I used to enjoy reading Peggy Noonan's homey columns in my wife's Good Housekeeping. But The New Republic's Jonathan Chait writes thoughtfully about how the former Reagan speechwriter's schoolgirl-crush, "swooning cheerleader" adoration of her old boss seems increasingly strident, partisan, and detached from reality when poured over the somewhat less inspiring George W. Bush.
Ronald Reagan's policies were simple-minded and disastrous (Chait notes Noonan's gush that Reagan's integrity, or at least his love of spending time on his ranch, made him "by nature a conservationist," with no mention of his and James Watt's actual 100%-development, 0%-environmental record). But he exhibited vision and leadership as well as a sunny twinkle, to a degree few politicians can match — even if they win uncontested elections; don't owe every job they've ever held, not to mention their remarkably absentee Air National Guard service, to their fathers; and don't inspire RR's son to the famous remark, "What's his accomplishment? That he's no longer an obnoxious drunk?"
Yet nowadays Noonan is just as swoony over G.W., praising him as "transparently a good person," as "respectful, moderate, commonsensical, courteous," and for the "kind of joshy gravitas" shown in such wise acts as forbidding White House staff to speak with the press. Except when Bill Clinton tried to do the last, Noonan bristled that it was an underhanded enforcement of "the code of omerta." When Bush resorted to racial innuendo and attacks on POW hero John McCain's war record in the crucial South Carolina primary, it was just "what politics is," though candidate Al Gore was "surrounded by tough mean operatives whose sole political instinct is to rip the other guy's guts out."
Indeed, in daring to advocate policies different from the GOP's, Gore was not just wrong but deliberately deceitful: "Al Gore knows," Noonan insisted during the campaign, that Republican ideas are "responsible and constructive," "the most hopeful proposals of our time," but "he lies and says [they're] bad."
This, Chait writes, seems to frame the debate for Republican politicians and their mouthpieces like Noonan: simply that "it is virtually impossible for a good person to pursue liberal policies or for a conservative politician to be morally flawed." If you disagree with whopping tax cuts for the ultra-rich, postponing or spiking most environmental regulations, or plundering the Alaska Wildlife Refuge for a few barrels of oil, you are not just expressing political opposition; you are evil.
If you dare to question, or even (like a growing number of frustrated Congressional Republicans as well as Democrats) ask for more information from the executive-branch-only secret shadow government — about its energy-industry meetings to set energy policy, Tom Ridge's silent schemes for homeland security, or the next steps in the war on terrorism — you are not just out of line; you are immoral. ("How dare Sen. Daschle criticize President Bush when we have troops in the field," thunders Trent Lott, who ignored our troops in the field in 1998 when he declared, "I cannot support this military action in the Persian Gulf. Both the timing and the policy are open to question.")
I haven't forgotten its stolen election and I strongly disagree with its pro-fatcat policies and screw-the-world unilateralism, but they're not my main concern about this administration. My main concern is that it is the most arrogant, contemptuous, and profoundly un-American since the criminal cabal of Richard Nixon.
9:15:47 AM 
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