The front cover of the New York Post says, inside, how Peggy Noonan tells Barack to rule:

http://online.wsj.com/article/declarations.html

I haven’t read it before posting this, but Peggy’s position, however crafted, is crucial, because it captures the center-left, which is overwhelmingly who brought Obama into being.

I say crafted, because Peggy Noonan, one of my favorite columnists, has shifted herself over the many years. She’s slid left, to which she’s entitled, but she’s picked up one or two bad liberal habits. One of the worst is a technique used more, almost exclusively by the left, which is pandering. Demagoguing. Telling America what they want to hear, not what she believes.

<!–[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]–><!–[if !vml]–><!–[endif]–>

Anti-gay marriage activists, for example, may be haters, they may be despicable, but they know what they don’t want- gay marriage. People who hated Palin because she was conservative didn’t say that- they said she was retarded. Joy Behar, who hates Rush Limbaugh, says she hates him because he’s a terrorist, cheapening every innocent killed by the IRA or Hamas.

Peggy herself decried this habit, most eloquently, in her book The Case Against Hillary Clinton, in the beginning of Chapter Four:

http://browseinside.harpercollins.com/index.aspx?isbn13=9780060393403

Tellingly, what she accuses them of, is not giving the laymen the whole picture because then they might think the wrong thing.

The talk radio hosts are decrying “Conservatism in exile”. One of things in exile, though we’ll see just how much, may be free thought. Peggy, one of my favorites, has become more like the mainstream media in that she won’t say what she thinks. She’ll just slip it in (“I’m not wondering if the whole Republican Party may just age out”, she muses. Hmmmm…power of suggestion?). The world, as usual, seems to be false, and trying to get the truth may be like standing on slippery ground.

Here’s to thinking the wrong thing.