The Hyperbole Bus

It looks like Obama isn't alone in jumping aboard the Hyperbole Bus today.

Here's Peggy Noonan, with more of her insipid flowery prose:

Who are The Elders? They set the standards. They hand down the lore. They're the oldest and wisest. By proceeding through the world each day with dignity and humanity, they show the young what it is that should be emulated. They're the tribal chieftains. This role has probably existed since caveman days, because people need guidance and encouragement, they need to be heartened by examples of endurance. They need to be inspired.

Who are these Elders-with-a-capital-E of which she speaks?

Newspaper reporters and TV anchormen.

She begins the piece with this:

When William Safire died the other day, we lost one of the Elders of journalism and the argumentative arts. We've been losing a lot of them lately: Walter Cronkite, Bob Novak, Don Hewitt, Irving Kristol. "The stars seem to be going out one by one," said Howard Stringer at Cronkite's memorial.

No, the piece isn't satirical. Yes, Pegs really believes this stuff.

Intellectual Alert - Peggy Noonan (Again)

I haven't posted an Intellectual Alert in a while, mainly because there's so many that I can't keep track. However, Pegs never fails to disappoint in the condescension department. As a hack of towering conceit, she warrants another highlight. So here goes:

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.

That is an Intellectual Alert in a nutshell: it's not that you think disagreeable thoughts, it's that you don't know how to think. Noonan's Intellectualism folows the old elitist maxim that people who disagree with you aren't wrong. They're insane.

Actual genius and true judgement vs. lunatics and morons. It goes without saying which group Pegs thinks she's in.

Oh, The Humanity

Ever since Peggy Noonan's on-air goof up about Sarah Palin's VP candidacy, I haven't been able to take her seriously (you may remember that she supported McCain's pick while the cameras were rolling, then, when she thought the mics were off, she declared Palin's appointment "bullshit.")

I used to like reading Noonan, even though her flowery prose was often hard to stomach. After the Palin lie, however, I just see her as a hack that tries too hard.

This piece of Peggy's from the Wall Street Journal should prove my point:

This is New York five months into hard times.

One senses it, for the first time: a shift in energy. Something new has taken hold, a new air of peace, perhaps, or tentativeness. The old hustle and bustle, the wild and daily assertion of dynamism, is calmed.

And now Washington becomes the financial capital of the country, of the world. Oh, what a status shift. Oh, what a fact.

Oh, what bullshit.