A Note To "Nooners"

(I’m going to try posting even though the site is still hosed…hopefully it will be fixed soon…hat tip to D-Mac at Philadelphia Will Do for the pic.)

I gotta tell ya’, the Murdoch Street Journal always delivers when it comes to publishing unctuous, high-minded piffle purporting to be halfway intelligent editorial commentary.

The latest example appears here in the form of Peggy Noonan’s “analysis” of John W.McBush and his selection of “Governor Hottie” as his running mate (and after “Nooners” finishes this more or less hypothetical detour of hers, she finally gets to that point)…

I do not understand the absence of humor, that powerful weapon, that rhetorical cannon, in this year's campaign. There are a lot of things to say here but let me tell you the first I think of. America is a huge and lonely country. We are vast, stretch coast to coast, live in self-sufficient pods; modern culture tends us toward the atomic, the fractured and broken up. When two people meet, as they come to know each other as neighbors or colleagues, one of the great easers, one of the great ways of making a simple small human connection is: shared laughter. We are a political nation. We talk politics. So fill that area with humor: sly humor, teasing humor, humor that speaks a great truth or makes a sharp point.

(By the way, please don’t ask me at what point Nooners decided to opine in a philosophical manner befitting the female equivalent of Charles Kuralt or Paul Harvey, but you’re hardly alone if you find that to be tiresome.)

Actually, there are a lot of things I could say here also, but I’ll begin by pointing out that there is political humor in abundance on the web, especially now (though someone who fancies herself as erudite as Nooners does wouldn’t stoop so low as to extend a mention to we filthy, unkempt liberal blogger types, I realize). However, maybe the “absence of humor” for Nooners is also explained by this CNN story, noting that 76 percent of those polled (in their “self-sufficient pods”?) think this country is “on the wrong track.”

Continuing...

Obama talked to the audience; he talked TO America. McCain should talk with the audience. He should keep in mind that if his audience is laughing and chanting, it will help him with his delivery. As they cheer he can smile, while checking his next line. I am told alternately that he has given up on the teleprompter and will go straight from text, and that he will use a teleprompter. I assume the latter is true. If it is it will be interesting to see if he has mastered it. That will tell us if he practiced the speech. That will tell us if he knows what this speech IS, which is one big fat brilliant opportunity. If he's reading from text, well, it is not true that this is impossible in the media age. People didn't use teleprompters until 30 years ago. But when McCain reads straight from text we tend to see a lot of the top of his head, with the soft white hair and the pink brow glistening under the lights. Which tends to accentuate his age. So how he does the speech is of more than academic interest.

Interesting that Nooners apparently doesn’t consider the content of McBush’s speech to be as important as the “optics” of it (and keep in mind that this column of hers is hilariously titled “A Clear And Present Danger To The American Left”; who says there’s “an absence of humor” in this campaign?).

So, while I don’t intend to watch McBush’s speech tomorrow night, I have no doubt it will be captured on video for posterity, and at that point I’ll look for the high(low?)lights. That way, I can see how many times his pink brow beneath his soft white head twitches angrily at the mention of Obama and the Democrats, to say nothing of his POW captivity (he’s the one who has trivialized that, not me).

One more thing: maybe Nooners isn’t as high-minded as she would have us believe after all, considering this (h/t Atrios).