"The White House Thinks Its Base Is Stupid" - By Peggy Noonan

[kpete]

PEGGY NOONAN

Too Bad
President Bush has torn the conservative coalition asunder.

Friday, June 1, 2007 12:00 a.m. EDT

What political conservatives and on-the-ground Republicans must understand at this point is that they are not breaking with the White House on immigration. They are not resisting, fighting and thereby setting down a historical marker--"At this point the break became final." That's not what's happening. What conservatives and Republicans must recognize is that the White House has broken with them. What President Bush is doing, and has been doing for some time, is sundering a great political coalition. This is sad, and it holds implications not only for one political party but for the American future.

The White House doesn't need its traditional supporters anymore, because its problems are way beyond being solved by the base. And the people in the administration don't even much like the base. Desperate straits have left them liberated, and they are acting out their disdain. Leading Democrats often think their base is slightly mad but at least their heart is in the right place. This White House thinks its base is stupid and that its heart is in the wrong place.

............
What I came in time to believe is that the great shortcoming of this White House, the great thing it is missing, is simple wisdom. Just wisdom--a sense that they did not invent history, that this moment is not all there is, that man has lived a long time and there are things that are true of him, that maturity is not the same thing as cowardice, that personal loyalty is not a good enough reason to put anyone in charge of anything, that the way it works in politics is a friend becomes a loyalist becomes a hack, and actually at this point in history we don't need hacks.

more at:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110010148&mod=RSS_Opinion_Journal&ojrss=frontpage

[CatWoman]

1. I think they discussed this article earlier on Washington Journal

thanks, KPete :hi:

[Ganja Ninja]

2. Wow! They get it right for once.

That's a first.

[Supersedeas]

16. like the rest of us did not know that -- another declaration of the obvious Noonan

[JHB]

3. Bush didn't tear the ConCoalition asunder, Peggy...

...it's own internal contradictions and conflicting goals did.
Chim-Chim is just its natural result.

[Toots]

4. Yet she will continue to vote blind allegiance to the GOP

And encourage all America to do the same. She is a Hack....

[MikeNearMcChord]

5. The Freeper Base was never shrub's "base"

He always catered to the Upper 1% and he actually admitted that, at a fundraiser. I wonder if they still have that idiotic Pray For President Bush thread over at that other site that shall be nameless.

[NashVegas]

10. Exactly!

"The haves and the have mores. I call you, 'my base'."

[Ilsa]

6. Bush* knows no loyalty except of that from his hacks to himself.

THis is so predictable, given that they obviously are evil soulless creatures. Eventually * would have no use for the people that put him in office, so he spits on them, like he does the troops and the families of dead soldiers.

[radfringe]

7. gee I think noonan was just added to the

terra-watch list and scheduled for an emergency IV of Kool-aid...

[Buzz Clik]

8. Stupid is as stupid does.

Bush didn't lose any political capital by underestimating the intelligence of his base.

[YOY]

9. Awww...poor Peggy baby...

Reagan stupid legacy go boom boom because it didn't work in the first place? Republican party may go bye bye?



Poor baby...

[radfringe]

23. peggy noonan: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!

and regarding "...and actually at this point in history we don't need hacks."

since Peggy has experience in being a hack, I guess she should know at what point in history we did need hacks....

[BeyondGeography]

11. And where would they ever get THAT idea, Peggy?

The Republican base has been truth-resistant for years, and it didn't start with Bush. He's just the latest in a series of supply-side, faux patriotic flim-flammers who have been giving the base their jollies for years.

[sarge43]

12. Took you seven years and 5 months to figure that one out, Peggy?

Welcome to the world the rest of us have had to live in.

Idiot.

[hatrack]

13. No, Peggy - the WH KNOWS its base is stupid

They just don't care any more - their last election is over and done and now it's "legacy"/golden parachute/Board of Directors time for those in charge.

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. "Why would they speak so insultingly, with such hostility, of opponents who are concerned citizens?"

Because, Peggy, that's what most Republicans have done since about 1960 (and, in the case of McCarthyites, well before that too). You shouldn't be so surprised - it's just that now you find yourself getting pissed on, rather than being the urinator.

On edit: she has the reactions of a dinosaur:

The beginning of my own sense of separation from the Bush administration came in January 2005, when the president declared that it is now the policy of the United States to eradicate tyranny in the world, and that the survival of American liberty is dependent on the liberty of every other nation.

Err, shouldn't that have been more like January 2002, with his "Axis of Evil" State of the Union speech? Whatever his real policies were before then, his public "I'm going to tell the world how to run itself, by force" ideas started then. If you'd been awake then, and not so busy damning any Republican opponents as unpatriotic yourself, you might have been able to use the one aspect of conservatism that can be useful - caution. Maybe that then would have made a difference in Nov 2004, you dumbass, Peggy.

For examples of how much Noonan is fooling herself, and lying to us, here's her reaction to that SotU (warning: have a bag handy. Your vomit will be copious):

The president was blunt in unveiling what will perhaps be known as the Bush Doctrine. And that is that the United States will no longer hope for the best in the world and respond only after being attacked; we will, instead, admit and act on the facts of the WMD era and actively search out our would-be killers wherever they are and whoever supports them and shut them down dead. The Clinton model of inadequate response based on ambivalent feeling is over; likewise the Bush I model of cat-herding coalitions and anxious diplomacy is over, though coalitions and diplomacy are nice, especially when everyone agrees to do the same thing at the same time in the same way.
...
Mr. Bush also is not by nature given to laundry-list speeches. One senses he understands that politicians who do them are trying to obscure the fact that they don't have a philosophy. They hope the adding up of program upon program will give the appearance of philosophy. But Mr. Bush has a philosophy. It is conservative. Freedom is the God-given and natural state of man, the government exists to protect man's freedom, and the greatest and most reliable freedom protector in all of human history is: us.
...
For a man who is famously not smart Mr. Bush certainly is smart. The president seems to me these days to be operating as a person of essentially two halves. The first half is Sheer Gut--a sharp and intelligent instinct, an inner shrewdness, an ability to see the bottom line, decide priorities, and see the difference between what is desired and what is needed. The second half, as the liberal pundit Bill Schneider said on CNN after the speech, is "character." People can tell, Mr. Schneider said, that when Mr. Bush says he's going to do something he actually means to do it.
...
And it's also true that those who once dismissed Mr. Bush and now praise him are demonstrating an honesty and high mindedness that is wonderful to behold after the sapping, sour 1990s. It really is refreshing--literally refreshing--to have a president people admire and can follow cleanly again.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=95001799

That's beyond hero-worship - it's more like a new religion. For Peggy, Bush was The Chosen One.

[unpossibles]

25. "those who once dismissed Mr. Bush and now praise him"

both of them?

Uh, Peggy, perhaps you had not noticed but his popularity is dwindling, not growing. Honestly I am not sure he underestimated the intelligence of his base at all, because I am not sure that's possible.

<tasteless joke time>hell, that's the real reason they wanted to save Terri Schaivo - to get one more solid member of the "base" </tasteless joke>

[muriel_volestrangler]

27. That quote came from 2002

What I was saying is that back in 2002, Noonan's praise for Bush knew no bounds, although he was saying the same thing about 'bringing freedom to the world'. But now, she's trying to say she saw that as a problem in 2005 - ie she's trying to pretend she saw what a dumbfuck Bush is before Hurricane Katrina.

In December 2004 she wrote: "Stop the war on religious expression in America"

In January 2005, she wrote, about Bush's inauguration speech: Way Too Much God

Right after the 2004 election, she wrote:

It will be hard for the mainstream media to continue, in the face of these facts, the mantra that we are a deeply and completely divided country. But they'll try!
...
Who was the biggest loser of the 2004 election? It is easy to say Mr. Kerry: he was a poor candidate with a poor campaign. But I do think the biggest loser was the mainstream media, the famous MSM, the initials that became popular in this election cycle. Every time the big networks and big broadsheet national newspapers tried to pull off a bit of pro-liberal mischief--CBS and the fabricated Bush National Guard documents, the New York Times and bombgate, CBS's "60 Minutes" attempting to coordinate the breaking of bombgate on the Sunday before the election--the yeomen of the blogosphere and AM radio and the Internet took them down. It was to me a great historical development in the history of politics in America. It was Agincourt. It was the yeomen of King Harry taking down the French aristocracy with new technology and rough guts. God bless the pajama-clad yeomen of America. Some day, when America is hit again, and lines go down, and media are hard to get, these bloggers and site runners and independent Internetters of all sorts will find a way to file, and get their word out, and it will be part of the saving of our country.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110005844

Yeah, Peggy, those 'yeomen' bloggers, who worked so hard for Bush, found themselves with a president saying what he'd said before, but suddenly you didn't like it, for some reason. That must have hurt, Peggy, seeing what you said before the 2004 election:

I am going to take three months' unpaid leave from The Wall Street Journal and attempt to support the Republican Party in the coming and crucial election. (Every four years everyone says "this is the most important election of my lifetime," but this year I believe it is true.) I'm going to give whatever advice and encouragement I have in terms of strategy, approach, message--I hate that word--and issues. No one has asked me to do this, and I do it as a volunteer, not for a salary but simply to give my time to help what I think is the more helpful side. This will take a bite out of my finances but I can do it. Actually most of us, when we die, wind up with a few thousand dollars in the bank. We should have spent it! I am going to spend mine now.

The White House does not need my help. They have the best political strategists, communications specialists and speechwriters since the Reagan era, which had the best of all these since the time of JFK. President Bush has his sound, and it's a good one. He's getting his sea legs on the stump--it's hard to go from being-president to being-president-and-running again-for-president, it's a bit of a shift and is always awkward. But he's got it together and they've got it together.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110005442

Looks like you are part of the stupid base, Peggy.

[unpossibles]

30. oops - not enough coffee for me yet this morning I suppose

:)

Although frankly I felt the same way about him back then too. I am so sick of everyone who practically fellated the man for 4 or 5 years suddenly saying how bad he is. Sure takes guts to help ruin the country then distance yourself from a lame duck.

and the 'yeomen' bloggers bit - blech. Please. Although I suppose the analogy is somewhat apt since they were receiving orders from the King all along.

So how come all of the right wing hacks and shills who have been wrong for the past 6 years or so have not been given the same treatment Dan Rather was?

[Bake]

35. "... the sapping, sour 1990s ..."

Yeah, all that peace and prosperity just sucked the life out of us! Thank God THAT'S over with!

Bake

[HooptieWagon]

15. The base IS stupid

They voted for chimpolini twice, and most of them would vote for him a third time if they could.

[EV_Ares]

17. Thinking the same thing, they even vote against their own interests.

How many of the base do you think got any of this tax breaks. I know religious idiots that voted for him because their church basically suggested it or they thought he was such a christian man. Some of these people now can hardly afford gas to get to work.

I have asked them, what has he done for you?

Yes, stupid is correct for them.

[Warren Stupidity]

20. Seriously Stupid.

We might have the premier world class cohort of the planet's stupidest people. Take a look at the crap we have signed up for. 35 uninterrupted years of grinding down the working class (that would be all of us), tossing our kids in jail for getting high, war without end, environmental degradation, commercialization of every available surface area, religious extremism, militarization of society, and elimination of individual rights. It has been one sorry string of decades since the 70's.

[NewJeffCT]

18. While she is right on this

Who are the Republican base going to vote for - a Democrat? I don't think so.

I know several Republics who disliked Bush quite a bit in 2004. One guy was even telling everybody he knew to vote for Kerry over that summer. However, when it came down to it, they all voted Bush because they saw him as the lesser of two evils. Rove & Company had so effectively demonized Kerry that they all held their noses and voted for Bush.

[City Lights]

19. Peggy's a little slow.

George had this figured out years ago - "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you need to concentrate on."

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

21. Well Shit, Even A Broken Clock Is Right Twice A Day Right? They Were Due To Say Somethin Accurate.

[Felix Mala]

22. Broken with them!!?? He's been following the neocon playbook to the T...

The Iraq stain will taint neoconservatism forever and ever... The war is the logical result of neocon foreign policy philosophy... Sadder still, the new "nation" of Iraq was birthed to be the ideal model of neocon governance... Paradise lost... Neocon's are so reality averse they have no problem leaving their 21 Century Reagan clone twisting in the wind...

[gatorboy]

24. It's not like Bush suddenly sprung this gem on them.

He had been talking about his immigration policy since before 9/11, since before his presidency. It was always a pet project of his.

And you fools voted for him anyway. No one to blame but yourselves, folks.


Peggy is the dumbest of them all.

[kskiska]

26. Whatever happened to "supporting the president?"

Friday, October 27, 2006
Peggy Noonan and the rotting pundit class

One of the more corrupt pundit phenomena is the way in which the most loyal and worshipful Bush followers, who spent the last five years praising the President and doing everything possible to enable his most radical policies, are now suddenly pretending to be so deeply dissatisfied with his rule. Now that the Bush movement is collapsing, they all want to pretend that they knew all along that things weren't going well and that the President was deeply flawed. Suddenly, they're not a part of any of it and bear no responsibility for it because, all along, they felt the President wasn't doing the right thing and, besides, he was never really loyal to their political beliefs.

(snip)

But in 2004, when arguing for President Bush's re-election, this is what Peggy Noonan said in The Wall St. Journal about George Bush (a passage I remember so vividly because it may very well be the most horrifying and cringe-inducing piece of punditry ever):

I was asked this week why the president seems so attractive to the heartland, to what used to be called Middle America. A big question. I found my mind going to this word: normal.

Mr. Bush is the triumph of the seemingly average American man. He's normal. He thinks in a sort of common-sense way. He speaks the language of business and sports and politics. You know him. He's not exotic. But if there's a fire on the block, he'll run out and help. He'll help direct the rig to the right house and count the kids coming out and say, "Where's Sally?"

He's responsible. He's not an intellectual. Intellectuals start all the trouble in the world. And then when the fire comes they say, "I warned Joe about that furnace." And, "Does Joe have children?" And "I saw a fire once. It spreads like syrup. No, it spreads like explosive syrup. No, it's formidable and yet fleeting." When the fire comes they talk.

Bush ain't that guy. Republicans love the guy who ain't that guy. Americans love the guy who ain't that guy.

more…
http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/10/peggy-noonan-and-rotting-pundit-class.html

[BurtWorm]

28. If true, the WH is smarter than I thought.

:patriot:

[rasputin1952]

29. Interesting to see Noonan setting the table for the GOP to ...

Feast of the GOP to eat it's own...:D

After watching this administration sit upon a throne of human skulls, you'd think she might have woken up ...say 5 years ago.

What we are a part of in history, is seeing the GOP tear itself apart at it's most basic level. The implosion will be complete soon, they cannot exist on only a platform of fear and mistrust. They have take the GOP to new depths, and Americans, regardless of wht th eGOP thinks, sre not stupid.

There will be a complete makeover of the GOP in the next decade, but to be sure, they have destroyed virtually every thing conservatives have fought for, for years. Government has exploded, the debt has exploded, there is no quity in pay scales, and the infrastucture of this nation is near collapse. The neo-cons have done in 12 years, what any enemy we've ever had could not do in 231, they've put this nation into near collapse.

[tabasco]

31. So Noonan is tired of wiping the Chimp's butt for him?

Maybe she wants to try and get back some credibility.

Good luck with that Peggy! You're a lying propagandist and intelligent people won't forget!

[tanyev]

32. And now Peggy will channel the power of that awesome brain into solving 2+2.

Check back in 6 more years to see if she's come up with the answer.

[radfringe]

34. that's an easy one - the answer is 22

[WinkyDink]

33. I, OTOH, full-well KNOW it!

[Javaman]

36. They don't think they are stupid, they KNOW they are stupid. nt