Peggy Noonan thought she'd clarify her mockery of President Bush's inaugural speech by answering her own questions, and has succeeded in further revealing her deep misunderstanding of the current war, its causes and the free world's duty.
She says someone accused her of being "French." Maybe. "Arrogant" and "obtuse" are two better descriptions for her frame of mind. Before spiraling into an analogy on garbage, she marks herself with a tepid metaphor: "Healthy alliances are a coolant in this world." Thus spake the Cold War utilitarian, who prefers the archaic, aristocratic firmament known as "balance of power." Unfortunately, America's alliances with Egypt and Saudi Arabia were perfectly healthy when the son of a [lawyer] from the former country helped a dozen young men from the latter smash jetliners into skyscrapers. September 11th was as horrific a repudiation of Cold War appeasement imaginable.
Yet Noonan refuses to believe it. She offers her own measure of tribute: "Now we are up against not an organized state monolith. We face trouble that is already here. We don't have to summon more."
Oh, that Noonan might be able to see more than what is concrete, to find the thread that runs through even her beloved Cold War saga. Who are the chief supporters of Near East terrorism? The mullahs of Iran. Who are the principal benefactors of the mullahs? Kleptocrat Russia, fascist China — with the occasional tip from gulag North Korea. Excluding Israel, which countries in the Near East have state-fettered media saturated with Islamist incitement to hatred and violence? All but two: Iraq and Afghanistan, now targets of their old national peers. Where do terrorists get their weapons? From states, always; the less rule of law, the easier.
What is the thread? Tyranny. Through history it always has been the stitch between fault and suffering. But tyranny's manifestation this time doesn't look like the Soviet Union, and Noonan is confused.
At the bottom of her argument is, of course, Ronald Reagan. Not Reagan's principles — instead, his physical world. In that world, one could be much more practical than philosophical, and hold oneself to a far lower standard.
Here is President Bush, explaining himself to a mostly petulant White House press corps, if Noonan is listening (emphasis mine):
There won't be instant democracy.And I remind people that our own country is a work in progress. You know, we declared all people equal and yet all people weren't treated equally for a century. We said everybody counts, but everybody didn't count.
And so I fully understand developing a democratic society and adhering to the traditions and customs of other nations will be a work in process. That's why I said we're talking about the work of generations. And so in my talks, in my discussions with world leaders to solve the problem of the day, I will constantly remind them about our strong belief that democracy is the way forward.
Rightward detractors who weren't stuck in Pat Buchanan's hall of mirrors before Inauguration Thursday still suffer their own obsession with the past. They helped President Reagan destroy the enemy they'd known their entire lives, and had staked quite a reputation on a victory based not on principle so much as experience. They thought they had achieved the End of History. That, of course, makes someone a prisoner of time and an opponent of correction. It is increasingly clear that Cold Warriors like Noonan want neither another enemy nor another hero, and are incensed that Bush has framed their lives exponentially smaller in the "course of human events," as it were, than they were accustomed to. The president also suggested a higher calling for America, the one and only reason why we were put on this earth — and did so unequivocally. This disturbs the comfortable, tenured professors who now refuse to learn.
Good enough that Noonan isn't playing the left's game — blaming the United States for dealing with dictators out of geopolitical necessity while mocking any obviation thereof. But there is no other way to explain an advocate of Ronald Reagan's universalist vision of human freedom now suddenly sitting out, wasting our time with existentialism. Her complaint begins and ends with her own lot.