Skip to main content

The wheels are coming off the trolley?

Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal's answer to the New York Time's elderly schoolgirl columnist (props to Mark Steyn) Maureen Dowd, has officially flipped out. Perhaps it was the latest scandal in the Catholic Church that pushed her "into bad territory with the trolley", but she seems to think the world is out of control and the President - any President - can't handle it, manage it, control it anymore (as if they ever could). She also offers this beauty taken from Christopher Lawford's autobiography:

"I'm glad I'm not going to be around when you guys are my age." I asked him (Uncle Teddy) why, and he said, "Because when you guys are my age, the whole thing is going to fall apart."

Well, please kick the bucket ASAP Ted - few have done more to send "the trolley off the tracks" than you have. In death you might even have to give up your seat in the US Senate - though I don't know why because your constituency would still elect you every 6 years and your staff could cast all of your votes on all issues before "the worlds greatest deliberative body" - they already do!

In the quote above Ted K sounds like a grumpy 73 year old man, which he is, but he is also one of "our Elites" who has made a "separate peace" with the struggling masses of "the Other America" as John Edwards (who?) used to say before he joined Fortress Investment Group LLC. As an aside, doesn't Fortress Investment Group sound like an financial company who's ownership has resigned itself to an "I got mine, you get yours" world view. To quote school marm Noonan:

"You're a lobbyist or a senator or a cabinet chief, you're an editor at a paper or a green-room schmoozer, you're a doctor or lawyer or Indian chief, and you're making your life a little fortress. That's what I think a lot of the elites are up to."

Is Noonan proposing that it was ever any different? If so, then someone should tell her that there have always been the Ted Kennedy's of the world who live in an elite bubble making a separate peace with the great unwashed. The wheels are always coming off the The United States of America and the wheels are always being put back on - that's what makes the USA such a dynamic and powerful force in the world. There is a mysterious "it" or "things" in Noonan's commentary as in:
  1. "things have broken down and can't be fixed"
  2. "I'm not talking about 'Plamegate.' As I write no indictments have come up. I'm not talking about 'Miers.' I mean . . . the whole ball of wax. Everything."
  3. "I mean I believe there's a general and amorphous sense that things are broken and tough history is coming."
  4. "I have wondered if it hasn't all gotten too big, too complicated, too crucial, too many-fronted, too . . . impossible."
  5. "Not all of course. There are a lot of people--I know them and so do you--trying to do work that helps, that will turn it around, that can make it better, that can save lives."
What is this "it"? What are these "things"? Well, they're everything and so I guess she's correct (in an unconscious way) - the world doesn't stand still and some things fall away while other things rise. But what's the problem with that? "Our educated and successful professionals, are the ones who are supposed to dig us out and lead us." says Peggy Noonan.
She means people like herself, I suppose, or, God help us, Ted Kennedy should fix our many problems. Let me say a loud, no thanks - I would rather "go down with the ship" that live in Ted K's socialist lifeboat.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Real Story with Gretchen Carlson

She was "sexy", but "too much hard work." I'm a regular Fox & Friends viewer (mostly in protest of the other insipid morning programs like Today and Good Morning America) so over the years I've gotten to know Gretchen Carlson pretty well. Stuck between Steve and Brian she always seemed a prudish scold with an irritating, self-righteous demeanor that I simply put up with because I figured some people in the Fox audience actually liked her persona. It was obvious that Steve and Brian did not, but they were stuck with her like so many talking heads and had to make the best of it - which they did. Besides, she was no worse than any of the other women on morning show TV - I mean, you're only going to find a certain kind of person to do this kind of work and that kind of person is the Gretchen Carlson kind. Then, one day, she was gone and replaced by Elisabeth Hasselbeck and the F&F ratings began to climb, and climb and climb - in two months view

The 4th Estate "does not know"

Last night Jim Acosta sat down for an interview with Larry Sabato at a national symposium series presented by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics titled “Democracy in Perilous Times.” The evening’s topic was “ The Fourth Estate: Enemy of the People? ” and the crowd was warmly receptive of Acosta’s message which, boiled down to its essence, is that Donald Trump is a liar and he’s making life dangerous for reporters. Sabato introduced Acosta to the audience as Enemy #1 which drew mirthful laughter from the auditorium and then presented a short video montage of President Trump and his deplorable rubes insulting the reporter on many occasions over the past two years. This was all a set up for his first question which was, “how do you do your Job?” Acosta said the he accomplishes his duties by maintaining focus, reporting the story and telling the truth but acknowledged that it is difficult when the White House erodes the peoples faith in the press by bullying reporters. Whe

A Apolitical Blues

Well my telephone was ringing, and they told me it was chairman Mao. You got to tell him anything 'cause I just don't want to talk to him now. According to the brilliant troubadour Lowell George the Apolitical Blues are " the meanest blues of all" and who am I to disagree with this soul man now after all these years of living by his maxim.  I first heard the song bursting from the 1972 vinyl of Little Feat's Alt-Rock-Country masterpiece "Sailin' Shoes" in the second story bedroom of my friend John's older brother Edie who, being about 3 years our senior, was instructing us on the importance of good music. This was circa 1975 and a formative time for my musical taste and overall aesthetic which, for better or worse, infuses every aspect of my existence including the KOTCB blog so a debt is owed this unforgettable "older brother" now that  he has shuffled off this mortal coil  and left us with smoky memories. A born rebel with the heart o