Even more Noonan.
Columnist and telepundit Lawrence Kudlow absolutely shreds Peggy Noonan in an RCP column. James Frederick Dwight at Soxblog suggests, albeit with reservations, that Noonan might be suffering from professional jealousy (via TKS).For my money, I think Kudlow goes maybe one step too far. Here's where I disagree with him:
Noonan suggests that the overthrow of dictators and would-be tyrants would unleash ugly garbage, creating bigger messes. That’s exactly the balance-of-power détente-ism that failed so miserably in the 1970s before Reagan put and [sic] end to it. It’s the so-called realist perspective that led us nowhere in the 1990s as presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, on the advice of their key advisors, refused to take stern action against terrorist-harboring dictatorship states. It was precisely this failure that led to the 9/11 attacks. Lob an occasional bomb or two? Coddle the terrorist-harboring dictators? That’s the realism that George W. Bush has pledged his presidency to stop.He's overreaching, just as Noonan and a host of others did when they read Bush's speech as a wish to immediately overthrow tyranny absolutely and everywhere.
Noonan said that "certain" leaders act as "garbage-can lids." This is undoubtedly true, and the U.S. is forced to deal with such states because they have to. Bush has cozied up to Saudi Arabia's decrepit tyrannical regime so often it makes me want to puke. But the alternative to them right now — even more noxious Wahhabi fundamentalism — is clearly worse. Surely Kudlow knows this.
But here's the thing: if tomorrow, two million freedom-loving Saudi activists staged a revolution, George W. Bush would either assist them openly, or be only too happy to watch the House of Saud and all its 7000+ princes fall. That's the anti-realpolitik that Noonan liked when Reagan preached it, but doesn't like from George W. Bush.
The rest of Kudlow's analysis is spot on: Noonan must have watched a different speech from the rest of us. I argued it through the Kennedy inaugural she loved so much, but Kudlow is much more direct and it's excellent.
posted by Marsh @ 3:38 PM
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