Peggy Noonan Slams Washington ‘Selfishness’
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Peggy Noonan writes in the Wall Street Journal that the disease endemic to Washington ravaging the country is selfishness. With slightly hyperbolic rhetorical flair, she calls politicians “the locus of selfishness in the modern world.”
Noonan states succinctly, “Chris Christie’s problem isn’t that he’s a bully, it’s that he’s selfish. Barack Obama isn’t stupid and therefore the maker of mayhem, he’s selfish.” It’s not just the famous politicians she targets; she adds, “There isn’t a staffer on the Hill who won’t tell you 90% of members are driven by their own needs, wants and interests, not America’s.”
From her perch seated above the fray, Noonan moans that the new book by former defense secretary Bob Gates has passages that speak of such selfishness, and they “read like a cry from the heart.” She continues that the chaplain of the Senate, Barry Black, prayed several months ago for the executives and legislators in Washington, intoning, “Save us from the madness. We acknowledge our transgressions, our shortcomings, our smugness, our selfishness.”
Startlingly, Noonan, who once was a huge Barack Obama fan, defends Tea Party acolytes, writing, “We are in unprecedented trouble. Citizens know this. It’s why they buy guns. They see unfixable America around them, they think it’s all going to fall apart. In Washington (and New York) they huff and puff their disapproval: Those Americans with their guns, they’re causing a lot of trouble. But Americans think they’re in trouble because their leaders are too selfish to face challenges that will do us in.” Methinks Noonan is eager to jump off the Obama ship before it sinks.
She notes the selfishness of Christie at the …read more
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