Peggy Noonan (WSJ) On Sarah Palin

Peggy Noonan is a weekly columnist for the Wall Street Journal, and a best-selling author. A trustee of the conservative Manhattan Institute, Edmund Burke and Ronald Reagan are among the political figures she most admires. In fact, she was a primary speech writer and special assistant to Ronald Reagan. Ms. Noonan also wrote the speeches for George H.W. Bush that introduced the memorable phrases, "a kinder, gentler nation" and "a thousand points of light," along with the unfortunate declaration, "Read my lips: no new taxes," in his 1988 presidential acceptance speech. She is a Republican voice that commands attention, a principled conservative thinker and spokesperson--and she has concerns with Sarah Palin's newfound prominence in the Republican Party.

From her recent column in the WSJ:

Palin was bad for Republicans--and the republic.

Sarah Palin's resignation gives Republicans a new opportunity to see her plain—to review the bidding, see her strengths, acknowledge her limits, and let go of her drama. It is an opportunity they should take. They mean to rebuild a great party. They need to do it on solid ground.

Her history does not need to be rehearsed at any length. Ten months ago she was embraced with friendliness by her party. The left and the media immediately overplayed their hand, with attacks on her children. The party rallied round, as a party should. She went on the trail a sensation but demonstrated in the ensuing months that she was not ready to go national and in fact never would be. She was hungry, loved politics, had charm and energy, loved walking onto the stage, waving and doing the stump speech. All good. But she was not thoughtful. She was a gifted retail politician who displayed the disadvantages of being born into a point of view (in her case a form of conservatism; elsewhere and in other circumstances, it could have been a form of liberalism) and swallowing it whole: She never learned how the other sides think, or why.

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. Her presentation up to the end has been scattered, illogical, manipulative and self-referential to the point of self-reverence....

McCain-Palin lost. Mrs. Palin has now stepped down, but she continues to poll high among some members of the Republican base, some of whom have taken to telling themselves Palin myths.

To wit, "I love her because she's so working-class." This is a favorite of some party intellectuals. She is not working class, never was, and even she, avid claimer of advantage that she is, never claimed to be and just lets others say it....What she is, is a seemingly very nice middle-class girl with ambition, appetite and no sense of personal limits....

"The elites hate 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.

"She shows our ingenuous interest in all classes." She shows your cynicism.

"Now she can prepare herself for higher office by studying up, reading in, boning up on the issues." ...Mrs. Palin's supporters have been ordering her to spend the next two years reflecting and pondering. But she is a ponder-free zone. She can memorize the names of the presidents of Pakistan, but she is not going to be able to know how to think about Pakistan....

Here's why all this matters. The world is a dangerous place. It has never been more so, or more complicated, more straining of the reasoning powers of those with actual genius and true judgment. This is a time for conservative leaders who know how to think....

The era we face, that is soon upon us, will require a great deal from our leaders. They had better be sturdy. They will have to be gifted. There will be many who cannot, and should not, make the cut. Now is the time to look for those who can. And so the Republican Party should get serious, as serious as the age, because that is what a grown-up, responsible party—a party that deserves to lead—would do.

It's not a time to be frivolous, or to feel the temptation of resentment, or the temptation of thinking next year will be more or less like last year, and the assumptions of our childhoods will more or less reign in our future. It won't be that way.

We are going to need the best.

--"A Farewell to Harms: Palin was bad for Republicans--and the republic," by Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal (7.11.09)

I didn't say it. Peggy Noonan did--a Republican voice of impeccable credentials. But if I were still a Republican, if my views had not changed so on the need for education, healthcare and regulatory reform, if George W and his team had not succeeded in alienating and running off thoughtful Republicans whose eyes were cast more toward a fast-changing future than myopically at the same old 19th-20th century cultural, economic and government model--if I thought there were a chance to update their DNA and redeem the Republican Party (and I don't)--then I might have cared enough to say it, too. But the Republican Party is quickly becoming a cultural and political anachronism. And unless it surprises me and changes dramatically, it will rightly remain one.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124716984620819351.html