Ward on Words

It was a convention that began in turmoil, disrupted as it was, by an act of God named Isaac. An association with a hurricane was likely not what the Republicans were looking for. There were too many voices from the GOP base pointing the finger of blame at godless NOLA after Katrina hit. GOP president, GW Bush, was on vacation when Katrina hit. (He loved his vacations! Oh God how GW Bush loved his vacations!) When the President finally showed up to see the devastation wrought by Katrina, he assured the nation that Brownie was doing one "heck of a job," leaving much of the nation outside of his administration scratching their heads about his ability to process critical information about the worst national disaster to hit our shores. So beginning the 2012 Republican National Convention under the gloomy God-forsaken, storm-tossed skies brought by Hurricane Isaac was off-script indeed. (Making some wonder, what, exactly, was God trying to say to the GOP by sending Isaa...

Peggy Noonan has written some wonderful speeches in her day, but her columns in the WSJ are so married to ideology as to be fiction, rather than commentary. Here I express my alarm that such a prominent conservative voice pointed the finger of blame for the BP oil spill at Obama, instead of at BP, the hugely profitable, multi-national corporation that made the error-ridden business decisions leading up to the spill. Today, Noonan's word of the day is " unsustainable ." "The American establishment, on both sides of the political divide, is admitting as never before that we are in an existential challenge. And this is progress. It was not always so! It wasn't so two years ago." As Noonan acknowledges, many Americans outside of the "American establishment" recognized back in 2008 that it was time for a change - that the challenges facing America were severe, painful and absolutely needed to be addressed. That it's taken the "establishmen...

Peggy Noonan wrote a terrible column in last weekend's Wall Street Journal. "He was supposed to be competent" is the headline, and it's about how Obama's incompetence is the reason the Gulf Coast is soaked in oil right now. Come again? Peggy Noonan was Reagan's songbird. Her speechwriting for the man who named a revolution was elegant, eloquent and inspirational. Does she forget that her boss considered government the problem? That businesses were dying under the yoke of regulation? That for America to succeed, a bloodless revolution needed to take place that severed the government from the responsibility of regulating much of American business? Because untethered, according to the Reagan Revolution, businesses could fly high and soar. And their profits would trickle down into the pockets of all of us on Main Street. Which would have been great, since salaries have remained stagnant since Reagan was in office. That trickle down money could have meant ...