The right-wing commentariat is showing signs of senility. I’m reading more and more mainstream wingnut editorials that make no sense, that are poorly written, constructed, and articulated. Peggy Noonan’s They Should Have Killed Him is a case in point. She’s upset that Zacarias Moussaoui was not sentenced to death. In itself, that is a rational reaction shared by a large percentage of Americans. But her response is just bizarre. First, she says this:
It is as if we’ve become sophisticated beyond our intelligence, savvy beyond wisdom. Some might say we are showing a great and careful generosity, as befits a great nation. But maybe we’re just, or also, rolling in our high-mindedness like a puppy in the grass. Maybe we are losing some crude old grit. Maybe it’s not good we lose it.
This has echoes of Shelby Steele’s lament that we have lost our belief in the superiority of the white race, and therefore the self-confidence to use sufficient violence in Iraq. Noonan thinks the decision of these jurors is some kind of metaphor for America as a whole. We’ve lost the ability to give an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. This is just silly. The jurors made a decision in this particular case…they didn’t do away with the death penalty. Part of Noonan’s problem is that she doesn’t have the internal voice that would tell her the following is illogical (emphasis mine).
I happen, as most adults do, to feel a general ambivalence toward the death penalty. But I know why it exists. It is the expression of a certitude, of a shared national conviction, about the value of a human life. It says the deliberate and planned taking of a human life is so serious, such a wound to justice, such a tearing at the human fabric, that there is only one price that is justly paid for it, and that is the forfeiting of the life of the perpetrator. It is society’s way of saying that murder is serious, dreadfully serious, the most serious of all human transgressions.
Noonan has no problem saying that the deliberate and planned taking of a human life is such a serious wound to justice that the only answer for it is to have the justice system deliberately take a human life. Some people have no irony sensors. There are arguments that can made in favor of the death penalty. Noonan’s is the worst I’ve ever seen. But, where she truly comes unhinged is with the following bizarre paragraph.
I have the sense that many good people in our country, normal modest folk who used to be forced to endure being patronized and instructed by the elites of all spheres–the academy and law and the media–have sort of given up and cut to the chase. They don’t wait to be instructed in the higher virtues by the professional class now. They immediately incorporate and reflect the correct wisdom before they’re lectured.
I’m not sure this is progress. It feels not like the higher compassion but the lower evasion. It feels dainty in a way that speaks not of gentleness but fear.
I’m not sure what to make of this pablum. She seems to be lamenting the fact that ordinary folks are no longer willing to be forced to endure moral lecturing from the elites in academies, law schools, and the media. I am reading that correctly? Is she saying that the ‘professional class’ has been instructing modest folks to enforce the death penalty, but that this verdict indicates that modest folk are no longer listening? Has the professional class lost their ability to overcome modest folks ‘gentleness’ and get them to exact the full measure of vengeance?
This seems to be a growing theme with the right-wing. I think they are seeing a collapse in morale over the war in Iraq and they are lurching about looking for some bogeyman to explain it. Rather than look at the lies and lack of competence of their Dear Leader, they are going after modest folks. They just won’t listen to the media anymore.
Even if Noonan feels that way, it’s strange to see her express it so openly. In fact, it’s so strange that I’m not even sure she meant to say what she appears to have said. It’s another example of an established Republican wordsmith suddenly losing their eloquence and coherence.
It’s not just the administration that is coming unglued. It’s their whole mighty wurlitzer.
Or maybe, the jury which heard all the evidence and carefully considered it over the course of the deliberations, determined that death was not justified as a punishment in this case. As opposed to Noonan, who no doubt would prefer we reinstitute the Star Chamber so such meatters can be handled expeditiously and achieve the predtermined result she seems to prefer.
Do you find her argument bizarre? I think she needs a vacation.
Let me try to decipher this:
I think she’s saying that the “normal, modest folk” have internalized the high-minded elitist pap so thoroughly that they don’t even need to be lectured anymore.
It’s a variation on the standard faux-populist wingnut whine, but so poorly expressed that it would be undistinguished on Freak Republic.
This writing is also less than brilliant:
I cringed at that, and English is a foreign language to me. This person was a presidential speechwriter? Wow.
Reading this crap is like eating rice cakes – lotsa crunch but no substance whatsoever. She’s simply stringing together a bunch pretty words into pretty-sounding sentances. That have no substance whatsoever. Exactly like a political speech, the kind that has you stand and applaud and then later say to yourself “wait a minute – exactly what the hell did he really say?????”
Well, any prettiness there is pretty much lost on me.
Her arguments are perennially bizarre, it’s just that now they are also incoherent. But I’m biased, I give credence to fact and logic.
Richard Cohen is my Wanker of the Day.
Let’s see here, did Colbert use absurdity? Yes. Did he use contrast? Yes. Did he use hyperbole? Yes. Did he tell them things it was good for them to hear? Yes. Was he an alienating bully? Yes.
AND that’s what was so funny about it. He absurdly suggested that the administration was SOARING. He contrasted Bush’s lack of intelligence and his ‘gut’ decider-ing with someone who might actually consult the facts. He hyperbolized the whole “Why did we go to war?” question in his skit/film. He bullied the hell out of ’em and it was funny because that’s what the entire Republican party does to anyone who sees things differently than they do.
Turnabout is not only fair play but it was also incredibly funny. The only reason it wasn’t funny to some of those wankers is because they are scared to death of anyone who holds up a mirror so they can see their own nakedness. As for this Wanker, Richard Cohen, the self-professed funny guy, I only laughed once when I read his article, and it was when he said Colbert wasn’t funny!!! He’s obviously not got enough of a brain to GET IT!
Atrios’s, too. š
What she means is that we are becoming effete snobs and overly sensitive. Real men/women shoot first and ask questions later.
Putting someone to death is cleansing by this ethos.
Yup.
This from a person who’s an apologist for an administration that can’t handle jokes at a fancy dinner party.
Who’s the punk?
Coming apart at the seams, I’d say. At least these assholes are finally showing their true colors. Arguing for brutality and death at every turn. It is SICK and it is PATHETIC and DISGUSTING.
She’s got NOTHING. What a creepy asinine argument – duh, it would be best if could just be neanderthal about it and just kill ‘im. She wants to KILL KILL KILL! What an evil woman.
Dead men don’t answer follow-up questions.
So of course, it’s the jury that was too weak to do its job, not this sorry administration too incompetent to do theirs.
And if she REALLY believed that, then she should speak plainly. Say what you mean and mean what you say, remember? But she’s too much of a punk…
Ahem, too dainty to do that.
I like that. I can’t help it, sometimes when I see her name printed my brain plays with it. It calls her Piggy Noman. Piggy because she always tries to comes off as so overly deserving of the many luxuries she enjoys and she is always correct of course and all the rest of us are too uneducated and stupid to understand the intricate world we live in. She is the Piggy of Ms. Piggies! Noman because there was only one who braved her cold heartless soul and he only lasted four years. Kind of funny how she and Coulter are Manless. I’m a feminist and firmly believe that a woman doesn’t need a man but they are very very often very nice to have around and the best ones are worth our best time and efforts and commitments! Weird how those two never really seem to have anybody waiting for them to get off of work though so that they can enjoy and grow a private relationship with them that any of them are proud enough of to let the rest of us know about. I think it would be very easy to be an antichoice woman also when the chances of getting pregnant myself are slim to impossible. If I were sort of twisted inside I might even desire to find a way to perhaps be able to inflict a little pain on a few of those loose bitches out there just giving it away and having a great time while I sat home alone all by myself again and the phone failed to ring again! If those sluts would just stop giving it away then somebody would eventually be forced to have to talk to me a little bit. Oh enough Piggy Noman thinking……I really need to take a little time out to have a little “Joyless Sex” over lunchtime so gotta run!
Now that I’ve stopped laughing…
Oh, I love it. LOVE it! That’s a keeper.
She’s just BEGGING to be whacked with the clue stick if she’s stupid enough to write a column about how weak other people are but pull your own punches. Big dummy! If she’s so big and bad, then just say the jury is weak. Dimwitted. Not intelligent enough to weigh the facts.
Go on, Piggy, say it…SAY IT!
Yeah…thought not.
And of course, can’t forget this:
…a woman doesn’t need a man but they are very very often very nice to have around and the best ones are worth our best time and efforts and commitments!
Damn straight. A big “mmmwaaaa!” to all the real men out there…but the biggest for my honey. :<)
Thank God. I know the man is delusional and I know he is hate filled and hurtful….and there has only ever been one cure for all that if anybody has been cured and that is a daily dose of reality. Sometimes it takes many many doses and some of our greatest voices and most amazing intellectual spiritual teachers have walked through this fire. To kill him would only make him a martyr for those who suffer from his particular brand of illness. A daily dose of reality will assure that the entire body of darkness that he belongs to will also be exposed to a daily dose of reality. To end Moussaoui with a vengeance will only breed more vengeance….and for the Conservative who claims to be a Christian and wants him put to death all I can say is that obviously you didn’t read your Bible today and Shame On You! That whole Eye for an Eye thing too….look you guys, that was the law when we were still old Jews herding goats in the desert…….so are you old Jews herding goats in the desert and your Messiah hasn’t come yet and that Jesus Freak is a charlatan or are you Christians? You can’t be both! You can’t have your cake and eat it too! And you can’t dig up ancient scriptures from the Jews to justify doing the things Jesus told you that you can’t do and not be bound for eternity in hell! Yoo-hoo, that’s the damn rules! I have nothing against Christians except for some of the people who claim to be Christians and refuse to follow the Christian laws and rules! I have a great idea though……how about every one of you spouting that you are a Christian but are caught not playing by Christs rules and justifying what you do by old Jewish scriptures – How about if all of you are found guilty and then deported to a desert in the Middle East and I’ll even throw in a herd of goats for every single one of you at my expense. You guys might even really learn something useful out there too! Well, either that or you will start picking fights with each other about goats and decide that you need a war and then you would off each other and then Darwin rules…..Survival of the Fittest and your gray matter just didn’t measure up!
I’m in total agreement. A great rant if ever there was one!
Right. The comparison was intentional.
“He who has ears to hear, let him hear”
Yes, he really did advocate non-violence. Shocking, isn’t it?
But even if we can’t ignore evil and leave it unpunished, we can still absorb the heart of this message. Can’t we? Peggy?
Mightly selective reading of the Bible, doncha think? Why didn’t you read all of those passages where God tells righteous Christians that they must bomb the shit out of Godless non-Christians? Huh huh huh – why didn’t you?????
Huh? No such thing in the Bible? Uhhh……well what does God tell Bush when they have their regular talks?????
Me too.
The woman whose kidnapping and rape was one of the cases which Helen Prejean wrote about and which became one of the sources for the composite killing and composite killer played by Sean Penn in the movie Dead Man Walking wrote an extradordinary book called, I think, Forgiving Dead Man Walking.
The last paragraph will drop you to your knees (in more ways than one). In it, she says that the execution of the people who kidnapped and raped her, brutally beat her boyfriend, and murdered another young woman gave her justice but it did not heal her. Only forgiving him healed her. She’s an amazing human being.
I’m a doofus because I can’t remember her name.
and deliver the sermon next time our rector goes on vacation? My church could use a rabble-rousing wakeup call… š (Though I think us Episcopalians do a decent job of putting our faith in practice…)
To me the jurys decision was perfectly rational. A suicide bomber seeks heaven through martyrdom. Giving him what he seeks is not punishment.
Noonan doesn’t have a clue. ZM is a dopey, mentally challenged individual. Like George Bush he lies to build his case for his own personal goals. Talk about the fuckin gang that couldn’t shoot straight! Him and and the other fool he says was to be his partner. Do you really think that Osama Bin Laden would trust a mission of such visability to a such a pair of obvious fools? Please get real!
Why kill such a dope? It is like squashing a bug and saying we killed a lion. It is bullshit. Just like the rest of Bush’s actions. Screw you Peggy Noonan. You are a bigger fool than ZM. Fool.
Brushed and buffed and spit-shined pablum. What us common folk typically refer to as BULLSHIT.
Utter and unadulterated bullshit, if she’d like.
She just can’t handle the truth, and it is this: Neither the jury nor the most of the general public believes that this “Al Qaeda wanna-be” bears the blame that took thousands of lives on September 11, 2001. The prosecution really thought people believed that this dummy, had he talked, could have prevented 9-11? Seriously? His fool ass when in jail when it happened!
As Richard Ben-Veniste demonstrated, reading comprehension could have prevented 9-11.
Outside of the constitutionality of killing someone who refuses to self-incriminate, this sorry administration was trying to re-write history by putting the blame on being alert about terrorism on this nut. This sorry-ass crowd was warned repeatedly that they’d have to keep their eyes on the terrorist threat and they were ignored. (See also Clinton’s warnings, Ashcroft cutting the budget for terrorism, etc.)
I suppose the truthiness hurts when folks stop buyin’.
The only folks with any fear are the administration’s pathological liars and their well-paid amen corner.
The prosecution really thought people believed that this dummy, had he talked, could have prevented 9-11? Seriously?
Really. They didn’t believe Richard Clark or George Tenant, who were running around with their hair on fire, but they would have listened to a demented jailbird. Right.
I don’t know the exact amount of dollars of resources spent on this trial, but I have heard it was a ton, which says to me…
You’ve got some major revisionist goals if you want to kill a guy whose fool ass was in jail (what I stumbled in trying to type above) the day this tragedy occurred.
They didn’t believe Richard Clark or George Tenant, who were running around with their hair on fire, but they would have listened to a demented jailbird.
There it is, in a nutshell.
If you ever needed another example of how stupid the administration believes the American public to be, then that’s confirmation aplenty.
Your last snippet of Peggy Noonan’s wisdom is fascism pure and simple. I can hardly wait for Bilmon to set aside any number of Hitler’s early speeches to the assembled Munich rabble. The meme is identical. I have sensed this underlying hatred of America’s intellectual elite (which includes me) since the beginning of Bush’s loathsome regime. The resentment is fanned by the rich and their offspring who simply could not accept that from the 1960s through the 1990s kids from ordinary families could make it to the top solely on the basis of merit. It just wasn’t fair, money not mattering as it should and does in high school and your non-elite college.
That’s where the push comes from. It is very similar to the way the Weimar conservative elites attached themselves to the anti-intellectual populism of people like Hitler (and he was far from being the only agitator). They played on class resentment, and tapped a vein of reaction that eventually gave them access to power. The Mellon-Scaifes et al have been playing the same game. Noonan, Coulter, et al are basically faint reproductions of your basic Hitler, minus the anti-semitism, which was Hitler’s own contribution to the anti-leftist credo.
On the substance: Massaoui did not kill anyone, and was basically out of the loop. If he were to have been executed, it would have been for a thought crime. On that topic, I note that the judge in the case of the Florida computer science professor through the book at him for what can only be considered a thought crime, since the jury refused to convict him as a terrorist.
The Innocence Project has something to say about our certitude
Paging David Gale, white courtesy telephone.
Noonan’s entire personna, as well as her grandiose rhetoric, have always been amongst the most contrived in all of Wingnuttia.
So it’s no surprise that someone whose behavior is so deeply rooted in such artifice would become so seriously impaired rationally as a result of the cognitive dissonance that is endemic to her delusional worldview.
Meanwhile, I’m waiting for Bush’s big mental/emotional crackup, a breakdown which I firmly believe will occur before he finishes his second term.
I agree with you Booman, these people are really breaking down. But I think it would be a mistake to just see that inside the prism of the Bush administration or the political situation. Surely they have added fuel to the fire. But sometimes I think that we are acutally in the middle of a major cultural shift that the Bush administration has intensified.
Perhaps someone more knowledgable about these kinds of things could put this in historical roots, but I often wonder what history books will write about this era. Certainly the utter nonsense of the administration will become obvious. But I think that beyond that, we might also be witnessing something like the lead-up to a major movement towards enlightenment. Peggy is sensing that – and she doesn’t like it one bit.
On the other hand, maybe this is a point in history where things could go either way – toward a Renaissance or towards the Dark Ages. And Peggy definitely has her druthers about which way she wants it to go. All I know is that I think we are living on the cusp of something very important. So, in a way, I agree with her on that.