Like David Brooks, Peggy Noonan
October 18, 2008 11:43 am ET by Eric Boehlert
Says Palin is not fit for office. Noonan did it in her new WSJ column. And like Brooks, Noonan is offended by Palin's lack of seriousness; her lack of ideas and intellectual curiosity:
In the end the Palin candidacy is a symptom and expression of a new vulgarization in American politics. It's no good, not for conservatism and not for the country. And yes, it is a mark against John McCain, against his judgment and idealism.
Two notes. First, at least Noonan admits to Palin's shortcomings in print. Brooks, as you'll recall, announced Palin's anti-intellectualism represented a "cancer" on the GOP. But he only did it front of a small audience of media elites. Brooks has never copped to that assessment in print at the New York Times.
Second, it's curious that Brooks and Noonan only admitted to Palin's failings when the polls turned bad for the GOP. Ask yourself this: If national polls showed McCain and Obama in a toss-up with three weeks to go before Election Day and Palin was displaying the same disregard for idea, do you really think Brooks and Noonan would be speaking the truth about the GOP?
We have our doubts.
Noonan would be saying instead that Palin represents a whole new way of governing a "peopled body, a "principled paradigm of progress..." whose very "transcendent qualities makes the work of our Founding fathers shimmer even more in their glory and wisdom."
Right? (she's not hard to do)
Do liberals now have to use the term "elite" as an epithet as the right wing does? It's wrong and stupid (ie, Sarah Palin) sounding. Also, I take exception to the idea of journalists like David Brooks being the "elite" in any sense, except perhaps the elite of chowderheads.