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Noonan: America's Crisis of Character
WSJ Online ^ | 4/20/2012 | Peggy Noonan

Posted on 04/20/2012 3:11:49 AM PDT by pieceofthepuzzle

People in politics talk about the right track/wrong track numbers as an indicator of public mood. This week Gallup had a poll showing only 24% of Americans feel we're on the right track as a nation. That's a historic low. Political professionals tend, understandably, to think it's all about the economy—unemployment, foreclosures, we're going in the wrong direction. I've long thought that public dissatisfaction is about more than the economy, that it's also about our culture, or rather the flat, brute, highly sexualized thing we call our culture...

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: bho44; bhojobapproval; corruption; culture; ethics; noonan
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To: Biggirl

I think that is true, though I am not sure I buy it in this case.

I may have missed it, but I don’t think she has said “I was wrong, and my advocacy of Obama and my denunciations of Palin contributed to the problem we are now faced with in the White House”

From what I can see, she talks about it as if she had not part in it.

I have had this happen to me, so I know how I feel. When someone comes to me and says “I was wrong. I made a mistake, this is what it was, and I regret it” I can fully put it behind me and make a new start.

She apparently regrets the outcome, but doesn’t yet own her part in enabling it in the first place, as far as I can see. I could be wrong.


21 posted on 04/20/2012 3:58:31 AM PDT by rlmorel (A knife in the chest from a unapologetic liberal is preferable to a knife in the back from a RINO.)
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To: Timber Rattler

I think she could repair that damage if she came out and said how wrong she was, and why.

I think she could do it...after all, nobody seems to hold anyone to past performances anymore.

Economists, environmentalists and politicians who get things completely wrong have no trouble finding jobs.

Funny, that.


22 posted on 04/20/2012 4:01:29 AM PDT by rlmorel (A knife in the chest from a unapologetic liberal is preferable to a knife in the back from a RINO.)
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To: Timber Rattler
Peggys’s a first class hypocrite

Exactly right. The lead baton-twirler helped guide us down the wrong street and now she's standing on the sidewalk pointing out our stupidity.

(I love marching band references!)

23 posted on 04/20/2012 4:09:59 AM PDT by LoveUSA (God employs Man's strength; Satan exploits Man's weakness.)
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To: rlmorel; Diogenesis; Timber Rattler; Dick Vomer
“I’m so glad that Noonan is lecturing us on character and principles. Yawn..... She needs to waddle back to Manhattan and drink a few more martinis with her buddies and cluck about how righteous and smarter they are than the rest of the people in flyover country.”

I had a similar reaction, which is one of the reasons I posted this. How does she think we got to this point? How about being honest about what is happening in society. Like it or not, a huge swath of our society defines itself in accordance with what is on TV, what music is popular, what is on the nightly news, what those ‘in the know’ say, and generally by what is ‘in vogue’ at the moment.

For years and years those with a societal/cultural soapbox - like the ‘journalists’, and the ‘entertainers’, and the ‘academics’, and the TV news anchors, and the people putting together advertising themes, and of course the politicians, and others who could all be expected to be represented at the Manhattan cocktail parties alluded to - have all abdicated their societal responsibilities. To some extent, this may have happened because we let people who were not ‘the best and the brightest’, but who were the most narcissistic and ruthless, attain the stature that gave them their soapboxes.

Whatever the reason, it is offensive that those people who have acted irresponsibly are now pontificating on the fall of American society. Along those lines, it was absolutely irresponsible for Peggy Noonan to back Obama without honestly and truthfully vetting him. It wasn't just poor judgment, it was irresponsible.

24 posted on 04/20/2012 4:15:03 AM PDT by pieceofthepuzzle
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To: Flintlock
“One—fish (like society) rot from the head on down.
Two—Immigration is gradually importing a brand-new electorate (very old in reality) with a more ‘diverse’ set of standards and culture.”

Agree entirely. Along those lines, we have let ourselves be silenced about immigration. It's not just about ‘illegal’ immigration. It is about cultural and demographic shifts that are being used as a weapon by those whose goal is to ‘transform’ American society. When specific ethnic, or racial, or religious factions in society say things like ‘we will become the majority over the next 20-30 years’, why is that not openly discussed as the verbal threat that it is.

We have been told, in part by those who would drink cocktails with Peggy, that we need to be culturally open, blind ourselves to our differences, and ‘celebrate diversity’. The problem is that while we were embracing this, those with an agenda have been plotting to take over what we voluntarily abdicate. We have been sold mass societal suicide in the name of ‘progressivism’ and ‘enlightenment’ and ‘diversity’. The melting pot works, but only if what you put in it melts.

25 posted on 04/20/2012 4:28:46 AM PDT by pieceofthepuzzle
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To: rlmorel
She apparently regrets the outcome, but doesn’t yet own her part in enabling it in the first place, as far as I can see. I could be wrong.

I think you're right. This column is defective in that it's only half a column. Peggy blows it on two vital points that show she's still not willing to assume accoutablility for the horror she and others wrought in supporting the Illegal in 2008.

When she refers to and rightly condemns the atrocities perpetrated by flash mobs she absolutely refuses to acknowledge the race of those criminals as being Holder's and the Illegal's people. That enables her to avoid pinning the blame for those mob actions where it belongs, on Holder and the Illegal.

She also, painfully and obviiouisly, fails to note and condemn the total disrespect and contempt the Illegal and Moochelle have shown for the presidency, the White House, and the American people by throwing repeated, obscene, expensive parties at the White House, taking repeated, unnecessary, obscenely expensive vacations primarily at the taxpayers' expense during this horrible recession, and the Illegal's own endless golfing during the same recession. That's leadership by example, hideous example. The GSA and SS operatives have just followed that leadership and taken the example set by the Obamas to the next level. Peggy's still suffering the effects of the Obamagaz she so enthusiastically sucked in 2008 and cannot bring herself to acknowledge that simple fact.

26 posted on 04/20/2012 4:43:59 AM PDT by libstripper
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To: pieceofthepuzzle

As much as I hate Fathead Ed, I do like that skit. Sometimes I wonder if Larry David is a confirmed leftist or if he just plays one in real life to get laid and please his friends.


27 posted on 04/20/2012 4:49:47 AM PDT by samtheman
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To: samtheman

In one of his shows he started to become intimate with a woman and then turned off when he saw her photograph of President Bush and she owned up to being a Republican. I took that as a lampoon of the ideological leftists in Hollywood.


28 posted on 04/20/2012 5:39:45 AM PDT by Piranha (If you seek perfection you will end up with Democrats.)
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To: ClearCase_guy
"Everything -- Everything -- hinges on Social Conservative values."

This is what Santorum's campaign was about. And why it resonated w/ so many.

It's unfortunate that he doesn't have the agility to keep his balance in a strong headwind.

29 posted on 04/20/2012 5:41:35 AM PDT by Pietro
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To: pieceofthepuzzle

The decay of this nation goes far beyond just sexual promiscuity. That is just a symptom of a culture with no higher moral aspirations — nothing of the “noble” or “honorable” in it, nothing of the transcendent or even enduring. A devotion to ephemera and superficiality. Almost feral devotion to the lowest common denominator.

Our civilization has “progressed” to the culture of the caveman.


30 posted on 04/20/2012 6:11:39 AM PDT by IronJack (=)
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To: ClearCase_guy

“But a lot of people, even on this site, want to put Social Conservatism on a back burner and emphasize something else because that “something else” seems to offer more immediate value.”

Perhaps you give them too much credit. Some on what is called ‘the right’ would like to extinguish a conservative society altogether, no less than the left. They just want the accounts to balance in a kinder, gentler Bedlam.


31 posted on 04/20/2012 7:56:45 AM PDT by Psalm 144 ("I'm not willing to light my hair on fire to try and get support. I am who I am." - Willard M Romney)
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To: IronJack

The USA will go the way of the USSR barring an unlikely reversal in policies. Neither God nor mathematics are mocked.


32 posted on 04/20/2012 7:58:19 AM PDT by Psalm 144 ("I'm not willing to light my hair on fire to try and get support. I am who I am." - Willard M Romney)
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To: Piranha

I saw that show and had the same thought you did.

For what it’s worth, his ex-wife is:
a) a raving environazi lunatic
b) his EX-wife


33 posted on 04/20/2012 8:57:19 AM PDT by samtheman
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To: Timber Rattler; onyx
Murphy and Noonan on open mike
34 posted on 04/20/2012 4:17:07 PM PDT by rdb3 (If you were tried in court for being a Christian, is there enough evidence to convict you?)
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To: rdb3; DJ MacWoW; RedMDer; musicman; The Cajun; trisham

Thanks very much. Noonan and Murphy are both losers and neither are qualifed nor fit to shine Sarah Palin’s worst pair of shoes.


35 posted on 04/20/2012 4:49:08 PM PDT by onyx (SUPPORT FREE REPUBLIC, DONATE MONTHLY. If you want on Sarah Palin's Ping List, let me know.)
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Don't let FR fade away! Donate.
For every New Monthly Donor, another FReeper is donating $10.00!!
Please take this generous offer into consideration!

36 posted on 04/20/2012 4:50:36 PM PDT by RedMDer (https://support.woundedwarriorproject.org/default.aspx?tsid=93)
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To: pieceofthepuzzle

After a group of highly “superior” elitists orchestrate a massive foreign invasion and cleanse the natives’ culture and way of life, they look at the uprooted natives and sniff to one another about how inferior the natives are compared to them and the invaders. (Illegals are just doin’ the work Americans won’t do.)

Pegs is one of the “superior” ones talking down to the natives. Palin was too American-American (inferior) for Peggy. As their hatred of Americans collapses this country, they will be scapegoating, controlling and punishing Americans more and more. Unless Americans can ditch them from power as we rebuild what they destroyed they will just walk away from their wreckage.


37 posted on 04/20/2012 5:51:45 PM PDT by SaraJohnson
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To: Dick Vomer

I’ve written her taking her to task on her sicky sweet wet-kiss she gave Obama on election night. She must’ve explained that over the past four years - did she?

For living in DC I think she has good input for the how the rest of us live - but coming out of that DC cocoon could really help her. I thinks she’s a brilliant thinker - up there with Krauthammer - but she was so wrong on Obama!


38 posted on 08/31/2013 9:11:31 PM PDT by yourpalsteve
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To: pieceofthepuzzle

Here we go again “discussion” (i.e. dissing) about the author, not about the ideas.

“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”

Eleanor Roosevelt


39 posted on 08/31/2013 9:19:39 PM PDT by Revolting cat! (Bad things are wrong! Ice cream is delicious!)
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