If the caricature of Republicans as heartless capitalists with cash registers instead of souls is accurate then they should gleefully accept prodigals Peggy Noonan and Christopher Buckley back into the fold. Because I absolutely believe that their personal attacks on Sarah Palin were nothing personal. It was nothing more than a money grab.
I’d imagine the pressure to sell books is enormous. The top book publishers have a lot riding on each title. And if your book doesn’t sell you don’t get to write books for the top publishers anymore. It’s capitalism in its purest form. And that’s why I think Peggy Noonan’s and Chris Buckley’s savaging of Sarah Palin was simply about selling books. It was about media exposure for them to hawk their books.
Patriotic Grace came out in October. Oddly, that’s around the time Noonan discovered that Sarah Palin was a vulgarization of the political system after first having praised her. And she went on every show she could find running Sarah Palin down while holding up a copy of her book which ironically was called, “Patriotic Grace.”
Christopher Buckley’s book “Supreme Courtship” came out in September. Hmmm. Odd that Buckley had praised and pushed McCain in the primaries but then around the time his book came out he publicly endorsed Obama. And voila! He was suddenly on every television show in the mainstream media holding his book up. Wow! What a coincidence.
These two are savvy enough to know that the way Republicans get exposure and good press is by turning on their own. Hey, it worked for John McCain for about two decades until he ran for President and he couldn’t attack his own party anymore.
However their schemes don’t appear to have worked. Buckley’s book the day after the election was ranked 697th on Amazon.com. Noonan’s book was 499th. Heck, maybe it would’ve been worse if they hadn’t attacked their own parties. I don’t know. Maybe that’s pretty good. But as someone who has read and bought everything Noonan wrote and has bought Buckley’s books in the past, you can count me out. Never again.
November 6, 2008 at 5:38 pm
There are also certain species of animals who eat their young — which is every bit as counter-productive, when you think about it.
I’ll bet Buckley and Noonan didn’t.
November 6, 2008 at 6:31 pm
This is my protest -> NOT to click on links that take me to commentators Kathleen Parker, Peggy Noonan, David Brooks, David Frum, and Christopher Buckley! Hits, visits and pageviews are economically important for their survival. A boycott will speak volumes – DON'T CLICK.
November 6, 2008 at 6:41 pm
I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been worried about Noonan for a while now. What a shame.
November 6, 2008 at 6:45 pm
As much as it hurts me I will not click on Noonan’s columns anymore. She is not to be believed. She says she’s a Catholic pro-lifer and then talks up Obama, waiting until her press interviews for the book are over before squeaking in her endorsement of McCain the day before the election. Peggy, we’re not that stupid.
November 6, 2008 at 7:27 pm
The next time that I read Peggy Noonan will be when I am bending over to lay paper for the puppies to pee on and notice her column. As for Christopher Buckly, I have him on my list of must reads at #697.
November 6, 2008 at 7:31 pm
I’m with anonymous 100%. Those commentators are dead to me.
Well, the stock market is droppin’ like a rock and gas prices just went up in my area (after weeks of falling) and soon its open season on unborn babies.
Good times ahead, folks!
/sarc
November 6, 2008 at 7:50 pm
What doth it profit a commentator to gain public acclaim but lose his character?
November 6, 2008 at 8:12 pm
I love Noonan. I thought she was great. I was very disapointed in what she wrote but Buckley is ridicoulous.
November 6, 2008 at 8:35 pm
Oddly, that’s around the time Noonan discovered that Sarah Palin was a vulgarization of the political system after first having praised her.
It could be that she was impressed with her speech at the RNC and then disappointed in her interviews and debates.
Odd that Buckley had praised and pushed McCain in the primaries but then around the time his book came out he publicly endorsed Obama.
How is that odd? It’s certainly no more odd than Dr. Dobson saying he would never vote for McCain, then turning around and endorsing him.
November 6, 2008 at 9:23 pm
I’m with you Matthew. I once adored Peggy Noonan and her books and columns. No more. She is dead to me.
–Laura
November 6, 2008 at 9:40 pm
I dunno if Noonan is being given a 100% fair shake.
I read the column, and shook my head the whole time, but I don’t think it was so much an endorsment of Obama as an attempt to analyze this “moment in history” or some academic nonsense like that.
She is the embodiment of the term “conservative elite” if there ever was one, and I don’t think she is comfortable with the Palin/Huckabee wing of the party – which happens to be precisely the wing that most of us here feel comfortable with. I remember that she wrote a column about a year ago called something like “Be Reasonable”, telling us which candidates from each party were “reasonable” candidate in her estimation, and she put Huck in the “un” column, despite his 10 years as governor, his quick wit, and speaking ability.
It seems to me that her columns rarely advocate for something, rather they try to do some kind of pseudo-intellectual contemporary historical analysis. I suppose that kind of thing has its place, but is certainly not welcome from a self-described conservative when it is destructive to her party on the eve of an election.
My personal feeling about the matter is she put her own snobbery ahead of the lives of millions of unborn children. Not something I would do.
Christopher Buckley, on the other hand, represents something MUCH more significant. As with the Vile Christopher Hitchens and Andrew Sullivan, he is part of the Godless wing of the Republican Party. They got sick of the fact that we are more concerned about human rights than making them money. Palin was the breaking point for them. And they finally bolted. Good riddance, but we need to figure out how to get others to take their place in the GOP tent.
November 6, 2008 at 11:00 pm
Amazing to me is that there was damn near no backlash against the personal attacks on a genuine woman who is a mother of five and a substantial person who worked her way to where she was in her own right. She was no politco’s wife or heiress, she was not IV league establishment… Just a hard worker.
Where was the feminist outrage at the mockery of the mother of five who is honest and plain spoken?
Where?
November 6, 2008 at 11:12 pm
I found Noonan opaque and Buckley deeply disappointing.
I think Noonan deserves a second chance – I am uncomfortable with this idea of loyalty at all costs, which, as Peggy points out, sure wasn’t true back in the Reagan glory days. True loyalty ultimately must be directed to principles, not individuals, who will always fall short in some way, especially when their name is “Bush”. I was always impressed that lively discussion and even some level of disagreement was possible on the right in a way that was unthinkable on the lockstep left. Reasonable conservatives ougth to be able to recognize, hopefully in a constructive manner, that Palin (whom I like a lot) had some flaws – ones which I like to think could have been largely overcome had she had more time to mature. That said, I also couldn’t help the impression that perhaps Noonan had spent a little too long in the Big Apple for her own good. It would be easier to buy her point that Palin does not have a handle on what the conservative base out there really wants and is if I thought Noonan was actually more in touch than the hockey mom.
As for Buckley – it’s long ben obvious that he is a libertarian, not a conservative, and one of a particular urbane milieu. As a satirist he has no peer. But his endorsement of Obama was utterly unconvincing, and deeply disappointing.
November 6, 2008 at 11:21 pm
Simple Sinner,
As a “recovering feminist” I am not at all surprised that feminists did not support Palin. In fact, more often than not, they were the ones savaging her.
That’s because establishment feminism is a bizarre and twisted ideology that essentially rejects all that is uniquely feminine and attempts to remake woman into another kind of man. Or both into sort of androgynous creatures.
This ideology is particularly clear in their support for abortion — it is (to them) required in order to ensure that women, like men, do not have to bear children. It does not tolerate dissent, and especially not on this vital point. That’s why the founders of Feminists for Life got thrown out of NOW and that’s why they hate Palin.
November 6, 2008 at 11:39 pm
“I dunno if Noonan is being given a 100% fair shake.”
Oh, I think you just proved we’ve been more than fair. And a fine job you did of it, too.
November 6, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Oh, I think you just proved we’ve been more than fair. And a fine job you did of it, too.
Oh believe me, I don’t agree with what she did – I just wouldn’t dismiss her in the same breath as Buckley.
I think she’s a conservative, and I assume she still voted for McCain, I just think her article was an analysis of what she thinks is “happening” in America.
November 6, 2008 at 11:56 pm
I knew something was very wrong with Noonan when I read her book about John Paul II, which was actually a me, me, me screed that would shame a 15-year-old’s MySpace.
I voted for Sarah Palin, not McCain, who dropped old friends as heartless as Obama. The 1950s Republican dinosaurs had better understand that Sarah Palin is the continuation of the Reagan / Thatcher / JPII revolution.
— Mack
November 6, 2008 at 11:57 pm
“As heartlessly.” Forgive my sloppiness, but I’m angry at the treachery within the Republican Party.
— Mack
November 7, 2008 at 12:01 am
“I think she’s a conservative, and I assume she still voted for McCain, I just think her article was an analysis of what she thinks is ‘happening’ in America.”
I think a lot of people took it as what she didn’t like about Sarah Palin.
Like you, I voted more for Palin than McCain.
November 7, 2008 at 12:05 am
“I knew something was very wrong with Noonan when I read her book about John Paul II, which was actually a me, me, me screed…”
You know, in the past two years when I’ve read her column in WSJ, I’ve always suspected a bit of smugness, a certain indignation that left me cold. I just figured it was my imagination, and that I was misjudging her. Then I read her condescending remarks about Palin. I decided I was right the whole time.
I still don’t know why she feels that way. Maybe she doesn’t feel as though she needs a reason.