Huckabee are unreasonable. And that is, indeed, a charitable way to put things. But it is also the laconic way to say what a reasonable person might have to say about these candidates, such as, for instance, “Are you kidding??!!??!?!?!” It makes her seem mature and dignified to leave such commentary to the immature among us - such as your interlocutor ;-)

[claudiustg]

You didn’t read the article?

[Daffynition]

[Route66]

Yes. I did read it. I assumed you were agreeing with it.
You don’t?

[Aristotelian]

Biden and Dodd are real losers. Biden is not just dumb but he’s in love with the sound of his own voice. He’s at his best when in Senate he starts a sentence and then before he finishes it, he’s forgotten what he was going to say. In the same sentence! And Dodd. Nothing but a child of.

[samtheman]

This is a clever article, but not very helpful. She would do better to actually pick a candidate and write an endorsement. At this point, I think she has the responsibility to do that.

[stockstrader]

Maybe it would have something to do with his being venal, corrupt, depraved, and bull-headed, with a passion for "solutions" that in the hands of leftists would end up being horrible precedents.

ref. Giuliani,,,,

"...with a passion for "solutions" that in the hands of leftists would end up being horrible precedents."

Best comment of the day!!! (Also the best reason to keep a LIBERAL like Giuliani as far away as possible from the White House!)

[Pietro]

It was inevitable, Obama is the new JFK. Get ready for that because its the new mantra.

[cgbg]

I love Peggy Noonan. But I never read anything of hers without feeling that she is just too outrageously generous, kind, and charitable to too many people who are really, really evil.

Her pro-McCain comments come most immediately to mind. I get the feeling she would have been one of Captain Queeg's defenders and helped him hunt for the missing strawberries.

:-)

[cgbg]

Obama is the new JFK. Get ready for that because its the new mantra.

If the guy can get the megalomaniac Hillary out of our future lives he can enjoy a year of media kneepads and lies without any complaint from me.

:-)

[Pietro]

"If the guy can get the megalomaniac Hillary out of our future lives he can enjoy a year of media kneepads and lies without any complaint from me."

Be careful what you ask for. Obama's to the left of evry other candidate, w/ the exception of kukucinich.

[GOPJ]

...Mrs. Clinton is the most dramatically polarizing, the most instinctively distrusted, political figure of my lifetime. Yes, I include Nixon.

In a crisis, she'd be tempted to round up her political opponents. And that would be us...

[jammer]

I personally am not made anxious by his [Romney's] flip-flopping on big issues because everyone in politics gets to change his mind once.

Has he ever flip-flopped out of principle to a position that does not pander to the electorate?

[Sudetenland]

Peggy Noonan has truly left the reservation. I have had nagging doubts about her sanity and her dedication to conservative principles. The followin statement confirms what I feared and is one of the reasons I have quit reading her ramblings, however beautifully written they are.

Hillary Clinton? No, not reasonable. I concede her sturdy mind, deep sophistication, and seriousness of intent

Anyone who can take, even a cursory, look at Hillary Clinton and say the above gets no respect from me.

Hillary Clinton is ignorant, boorish and frivolous. "Her sturdy mind?" The mind that told her to kiss Suha Arafat right after she accused the Israelis of poisoning the Palestinian children?

"Her deep sophistication?" Hillary's actions in leaving the White House with the tax-payer owned furnishings under the assumption that they were hers to take, show her mettle. She exemplifies the very thing she accused Paula Jones of being..."Trailer Trash."

"Her seriousness of intent?" Her only intent is to be annointed President at any cost and her only interest is in herself and her ambitions.

I cannnot believe I am reading this drek from a woman who wrote speeches for Ronaldus Magnus.

Peggy Noonan, your conservative credentials are hereby revoked in perpetuity.

[advertising guy]

i’ve said the same thing and this way..............if Peggy had Ann Coulter’s balls we would be heaven blessed

[Mr Rogers]

I enjoy Peggy’s writing, but her reasoning is...less polished.

[okie01]

I love Peggy Noonan. But I never read anything of hers without feeling that she is just too outrageously generous, kind, and charitable to too many people who are really, really evil.

She reminds me of my mother. Even writes the same way.

And, yes, my mother is far more generous to people of questionable virtue than I.

[Cowboy Bob]

Would the MSM care about Obama if he wasn’t Black?

[dasein64]

I have read the whole article and it really reaches for niceness when elaborating the plusses of several of the candidates. In the case of Mrs. Clinton, conceding DEEP SOPHISTICATION is an abuse of both words. Perhaps Peggy Noonan was being New Yorkish in that celebraties who live in open marriages are viewed as sophisticated. The Clintons are polished and practiced in presenting themselves before audiences as a traditional married couple. In fact, since they left the White House with their UHaul of public treasures, Mr. Clinton has been the staple of the tabloids for gadding about with this and that female who all go by the name of Not Mrs. Clinton. So much for the STURDY MIND of Mrs. Clinton who chooses to play this charade with her oaf of a husband.

[bannie]

I always love the irony of pointing out that She-who-accused-Nixon is more corrupt than Nixon.

(Although, I don't view Nixon as more corrupt than the likes of Johnson or Kennedy. He just wasn't as slick.)