Noonanology

One-stop shopping through the magic of the blogosphere. Nested-propositional-attitides-R-us:

What Peggy Noonan thought Paul Wellstone would have thought about his own memorial service.

What Jesse of Pandagon thought Noonan might have thought Tupac Shakur might have thought about Paul Wellstone's memorial service

What Charile Pierce thought that President Reagan would have thought of Peggy Noonan.

Comments

[Jason Walker]

I still haven't read the Noonan piece, nor the parodies, though oddly enough, I did post tonight about the Wellstone/Reagan comparisons.

http://wisconsin-moon-god.blogspot.com/2004_06_01_wisconsin-moon-god_archive.html#108693241115669231

[Thad]

Hey Jason,

How goes? Well, I hope. Anyway, since you mentioned me in your blog post but you don't have comments on yer own blog, I guess we might as well resume our discussion here.

First, I think by focussing only on the content of Dick Cheney's speech, you are missing the larger picture. It it seriously your contention that the death of Ronald Reagan hasn't been politicized by the right? If you click on the this article? Indeed, are there any pundits on the right who have not been peddling the "Bush is the heir to Reagan's legacy, so help W. win one for the gipper" line this week? Cheney doesn't have to make that that point explicitly during the memorial service because his surrogates have been making it for him all week. Why do you think we even have this drawn-out, week-long Reagapalooza in the first place? (For comparison purposes, I note that JFK was in the ground within three days.)

I also think you have an incredibly distorted view of what actually went on at the Wellstone memorial. If I recall correctly, you said at the time that you did not actually watch the memorial on television, only a few isolated clips. (You can watch the whole thing

My other point at the time was that even if you found some of Mark Wellstone's remarks inappropriate, that it took some serious fucking chutzpah for Paul Wellstone's political opponents to go around reaming out his son, who had just days before lost his father, mother and sister in a plane crash, about precisely how he chose to eulogize his father. If you're seriously concerned about matters of taste, don't you agree it's in rather bad taste for people like Rush Limbaugh and Peggy Noonan to rake Mark Wellstone over the coals so soon after half his immediate family was suddenly wiped out?

Finally, while I obviously dispute your claim that Reagan's memorial proceedings have been a model of decorum, restraint, and bipartisan goodwill, and that the Wellstone's memorial was nothing but a crass anti-Republican hate-fest, even if both those claims were true, I don't really see what's wrong with the "politicization" of the the death of political figures. Paul Wellstone and Ronald Reagan both spent the better part of their lives fighting for their respective political ideals, so I guess I don't really understand why you think it's somehow inappropriate to mention those ideals when they pass on. I mean, I don't have a transcript of the eulogies given at MLK's memorial in front of me, but I think it's a pretty safe bet that at some point, someone might have mentioned Dr. King's work in the civil rights movement, and suggested that fighting for the continuation of his political legacy would be a suitable way to memorialize the man.

[Thad]

Oops, bad linking screwed up my post. Let me post the relevant bits again:

If you click on the Bush/Cheney 2004 website, what do you see? Have you read this article? I

(You can watch the whole thing here, though the link isn't Mac-friendly.) I know the conventional wisdom is that it was more pep rally than memorial, but frankly the conventional wisdom is bullshit. There were eight eulogies, all given by close friends and family, all tributes to Wellstone the man. It's true that Rick Kahn -- Wellstone's best friend in life -- did close his eulogy with a political call to arms. But that was maybe three minutes out of a three-hour ceremony. It's also true that at one point, Paul's son Mark led the crowd in a chant of "We will win!" But to me, it seemed like he was referring not to the upcoming Senate race, but to the greater victory of Wellstone's liberal ideals -- principles that were more important to him than anything else, principles he fought for all his life. (You're not going to tell me that no one has used the death of Reagan to call for an expansion of Reagan's political legacy, are you? Paging Grover Norquist... )

[Thad]

Okay, the link to Wellstone memorial video still didn't work. Try this:

http://shows.implex.tv/wellstone/

[Kraorh]

Darcy, et al,

I replied to your comments here:
http://wisconsin-moon-god.blogspot.com/2004_06_01_wisconsin-moon-god_archive.html#108736691900866495

It got a bit long, but hopefully it's readable enough to where you don't notice its length.

I hope all is well.