Free Republic

We can't say we weren't warned. But honestly, I thought the attacks from elite Republicans would be more sophisticated. First, the cartoonish Peggy Noonan, whose breathtakingly misplaced sense of self-importance is matched only by the volume of incoherent hot gas which hisses from her lips (or keyboard), attacks Governor Palin by...calling her a nincompoop. Her evidence? Well, actually she doesn't have any. But that's not surprising since name calling is a tactic one resorts to when they don't have an argument, or the intellectual capacity to make one. In a hilarious bit of irony, Noonan entitled her piece "Americans Vote...

'The people have spoken, the bastards." That would be how Democrats in the White House and on Capitol Hill are feeling. The last two years of their leadership have been rebuffed. The question for the Democratic Party: Was it worth it? Was it worth following the president and the speaker in their mad pursuit of liberal legislation that the country would not, could not, like? And what will you do now? Which path will you take? The Republicans saw their own establishment firmly, sharply put down. The question for them: What will you do to show yourselves worthy of the...

'The people have spoken, the bastards." That would be how Democrats in the White House and on Capitol Hill are feeling. The last two years of their leadership have been rebuffed. The question for the Democratic Party: Was it worth it? Was it worth following the president and the speaker in their mad pursuit of liberal legislation the country would not, could not, like? And what will you do now? Which path will you take? The Republicans saw their own establishment firmly, sharply put down. The question for them: What will you do to show yourselves worthy of the bounty?...

Federal appellate judge John T. Noonan Jr. interogated federal prosecutors today in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and questioned the government's claim and the district court ruling that parts of Arizona's immigration enforcement law preempted federal law. "I've read your brief, I've read the District Court opinion, I've heard your interchange with my two colleagues, and I don't understand your argument," judge Noonan said during today's arguments. "We are dependent as a court on counsel being responsive. . . . You keep saying the problem is that a state officer is told to do something. That's not a matter...

On a recent trip to Omaha, Neb., I found a note prominently displayed in my hotel room warning of the possibility of "extreme weather" including "tornadic activity." The clunky euphemism was no doubt meant to soften or obscure what they were obliged to communicate: There may be a tornado, look out. That's what's going on nationally. Tornadoes are tearing up the political landscape.

All anyone in America who cares about politics was talking about this week was the searing encounter that captured, in a way that hasn't been done before, the essence of the political moment we're in. When 2010 is reviewed, it will be the clip the producers pick to illustrate the president's disastrous fall. It is Monday, Sept. 20, the middle of the day, in Washington. CNBC is holding a town hall for the president. A woman stands—handsome, dignified, black, a person with presence. She looks as if she may be what she turns out to be, an Obama supporter who...

This fact marks our political age: The pendulum is swinging faster and in shorter arcs than it ever has in our lifetimes. Few foresaw the earthquake of 2008 in 2006. No board-certified political professional predicted, on Election Day 2008, what happened in 2009-10 (New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts) and has been happening, and will happen, since then. It all moves so quickly now, it all turns on a dime. But at this moment we are witnessing a shift that will likely have some enduring political impact. Another way of saying that: The past few years, a lot of people in...

All presidents take vacations, and all are criticized for it. It's never the right place, the right time. Ronald Reagan went to the ranch, George W. Bush to Crawford, both got knocked. Bill Clinton even poll-tested a vacation site and still was criticized. But Martha's Vineyard—elite, upscale—can't have done President Obama any good, especially following the first lady's foray in Spain. The general feeling this week was summed up by David Letterman: "He'll have plenty of time for vacations when his one term is up. Plenty of time."

All presidents take vacations, and all are criticized for it. It's never the right place, the right time. Ronald Reagan went to the ranch, George W. Bush to Crawford, both got knocked. Bill Clinton even poll-tested a vacation site and still was criticized. But Martha's Vineyard—elite, upscale—can't have done President Obama any good, especially following the first lady's foray in Spain. The general feeling this week was summed up by David Letterman: "He'll have plenty of time for vacations when his one term is up. Plenty of time." The president's position is not good. The past few months have been...

It's high summer and we're all out there seeing each other. We're not hidden away in our homes and offices as we are in winter's cold. We're part of a crowd—on the street, in the park, on the boardwalk, on the top deck of the ferry to Saltaire. And we can see in some new or clearer ways how technology is changing us.

And out-of-touch leaders don't see the need to cool things off. It is, obviously, self-referential to quote yourself, but I do it to make a point. I wrote the following on New Year's day, 1994. America 16 years ago was a relatively content nation, though full of political sparks: 10 months later the Republicans would take the House for the first time in 40 years. But beneath all the action was, I thought, a coming unease. Something inside was telling us we were living through "not the placid dawn of a peaceful age but the illusory calm before stern storms."

Even those of us who warned against the "canonization" of Shirley Sherrod didn't expect that right-of-center commentators would propose that her radical manifesto become part of the canon. Yet that's what Peggy Noonan is calling for: " This September, when school begins, we should make [Sherrod's] speech required viewing in the nation's high schools." Gee, can't this wait until February, when Black History Month rolls around? JOHN suggests: Or May Day perhaps, when socialist views are traditionally celebrated?

She was smeared by right-wing media, condemned by the NAACP, and canned by the Obama administration. It wasn't pretty, what was done this week to Shirley Sherrod. And maybe something good can come of it. The thought occurred to me after reading her now-famous speech, which is about the power of grace and the possibility of redemption. Here's a way to get some good. This September, when school begins, we should make the speech required viewing in the nation's high schools. It packs quite a lesson within quite a story. You know the essential facts. On March 27, Ms. Sherrod,...

The tenderest words in American political history were cut from the document they were to have graced. It was July 1, 2 ,3 and 4, 1776, in the State House in Philadelphia. America was being born. The Continental Congress was reviewing and editing the language of the proposed Declaration of Independence and Thomas Jefferson, its primary author, was suffering the death of a thousand cuts. The tensions over slavery had been wrenching, terrible, and were resolved by brute calculation: to damn or outlaw it now would break fragile consensus, halt all momentum, and stop the creation of the United States....

"It was the 'small people' in the shrimp boats who laid the boom" -Peggy Noonan

You know, folks like Noonan and Mort Zuckerman whining about Obama, after they praised him, pushed him, and voted for him in the face of all the evidence that led less besotted observers to see him for the empty suit he was, and is, leave me stone cold. Especially because these are the same snotty jackasses who arrogate to themselves superiority over those of us less “perceptive” folks. Listen up, you punked, chumped boobs: We looked at Obama not through your rose colored hallucinations, but through the cold, clear spectacles of reality.

We Are Totally Unprepared' Nine years after 9/11, a chilling complacency about WMD attacks. By PEGGY NOONAN The most important overlooked story of the past few weeks was overlooked because it was not surprising. Also because no one really wants to notice it. The weight of 9/11 and all its implications is so much on our minds that it's never on our mind. I speak of the report from the Inspector General of the Justice Department, issued in late May, saying the department is not prepared to ensure public safety in the days or weeks after a terrorist attack in...

Peggy Noonan supported and backed the presidency of Barry Hussein Soetoro during his campaign for the office and early on into his presidency. Actually it was worse than that Noonan was a certified Obama Girl. She loved her some Obama! So imagine my surprise when I see in her article, “He was supposed to be Competent” a less than favorable critique of the man whom she claimed would be good for America. (see article) The president, in my view, continues to govern in a way that suggests he is chronically detached from the central and immediate concerns of his countrymen....

The spill is a disaster for the president and his political philosophy. I don't see how the president's position and popularity can survive the oil spill. This is his third political disaster in his first 18 months in office. And they were all, as they say, unforced errors, meaning they were shaped by the president's political judgment and instincts.

I am happy to see that my friend Peggy Noonan has graduated from being the star-struck cheerleader of Obama to joinging the ranks of the disillusioned.  Back in the summer of 2008, when much of the country was swooning over The One We’ve Been Waiting for For (remember that?), Peggy was enthusiastically outlining the case for Barack Hussein Obama in The Wall Street Journal: He has within him the possibility to change the direction and tone of American foreign policy, which need changing; his rise will serve as a practical rebuke to the past five years, which need rebuking; his...