It’s a bit disconcerting to have Peggy Noonan agree with me on anything. But she seems to have had the same gut reaction to the Bush/Web confrontation that I did. Sadly that was pretty much all we agreed on. Though I do find part of her theory on why there isn’t enough “public grace” in America intriguing…
A very small theory, but my latest, is that many politicians and journalists lack a certain public grace because they spent their formative years in the American institution most likely to encourage base assumptions and coldness toward the foe. Yes, boarding school, and tony private schools in general. The last people with grace in America are poor Christians and religiously educated people of the middle class. The rich gave it up as an affectation long ago. Too bad, since they stayed in power.
The part about the rich and private schools, ok. But to arrive at the end with the only people who have any grace are the poor Christians and religiously educated people of the middle class…Give me a break, that’s as big a stretch as the way she started this article about how we all supported the war until we didn’t.
America is turning against a war it supported, for the essential reason that no one is able to promise a believable path to a successful outcome, and Americans are a practical people.
A large segment of this country has never supported the war in Iraq. That lack of support seems to have been lost on Ms. Noonan. It was only the conservative supporters of the President’s War that seem to have changed their minds. You know the ones…They were in the “boarding school, and tony private schools” with George W Bush, the attended the same frat house parties, joined the same school clubs, avoided the same service to their country. And it’s only now that the bill seems to be coming for the President’s War that they seem to be worrying about their share of the payment…As for the “promise a believable path to a successful outcome”, how about any path at all? George W Bush has articulated only one thing about his War and that is that it will be up to his successor to find an outcome. Just listen to what the President had to say last week, “But there’s one thing I’m not going to do: I’m not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete.” Mr. President, what is the mission now?
Source: OpinionJournal – Peggy Noonan
