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Saturday, March 08, 2008

Peggy Noonan nails it again

Peggy Noonan is always worth reading, but her column this week was particularly insightful, I thought. Peggy Noonan-- Over the Top.

Her last two paragraphs really said it all for how I feel right now:
"I end with a deadly, deadpan prediction from Christopher Hitchens. Hillary is the next president, he told radio's Hugh Hewitt, because, "there's something horrible and undefeatable about people who have no life except the worship of power... people who don't want the meeting to end, the people who just are unstoppable, who have only one focus, no humanity, no character, nothing but the worship of money and power. They win in the end."

"It was like Claude Rains summing up the meaning of everything in the film "Lawrence of Arabia": "One of them's mad and the other is wholly unscrupulous." It's the moment when you realize you just heard the truth, the meaning underlying all the drama. "They win in the end." Gave me a shudder."

What we are seeing unroll, in my opinion, will be 4 and maybe even 8 years of finally getting it that both of our leading parties can be horrible, can mess things up, can vote for power simply to have power, that dirty tricks are rewarded, and revenge is a virtue, that the Constitution is not to be valued but to be ignored.

This is what I have feared in terms of how Bush got in power. Our dark underside is being revealed. Bush wasn't an anomaly or even unique to his party. When we get through with the Clintons for another term in power, possibly all of us will finally get it. It's not just one party. It's a viewpoint, a way of winning, a lack of caring what it takes to win as long as we win. I hear it over and over right now when the actions show one thing but the Clintons voice the opposite; and Democrats (many of whom, as with Republican true-believers, mean well) look at their words, not their actions. It's disillusioning, and I don't know what it means about us as a people or our future.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rain I agree-I am heading for Belize !! :-)

robin andrea said...

I didn't realize until Hillary actually won some primaries on Tuesday that my heart was ready for Obama to be the nominee.

I've mostly stopped reading and watching political stuff now. It's deadening and painful. Power always wins. Hitchens definitely has that right. I keep forgetting, and that's why the reminder hurts so damned much.

Anonymous said...

I have felt from the beginning of this election cycle that it would not matter who gets in, or which party gets in. On the one hand Bush has left us with a massive mess that will be difficult to handle. On the other, no one seems to be able to see how to do things differently at home or abroad. At home the financial/military interests are too deeply embedded in both parties to be easily controlled or countered. Abroad we face new coalitions from both Russia, China and India formed to counter both western influence generally and our cowboy with-me-or-against-me arrogance. We need people who can think creatively and form new alliances to get needful things done but I don't see anyone who gives me much indication that they are the one to do it. As they say "Fasten your seat belts. It's going to be a bumpy ride."

Anonymous said...

Rain....about all I can say in view of the past few political weeks and what you said here is.....AMEN!
I'm so disgusted with all of it...the lies, the bickering, the back-biting, the doubts and on and on.
Actually....I think I'm heading to Paris! I'm so disillusioned with this country!
(Thanks for your good wishes on my blog about my contract)
Terri
http://www.islandwriter.net

Dick said...

I hope that is wrong. I will not vote for Hillary but I'm not sure I'd vote for McCain either. I think that due to his age he would be a one term president and that would give his VP an inside track to the office in four years. Let's see who that choice is.

The more I learn about Obama the more he sounds like the one person contending for the office who MAY have what is needed to help get us out of the mess we are in. He knows the Constitution very well. He has lived in other parts of the world as well as other parts of this country, and with people of all different income levels. He is not a Muslim but knows true Muslims better than any one else running so would probably be listened to and believed better by folks from Muslim countries than any of the others. I still have hope.

Kay Dennison said...

Well, said my friend. I, too, am tired of the same old lies and rhetoric from the powermongers.

What scares me is that allegedly intelligent people are falling for it.