Putting a Sack On Peggy

Learning to Loathe Yourself: "Notice how Noonan can see a tank and a woman and side with the tank because she doesn't like the look on the woman's face."

Peggy Noonan is all over the map. One day she's bleating ferociously about the sorry fate of manliness; the next - as if the setup is not obvious, she delivers a heartfelt comparison of any democrat to the swagger of a firefighter - the two points together illuminating her interior, earthier musings.

Her soothing words seem to drip down one's throat, many of them with the odor of lost points or the taste of bad arguments and smarmy philosophies.

"And then it struck me, suddenly, like a slow-moving vehicle: That's how you get a job as a conservative pundit. Figure out what makes you different from a white, male, protestant businessman, and hate your own guts for it.

If you're black, hate civil rights. If you're a woman, hate feminism. If you grew up poor, despise the poor. If you're a visible minority, demand more profiling. If you're gay, say you're cured. If you're Jewish, praise anti-Semites, if you're Christian, praise war."...

Maybe she was once a good speechwriter, but no more. Now she's just a bizarre diversion as one glances at her words yet one more time to see if they've all, finally, been replaced with the actual Hallmark cards from which they spring.