Commentary
As a commentator on the political scene, I find it interesting to read how others view the news and the outlook for the future.
In this edition I thought I would share with you my thoughts on the opinions of two well-known opinion columnists. They claim to be conservative writers.
Peggy Noonan
I have admired Wall Street Journal columnist Noonan, as a writer, especially for her work as a speechwriter for President Reagan. His speech at Normandy, recognizing “the boys of Pointe du Hoc” was masterful.
Lately, however, she has disappointed me with her positions on issues and President Trump, including her latest column, “America Is Losing Sight of Its Political Culture,” in which she repeated the line – “We don’t do that” – as she criticized Trump’s address to the troops at Fort Bragg sounding more like a Trump rally.
“The president’s language and imagery were unusually violent – ‘smashed foreign empires … toppled tyrants … and hunted terrorist savages through the very gates of hell’ “she wrote in disapproval,
She commented about the grand military parade recognizing the 250th Anniversary of the Army, referencing “the shining, gleaming weapons driven through our streets. We don’t do that.
“Swaggering threats, parading your strength,” she wrote, “we don’t do that.”
I hope Noonan took the time to soak in the spectacularly patriotic four hours of celebrating the Army’s birthday, during which President Trump’s speech was all about the Army, no typical rally talk. It’s probably too much to ask her to publicly declare her shame for bad-mouthing the parade with “we don’t do that.”
She compared the manner in which Trump sent the National Guard and Marines into Los Angeles with President George H.W. Bush doing so during the 1992 LA riots, suggesting that Bush’s address to the nation made the difference.
Of all commentators, she should know that administrations differ in many ways, just as speechwriters and those who deliver them differ.
I wonder if Noonan would have thought these words from President Eisenhower would have been considered “violent:”
Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction. We face a hostile ideology-global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method.”
Incidentally, just as Eisenhower spoke of our military strength, but on how ”we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment,” Trump repeatedly speaks of a powerful military for peace.
“We don’t do that,” deserves to be a forgotten line, like Biden’s overused line, “That’s not who we are.”
David Brooks
You may recall my previous pokes at Brooks for his prediction that Barack Obama would be a great president because of the neat crease in his slacks he noted during a meeting.
Earlier this month, the headline, “The Democrats’ Problems Are Bigger Than You Think,” appeared over Brooks opinion column in the New York Times. It’s hard to believe the same Brooks wrote it.
Brooks writes that his friends believe the problem with the Democrat Party is that it is currently rudderless, weak, passive, lacking a compelling message. “I want to tell them the problem is not the party leaders. The problem is you. You think the Democrats can solve their problems with a new message and a new leader.
“That’s not something done by working politicians who are focused on fund-raising and the next election. That’s only accomplished by visionaries and people willing to shift their entire worldview. That’s up to you, my friends, not Chuck Schumer.”
I think he’s correct.
Brooks went on to write about the few world-shifting political movements over the past century and a half leading finally to the global populist movement, which led to Donald Trump. “It was in the early 2010’s,” he noted that it was “driven by a comprehensive series of social distrust, a firm conviction that the social systems of society were rigged, corrupted and malevolent.”
He wrote that in 2024, “59 percent of Americans said the country was in decline; 60 percent agreed the systems is broken; 69 percent agreed the political and economic elite didn’t care about hard-working people; and 63 percent said experts in this country don’t understand the lives of people like me.”
Brooks made a mistake, I believe, quoting commentator George F. Will, who I once criticized for a writing style that was over the heads of the average person. He listed nine fallacies in Trump’s administration that I will not list here. Will has long been critical of Trump departing from conservative orthodoxy.
Writing about the revolutionary government Trump has created, shifting the conditions in which we live, Brooks again refers to his Democrat friends who have “not fully internalized the magnitude of this historical shift. They’re still thinking within the confines of the Clinton-Obama-Biden-Pelosi worldview.
May God continue to bless the United States of America.
