Three things make a trend. Peggy Noonan sees four and the sky is falling. Barbara Striesand, Rosie O'Donnell, the Columbine Dad, and Columbia University students vs The Minutemen point to the end of culture. The Angry Left TM is on the march again. The Royal Noonan says we are most offended.
Let us be more pointed. Students, stars, media movers, academics: They are always saying they want debate, but they don't. They want their vision imposed. They want to win. And if the win doesn't come quickly, they'll rush the stage, curse you out, attempt to intimidate.
And they don't always recognize themselves to be bullying. So full of their righteousness are they that they have lost the ability to judge themselves and their manner.
And all this continues to come more from the left than the right in America.
Which is, at least in terms of timing, strange. The left in America--Democrats, liberals, Bush haters, skeptics of many sorts--seems to be poised for a significant electoral victory. Do they understand that if it comes it will be not because of Columbia, Streisand, O'Donnell, et al., but in spite of them?
What is most missing from the left in America is an element of grace--of civic grace, democratic grace, the kind that assumes disagreements are part of the fabric, but we can make the fabric hold together.
Noonan says people can speak from the right side of things, but the reaction of The Left TM is ungracious? Better we should just sit back. Nobody cares much for physical intimidation of speakers as happened at Columbia, but where was Noonan on 2000 in Miami when there was a riot going on?.
Marjorie Strayer insisted she was just a Virginian on vacation in Miami. She had come to the downtown Stephen P. Clark Government Center to watch the Dade County vote recount, something to do before the trip to the Seaquarium. But Strayer, it turns out, is a top aide to New Mexico's Republican congresswoman, Heather Wilson, and was one of hundreds of paid GOP crusaders who descended on South Florida last Wednesday to protest the state's recounts. "The system is unfair, inaccurate, fraught with human error!" Strayer cried. In a Winnebago outside, GOP operatives orchestrated the ranks up to the 19th floor, hoping to halt the tally of the largest potential lode of Gore votes. Republicans, not usually known for takin' it to the streets, got what they wanted. Just two hours after a near riot outside the counting room, the Miami-Dade canvassing board voted to shut down the count. Yet the way the Republicans went after it, by intimidating the three-member board or by providing the excuse it was looking for, gave Americans the first TV view of strong-arm tactics in what was supposed to be a showcase of democracy in action. If Jesse Jackson can do it, the Republicans argued, so can we. But the GOP's march turned into a mob. The screaming, the pounding on doors and the alleged physical assaults on Democrats suddenly made a bemused public queasy. "I'm all for anyone's right to protest," says Miami-Dade Democratic chairman Joe Geller, who had to have a police escort. "These were Brownshirt tactics."
And if the win doesn't come quickly, they'll rush the stage, curse you out, attempt to intimidate. More from the Peg in the Poke:
And they don't always recognize themselves to be bullying. So full of their righteousness are they that they have lost the ability to judge themselves and their manner.
And all this continues to come more from the left than the right in America.
Peggy, Peggy, Peggy. The party in charge is never at fault. Its tactics need no analysis so long as they work. But the challenger will always be suspect. It's called projection, Peggy. Get with Rush Limbaugh soon and discuss the delicacy of Coulter, then get back to us. Noonan's They want their vision imposed is straight out of the Coulter paranoid playbook. The victor's vixen playing victim act is venomous. And pathetic.
Plus more on the Brookes Brothers Riot here and here.
Plus who else could Noonan be writing about here? I feel so much, therefore my views are correct and must prevail.
The Heretik
