Peggy Noonan bids farewell to Sarah Palin in the Wall Street Journal. A Republican ex speechwriter for Nixon and Reagan, Noonan turns words with economy and humour. She crafted some killers for this column.
A Farewell to Harms:
In television interviews she was out of her depth in a shallow pool.
She was limited in her ability to explain and defend her positions, and
sometimes in knowing them. She couldn't say what she read because she
didn't read anything. She was utterly unconcerned by all this and
seemed in fact rather proud of it: It was evidence of her authenticity.
She experienced criticism as both partisan and cruel because she could
see no truth in any of it. She wasn't thoughtful enough to know she
wasn't thoughtful enough.
and
"The elites hate her." The elites made her. It was the elites of the
party, the McCain campaign and the conservative media that picked her
and pushed her. The base barely knew who she was. It was the elites,
from party operatives to public intellectuals, who advanced her and
attacked those who said she lacked heft. She is a complete elite
confection. She might as well have been a bonbon.
"She makes the Republican Party look inclusive." She makes the party look stupid, a party of the easily manipulated.
Ouch. That's going to leave a mark.
