Anatomy of a Column

eggy Noonan was banging her head on the bar as Jesus —not that one!— her favorite bar keep at The Chelsea Pier took the Jackson out of her hand and replaced it with an ice-cold Mai Tai.

“Turn off the TV, Jesus. It vexes me so,” Noonan whispered. “Keep the change.”

Noonan quaffed deeply, licked her lips, and declared to the near empty bar:

On Wednesday Nikki Haley announced her presidential campaign in Charleston, S.C. I found myself thinking not about her candidacy but about the launch itself, which was creepily stuck in the past. A horrible, blaring song from a Sylvester Stallone sequel [Ed. Note: from the 1980s?] pumped her in as she strode out in the white suit and there were adoring fans on the rafters behind her, with whom she briefly interacted before turning toward the audience and doing the point—standing there and pointing to individual members of the cheering audience as if she knew them and was being natural.

“No one,” Noonan thought, “has pulled this off as well as my Dutch,” and even with only thinking of Ronald Wilson Reagan, the greatest president in the last half of the last century, perhaps the greatest president ever, Noonan’s hand fluttered up to the ever-present pearl necklace, a gift from the great man himself.

“They are all stealing his signature moves.”

An introducer said she will “lead us into the future”; she added, “America is falling behind.” It was all so tired, clichéd, and phony. It was national politics as it has been done circa 1990-2023.

“And certainly not from 1980 to 1990,” Jesus replied, knowing his lines well. Noonan gave him the stink eye.

Why did she do it this way? It’s not good enough to say everyone does it this way. Someone needs to make it new, to drill down into deeper meaning. As the first Republican to enter the race and challenge Donald Trump, she was in a position to do something at least nonidiotic. This seemed a decision not to.

“It was no Morning in America,” Noonan muttered before taking another thoughtful sip of her refreshment.

She said something that can’t be said enough: “We’ve lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections.” Preach, sister. “We have failed to win the confidence of a majority of Americans.”

Noonan paused waiting for Jesus to reply, but then noticed he was at the other end of the bar tending to another client. They watched Noonan as she seemed to be talking to herself. She self-consciously gulped some Mai Tai and undaunted continued her soliloquy.

Ms. Haley, later that night on “Hannity,” said the answer is for the Republican Party to talk in a way that “brings people in.” This was the language of the famous GOP “autopsy” in 2013: The GOP must do a better job “messaging.” But what does that even mean? That there are magic words and they must find them? There are no magic words.

Ronnie, now saddled up next to her said: “Peg, don’t be so hard on yourself. You came up with magic words for me all the time.” Noonan notices his twinkling eyes and winning smile, and it melted her.

“Thank you, Ronnie,” she weeped.

“Like when you stole John MacGee’s poem for me,” Ronnie added grinning.

Noonan turned to playfully smack him and fell off the bar stool, ample calves in the air, tweed skirt akimbo, and “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God,” or at least the face of Jesus as he loaded her into a taxi to go home.

[Declarations: America’s Longing for Authenticity; Reflections on
Nikki Haley’s announcement, Super Bowl ads and
Will Smith’s humiliation. – by Peggy Noonan W$J 17 February. 2023]

(New Readers: The Further Adventures of Peggy Noonan is a sometimes feature of lo! many, many years where we parody the much-quoted Reagan hagiographer Peggy Noonan to try to understand the genesis of her Declarations column in the WSJ. We do not know if Noonan really wears tweed, but to paraphrase the Great Writer herself, “Is it irresponsible to speculate? It would be irresponsible not to.” – Bacardi Lifetime Achievement Winner, Peggy Noonan, Wall St. Journal, April 2000.)