Thursday, April 9, 2009

The Confusion of Peggy Noonan


Patrick O'Hannigan has an interesting exploration of Peggy Noonan in American Spectator this morning. He has put into words exactly what has been bugging me about Noonan.

I'm a longtime fan of Noonan; I read What I Saw at the Revolution in its first printing, and I've never missed a book since. I admire her conversational writing style.

But when it comes to Obama, Noonan has seemed somewhat confused, alternately praising him one week and criticizing him the next. O'Hannigan has gone through her more recent columns and pulled out passages that illustrate this.

O'Hannigan is spot on when he says "When her subject is Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II, or grace encountered on the streets of Manhattan or Washington, D.C., Noonan shines," but when she writes about Obama she is confused.

Will her Good Friday column tomorrow be about Obama's European Apology Tour or will she stick to those spiritual topics on which she is so eloquent?

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