Peggy Noonan defines ‘reasonable’

December 28, 2007

The WSJ’s Peggy Noonan argues today that her top characteristic when evaluating presidential candidates is “reasonableness.” The former Reagan speechwriter insists:

We are grown-ups, we know our country needs greatness, but we do not expect it and will settle at the moment for good. We just want a reasonable person. We would like a candidate who does not appear to be obviously insane. We’d like knowledge, judgment, a prudent understanding of the world and of the ways and histories of the men and women in it.

At face value, there’s nothing especially troubling about this standard. Noonan is setting the bar fairly low — “not insane” isn’t exactly a compelling campaign pitch — but she’s sketched out a relatively practical model.

That is, until Noonan starts applying her standards to specific candidates. Here’s her take on the former senator from North Carolina:

John Edwards is not reasonable. All the Democrats would raise taxes as president, but Mr. Edwards’s populism is the worst of both worlds, both intemperate and insincere. 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.

Noonan had just finished arguing that American voters “are grown-ups,” and then she turns around and takes on John Edwards’ hair, suggesting brushing one’s hair before a TV interview is somehow a disqualifying factor for a presidential candidate. He’s just not “reasonable” enough. Wow.

What’s more, Glenn Greenwald notes that “poofing” isn’t actually a word, “but rather, a British epithet for a male homosexual — ‘Slang: Disparaging and Offensive’ — a synonym for ‘faggot.'”

Noonan’s looking for a candidate with a “prudent understanding of the world.” I’m looking for a columnist with the same attribute.

Indeed, despite the fairly low set of standards, Noonan is rather stingy with the “reasonable” label.

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.

Seriously? Duncan Hunter qualifies as a “reasonable” presidential candidate, but Clinton doesn’t? For entirely vacuous reasons?

For the record, the Noonan-meter breaks down as follows:

* Reasonable: Biden, Dodd, Obama, Richardson, Romney, McCain, Hunter, Thompson

* Unreasonable: Clinton, Edwards, Huckabee

* Reasonable but not desirable: Giuliani

* Unmentioned: Kucinich, Gravel, Paul

I have no idea what on earth Noonan is talking about.

Oh, dem wascally Republicans. In 2000 their standard was “good listener” and “most like to have at a barbecue.” Now the party of non-reason wants “reasonable”? Good luck!

  • Pegster’s mendacity really knows no bounds, does it? And anyone who considers Duncan Hunter as “reasonable” is clinically retarded.

    Oh, and just an FYI — you forgot to close a bold tag over at Drum’s place and now everything on the page is bold. You may wanna fix that, lest Kevin never invite you back.

    🙂

  • Why in the world does this moron want “greatness” from the candidate right now? Greatness only occurs when a “good” person is faced with a great crisis. Abraham Lincoln would not have been “Great” if the South had been sane enough to accept his election and the Republican policy of preventing the expansion of slavery to the new territories (Ron Paul, remember it’s your South that started the Civil War).

    And frankly, before anyone claims it, a ‘war’ against a gang of brigands who fantasize about recreating a fundamentalist Wahabbist Islamic Caliphate in Baghdad is not a great crisis. It’s a law enforcement issue (there, I’ve said it!).

    As for the moron’s issues with Hillary, please….

    Or as Jim B said.

  • An op-ed in the Wall Street Journal argues for “reasonable,” and for “not obviously insane”?

    The WSJ editorial effort wouldn’t recognize “not obviously insane” if it bit them in the butt. They write the craziest stuff this side of Bedlam, and have done so for years. Their editor, Paul Gigot, is certifiable.

  • I see no rhyme or reason to Noonan’s choices.. I think she’s just babbling so she can get paid.

    That said, my candidate (Obama) qualifies as reasonable to her? That’s a blow…

  • Well, to get the full flavor of Noonan, you really have to read the whole piece. Maybe others would come away from it, as I did, picturing a high school freshman lying on her tummy on her bed making entries in her diary:

    “Dear Diary, Mitt Romney is SO Cute!!! What a hottie! And smart, too…he changes his mind a lot, but that’s okay – and he’s really rich – bonus!”

    “Dear Diary, I am so proud of John McCain! He used to be a little on the wild side, but now he’s just determined.” Dear Diary, John Edwards has the most beautiful hair – it’s so unfair! He’s kind of dreamy, too, but he would never look at someone like me. Sigh.”

    “Dear Diary, who does that Hillary Clinton think she is??? She and her thinks-he’s-so-sexy boyfriend, Bill, think they rule the school, and I could never be part of their little group. God, she’s a bitch!!!”

    “Dear Diary, that Barry Obama is the smoothest thing going. He’s so smart, and he writes like a real author. I could really go for him, but he’s a year younger than I am, and that probably means he’s not quite as experienced as a girl would like. Maybe in a couple years.”

    Spare me from the teenage musings of Peggy Noonan – she adds nothing to the conversation; all the “likes” and “she goes” and “he goes” were probably edited out.

  • To get paid she had to write something. To apply her own language: “We readers are grown-ups, we know our country needs great analysis of current events, but we do not expect it and will settle at the moment for good. We just want a reasonable observations. We would like a pundit who does not appear to be obviously insane. We’d like knowledge, judgment, a prudent understanding of the world and of the ways and histories of the men and women in it. Instead we get you.”

  • I noticed you didn’t mention Alan Keyes either CB.

    Is he not on the ballot in enough states to win the Republican’t nomination? Or is he just too unreasonable 😉 ?

  • At face value, there’s nothing especially troubling about this standard. Noonan is setting the bar fairly low — “not insane” isn’t exactly a compelling campaign pitch — but she’s sketched out a relatively practical model.

    “As long as the racist Republican white guy doesn’t seem insane, you should be able to vote for him”– that’s what it sounds like she means.

  • “…and she appears to believe that any act that benefits Clintons is a virtuous act, because Clintons are good and deserve to be benefited.”

    That sounds more like that Bush thinks about his family.

    By the way, I’d like to remind the readership- and correct me if I’m mistaken, CB- the YouTube hair-poofing thing was a joke Edwards did to make fun of people making fun of him for getting a $400 haircut. Because he put it up there intentionally, it was pretty clear the video was a joke, and he was sort of saying, “Well, it’s not really I as if I sit around poofing my hair for two minutes before I go on TV.”

    Maybe it was a bad move because a few troublemakers either wouldn’t get the joke or would intentionally mischaracterize it as sincere, but it was certainly nothing more than a joke.

  • Swan – the Edwards video was around long before the $400 haircut debacle. After that, he put up an ad with the “Hair” music as background, showing clips and pics of things like Iraq, Mission Accomplished, Katrina, and asking at the end, “What Really Matters,” but the “I feel pretty” video has been around since at least 2006.

  • Is Noonan really done playing around with the new iPod docking station and Chippendales book she got for Christmas? The holidays don’t last long enough for this woman- take a break from the columns once a year, Noonan!

  • “not a radical but a maneuverer in the direction of a vague, half-forgotten but always remembered, leftism.”

    So Hilary’s crime is that she’s not right wingnut. Noonan betrays her partisanship right there.

    Peggy suffers from the same affliction that other mentally disturbed people suffer from: she can’t be a witness to her own delusions. The fact that she and other Villagers incessantly refer to themselves as adults who are oh so reasonable is a tip-off that they are over-compensating for their completely illogical hyper-partisanship.

  • Anne, I guess when people are nervous (like when they’re about to be on TV) and you sit them down alone with nothing to do, sometimes they play with stuff- their cell phones, a pen, whatever- and maybe he liked his haircut and he may have gotten carried away and messed with his hair for longer than he noticed.

    It takes a Peggy Noonan to turn a mountain into a molehill and go after people for things like that.

  • The holidays don’t last long enough for this woman- take a break from the columns once a year, Noonan!

    Over-exertion has left her more unhinged and frazzled than usual, it seems.

  • Noonan simply fails to remember she begins her observation from an insane vantage point. Sanity for her ilk has been greatly overrated! -Kevo

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  • “I have no idea what on earth Noonan is talking about.”

    That’s OK, CB–neither does she.

  • Peggy is just another whore for the Bush crime family. Since these gangsters stole our democracy in December 2000, they have been very busy with their torture, tyranny and treason. But that is fine and dandy and “reasonable” according to Peggy…

  • Peggy Noonan once deified Bush in a fawning article that said the American people expected him to make “George-Bush-type mistakes”. That’s on top of writing an entire column rhapsodizing about his balls. It hardly needs saying that her judgment is….ummm….a little unreliable.

    She’s supposed to be quite a smart woman, but I’m damned if I can see it from her writings. And if she’s so fixated on hair etiquette, why’d she give Wolfowitz a pass for actually LICKING his comb before running it through his hair, on camera, before yet another of the innumerable photo ops during the glory days – before anyone realized he had the brain of a sand flea and couldn’t count. I know I’ve mentioned that comb-licking incident before, but I just can’t get over the grossness. I mean, quite apart from spitting in your own hair by proxy, licking your own ass would probably be more sanitary.

  • If I was Paul Gigot: We can’t have a person who (I, as Gigot, take a big breath now) thinks a presidential candidate spending time combing his fair for a few minutes so he would look presentable at his next public appearance is a disqualifying factor for the presidency writing for this newspaper. We just can’t (I breathe out).

  • Frivolous commentary on presidential candidates. She just can’t think of anything relevant to say…as usual but still finds a way to smear a few democrats so it’s a good week.
    Her idea of reasonable is finishing “My Pet Goat” after being told the country is under attack. Or keeping a straight face while knowingly lying about ‘yellow cake uranium’ and ‘mushroom clouds’. Playing funny looking for WMDs under the chair and the podium while thousands are being killed because of it. Reasonably commuting the sentence of a traitor.

    As has been said many times, there are two things to hate about Peggy Noonan…her face.

  • The really stupid part of dismissing Edwards for his two minute stare into the mirror is that NO ONE, except Edwards of course, knows whether or not he was thinking deep and important thoughts at that point. Who can prove by observation whether or not Edwards was contemplating his health care plan, or how to acheive peace in the Middle East, or something else equally weighty. A quick reflection of my own life convinces me that many great insights come at times such as Edward’s mirror gazing.

  • Though I have responded to Ms. Noonan’s editorial in the WSJ it has not made it into the reader response section as yet. I will attempt to publish it here.

    Ms. Noonan’s unreasonable rationale about who is reasonability reasonable to be President left me wondering if she has abandoned her conservative principals as so many of her fellow Republicans have. America has had over 100 years of “reasonable” presidents. That is precisely why America is a leviathan of regulation and bureaucracy. “Reasonable” presidents have given us government land ownership, the income tax, the federal reserve, prohibition, the new deal, farm subsidies, restrictive property rights, eminent domain, immoral and illegal wars, the EPA,FDA and DOE. They have taken the country off of the gold standard, and delivered instead: the drug war, the Meese commission, hate crime legislation, forfeiture laws, inflation, recessions and the Patriot Act. Your reasonable presidential choices will give Americans more of the same. Democrats may have given us higher taxes, as your editorial emphasized but Republicans have given the nation their own special form of collectivism. Both parties have and will continue to lead us closer to socialism and further erode individual rights and liberty. All while promoting and expanding the nanny state. Where was your outspokenness, Ms. Noonan when reasonable bureaucrats gave Americans all of the above mentioned? “Unreasonable” presidents on the other hand, gave us the Constitution, Bill of Rights and American independence. Ronald Reagan was perceived by many as unreasonable because his political platform emphasized the overturning of social programs and an end to an intrusive federal government. While he failed to carry out his promise at least his irrational beliefs were in the right place. Every four years Americans forget history, assume the position and vote for a mainstream candidate they consider to be reasonable. They end up, as always with a mere politician who will keep America safe for the status quo. Perhaps what we need this very minute is a little more Thomas Jefferson and Barry Goldwater. I fear to point out that if those two unreasonable choices were among today’s candidates, you would have undoubtedly dismissed them as unacceptable. Or even worse, failed to mention them at all.

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