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Katrina Vanden Heuvel, the lone liberal voice during the panel discussion on This Week pointed out the obvious about our war on terror and what we're doing in Afghanistan.

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... let me put the counter… and let me put it, the question, to you this way. If they see us leave Afghanistan, wouldn't the Pakistanis say, "We're next. They're going to abandon us again"?

VANDEN HEUVEL: No, I think it's much more complicated, and our occupation of Afghanistan is going to deepen divisions in Pakistan and destabilize an already fragile civilian government.

I mean, we are already engaged in a secret war in Pakistan. The Nation's cover story this week, based on multiple sources, shows that Blackwater is working with the Joint Special Operations Command, planning targeting assassinations and drone campaigns. This is fundamentally destabilizing. We need another policy.

The larger overlay of all of this, in my view, is our overreaction to the terrible, horrible tragedy of 9/11 has led us to wage war against terrorism. You cannot wage a conventional war, which we are doing in Afghanistan, against an odious, horrifying set of ideas or tactics. And until we end that, we are, as an American people, going to have a de facto policy of permanent warfare. Do we want that in our country?

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Peggy Noonan thinks she knows what's good for Democrats and that this Stupak-Pitts abortion amendment is somehow good for the party—but only in a “funny, little political way”. How quaint of you Peggy to be so completely dismissive of what the real life impact of that amendment passing would actually mean to the lives of women, especially those with low incomes that are the least capable of doing anything to fight back against what’s happening but most likely to be impacted by it.

Noonan had this bit of condescending wisdom to share with all of us on this weekend’s edition of The Chris Matthews Show.

Matthews: Peggy every four years the Democrats meet and write a platform and it says pro-choice, abortion rights, but you know a third of the Democratic people in this country, who vote Democrat are pro-life. Did they ever, ever have a plan here to bring them all together?—because that’s what they have to do.

Noonan: I don’t know if they had a plan but I’ll tell you in a purely political sense, for the Democratic Party to shake off for the first time in like 35 years the general understanding that they are the pro-choice and you cannot be pro-life and be in this party—it hurts the Democratic Party—everybody always said it hurt the Republicans to be pro-life. It hurt the Democrats to be rigidly pro-choice—to not let pro-life people speak at their conventions etc. In a funny, little political way this is a benefit to the Democratic Party that, that pro-life people have a serious place at the table at this moment. It’s good for them.

What’s pathetic is that religion is allowed to be used at all to get working people to vote against their own economic interests and that people don’t have the sense to see past that. And if Peggy Noonan thinks that it is acceptable to call any aspect of this debate “funny” or “little”, she needs to go read Digby’s post from last week-Goldilocks Was Betrayed:

In case you are wondering about the real life effects of playing cheap politics with pregnancy, read this. And this. Contra McGaskill and Tweety, who are misinformed about just about everything, this is actually a big deal. This amendment doesn't just punish Lord Saletan's little sluts. All women will be losing coverage for necessary abortions when a wanted pregnancy goes wrong. It only has an exemption for the life of the mother, but not for her her health, nor for severe and fatal fetal abnormalities. Click those links for what that means in real life.

The Political Carnival: It's not okay to listen to Obama's education speech at school, but watching the Fort Hood funeral, even if it causes deep emotional distress? That's a go. (h/t Relaxed Politics)

Figleaf (not work-safe): A perfect analogy to why 'no means no.'

Mock Paper Scissors: No, really, Peggy Noonan, it's a distinction to be the only person left from the Reagan administration "brand" that is not in jail, senile, or dead.

The Plum Line: Obama not taking the 'racist' bait of that moron Rupert Murdoch.

Off the beaten path, hey kids, it's Comic Panel Remix!!!

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What are Peggy Noonan and Walter Isaacson smoking?—and Fareed Zakaria for that matter. During this 'very serious' debate on CNN's GPS, Peggy Noonan claims that President Obama is 'governing from the left' and that he's 'damaged his brand' by threatening to raise taxes. She also tries to paint the New Jersey governors' race as a twenty point drop in support for the President.

I didn't know he was on the ballot there Peggy. And Walter Isaacson thinks Obama should have had brought in John McCain, Bobby Jindal and Bob Dole to help draft his health care policy. So allowing the Baucus-dogs to run the show in the Finance Committee and the 180 Republican amendments they adopted wasn't quite bad enough for you Walter?

When have any of these Villagers ever suggested that if a Republican President had just brought in the Democratic challenger and allowed them to help craft policy that the public would have been more accepting of it? Did we hear any of this kind of talk after Gore or Kerry lost? I don't think so.

This is not included in the clip above, but here's how Zakaria framed the panel discussion.

ZAKARIA: We have a great show for you today -- a star-studded panel of historians to talk about Obama's first year in office, the political climate in America and around the world.

In the United States it was a good week for the Republican Party that has been on the retreat for almost five years now. It's actually also a sign of a fascinating global pattern, which might not turn out to be bad news for Democrats.

Imagine that you have been told five years ago that a financial crisis, prominently featuring irresponsible banks, would plunge the global economy to its worst level since the 1930s. If you were then asked to predict the results of elections held after this crisis of capitalism, you might have said that the right, the party of free enterprise and of bankers, would do badly, and the left, the party of government, would do well. And you would have been dead wrong.

Last week in the United States, the Republicans did better than anyone expected. Last month in Germany, the center right won a resounding victory. In France, Nicolas Sarkozy's right-wing government reigns with considerable public support. In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi has managed to stay in power, largely because the electorate is dissatisfied by the left. In Britain, the conservatives are poised to win their first national election in 17 years.

Why?

Look at the kinds of right-wing parties that are winning. David Cameron of Great Britain calls himself a progressive conservative. Sarkozy of France assails bankers, and calls for much stricter financial regulation. Merkel of West Germany rejects arguments for free market reform and defends Germany's social market economy.

Even in America, the Republicans who did well did so by stressing mainstream positions on restricting government spending. The right has moved to the center, which remains the high ground of politics these days. If Democrats want to stay vibrant, all they have to do is just remember that.

[...]

All day long on cable news talk shows we hear about how President Obama is doing. On Fox, some say he's a socialist who's trying to indoctrinate our children, even as he mortgages their future. On MSNBC he is the lonely hero, fighting to give help to the sick, employ the jobless and end racism in our time. And here on CNN, well, I won't say an answer today.

I wanted to see if we could get some of a clear-eyed look at what kind of a president he really is, and what kind of a world he faces. So I've gathered a panel of talented historians and writers -- people who know greatness and the lack thereof when they see it, to help me accomplish this mission.

They all somehow forgot to talk about the Congressional races that the Democrats won, and Fareed Zakaria actually implied with a straight face that the Republican Party is moving to the center and the Democratic Party has not already. Who does he think he's kidding? So no, this is not Fox News Fareed, but it may as be when you’re reciting from the same talking points that they are. Transcript from CNN below the fold.

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For the low, low price of $12.99, you can own a high quality 4X6 lustre print of Peggy Noonan, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, James Baker, and Henry Kissinger snubbing John McCain at the Reagan Foundation Dinner held at the US Capitol Building.

It's brought to you by Washington Life Magazine, which has it categorized on its "blog" under, and I am not making this up, "Pol-lywood Events."

Some days, satire just fails me.

Open Thread below....

Distributor Cap brings us Peggy Noonan as Mary Poppins (click here for larger):

"In every job that must be done, there is an element of greed. You find the greed, and - SNAP - the job's a game!"

Open Thread below....

From The Daily Show:

The media questions President Obama's possible overexposure after he appears on five separate Sunday morning news shows.

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George Will thinks that daring to point out the racism at these tea parties amounts to "liberals' McCarthyism. If anyone's playing the role of Joe McCarthy, it's Glenn Beck, not "liberals" who are pointing out the racist element to these protests, and all the "table pounding" on your part isn't going to change that.

CARTER: An overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man.

BECK: We have a former president who says, if you’re opposed to the president’s health care, you’re a racist.

LIMBAUGH: The left looks at everything through a racial prism. I’m just -- I’m just -- hey, they hit us, we hit back twice as hard.

PELOSI: In the late ‘70s in San Francisco, this kind of -- of rhetoric was very frightening. And it gave -- it created a climate in which we -- violence took place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: The debate not coming down as President Obama called for. Let me bring the roundtable back in. I’m joined by George Will, Peggy Noonan, Bob Reich, Ed Gillespie, and Donna Brazile.

And, George, as we -- as we get to this, let me show two magazine covers from this week. First, Time magazine, Glenn Beck, mad man, and the angry style of American politics. And then in the New York magazine coming out tomorrow, there’s the tattooed face of Barack Obama , big headline, “Hate.”

We -- we heard President Obama say he thinks that a lot of anti- government feeling, the idea that the government can’t do anything right, is behind all this. What’s your theory?

WILL: The president’s right about that. What we’re hearing is the liberals’ McCarthyism, which is, when in doubt, blame people for racism. Litigators have an old argument: When the law’s on your side, argue the law. When the facts are on your side, argue the facts. When neither’s on your side, pound the table. This amounts to pounding the table.

I have yet to see evidence, is there -- does evidence even intrude in this conversation? Is there any evidence that these people are racists? I think not.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Donna?

BRAZILE: Well, George, there’s some evidence that -- not an overwhelming amount of evidence -- that some of -- a small fringe of this movement, clearly there’s some racism. And you don’t have to know the motives of someone’s heart to understand when you see signs, incendiary signs that basically compares him to a witch doctor, an African heathen. We know racism; we don’t have to be told or taught that. That -- that much we do know.

There’s a culture of extremism that has gained mainstream acceptance. And I think the president is absolutely right. When you see it, you have to call it. You shouldn’t duck it. But, on the other hand, you shouldn’t exaggerate it.

This is why we need responsible leaders to denounce it, but more importantly, we need to find a way to have an honest and good dialogue whenever race is a topic so that the president of the United States, which is very busy, does not have to have beer summits all the time.

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Peggy Noonan with a double dose of her typical snobbery on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Noonan first calls the President "boorish" for doing his "Full Ginsburg" on the Sunday shows and for all the town hall meetings he's had. Then she goes on to excuse the racism at the tea bag parties and town hall protests.

Stephanopoulos: Peggy one of the arguments the White House makes is they're dealing with a very different media environment than any other President in the past has ever had to deal with. There's such a fracture in media environment that even someone like Ronald Reagan, who you worked for would have to do more of what you're seeing the President do in this environment.

Noonan: Oh I don't know. I think the President is doing what he's doing now, being all over today and the past few weeks--he's doing it because... he can, because people do what they know how to do.

Stephanopoulos: Because no one is going to turn him down.

Noonan: This is his way. Because everybody will say yes. I don't think it's about the media environment but I do think the media environment allows a modern leader to be something subtly damaging and that is boorish. They get their face in your face every day all the time. It's boorish and it makes people not lean towards you, but lean away from you, no matter what the merits of the issue and the merits of this issue are not such great merits.

[.....]

You know what I think. When I look at this I step back a little bit and I think there is a lot of anger now. Mrs. Pelosi had a point. Things get high. It's always good to cool things down, but essentially what we have here is a very new president. He's only been here for ten months. He is a young man. He didn't have deep, long, profound experience. He is attempting right now to change, what it is, seventeen, eighteen percent of the GNP of the United States of America, changing how it works, health care.

This is problematic on the face of it. People will argue about that, but on top of that people are thinking about, in America the economy, unemployment, war and peace, two wars that are going. This president who is new and young comes along and says "Oh, that's not the issue. The issue is health care". It seems not like a program but a non sequitur and it angers people.

Inland at DailyKOS reminds of us what the definition of a boor is and tries to figure out what Noonan may have been implying by using the term.

boor definition boor (bo̵or)

noun

1. Archaic a peasant or farm worker

2. a rude, awkward, or ill-mannered person

Inland also points to this post at Firedoglake by Blue Texan with more of Noonan's hackery on the town hall protesters. Peggy Noonan: Health Care Protests Haven’t “Gotten Out of Hand”, Just “Plenty of Booing”:

Nooners surveys the mob scenes, the hangings in effigy, the assaults, the unhinged rhetoric -- and blames it all on Obama.

All of this is unnecessarily and unhelpfully divisive and provocative. They [the White House and Democrats] are mocking and menacing concerned citizens. This only makes a hot situation hotter. Is this what the president wants? It couldn’t be. But then in an odd way he sometimes seems not to have fully absorbed the awesome stature of his office. You really, if you’re president, can’t call an individual American stupid, if for no other reason than that you’re too big. You cannot allow your allies to call people protesting a health-care plan “extremists” and “right wing,” or bought, or Nazi-like, either. They’re citizens. They’re concerned. They deserve respect.

Shorter Noonan: if the Democrats would stop dressing like slutty socialists, they wouldn't get raped.

h/t to Bob Cesca who also noted..

Adding... Peggy Noonan was at the top of her passive aggressive condescending game. Bravo. Referring to the president as "boorish" in her trademark insufferable hushed tone doesn't make her "graceful" or "civil" -- it just makes her look ridiculous, since she clearly doesn't know what "boorish" means.

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During today's episode of Morning Joe live at the Ronnie Ray-Gun Presidential Library, Joe Scarborough wraps things up with his "political round table" and asks his panel whether Joe Wilson should apologize or not. Peggy Noonan looked like she was hitting the sauce first thing in the morning. Lawrence O'Donnell did a great job talking about why Joe Wilson needs to apologize to South Carolina for single handedly managing to put their state's racist history right back in the spotlight again. And surprise, surprise, racist Pat Buchanan didn't think Joe Wilson needs to apologize and then ended up the segment by exalting the sun revolving around St. Ronnie's magical Irish head.

From The Daily Show:

If Republicans can't give Lewis Black any evidence against Obama's health care reform, then at least do the honorable thing and confuse him.

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Mike Murphy is right: "Gov. Sarah Palin is the political train wreck that keeps on giving."

How great is it that a week after she aborts her career in politics, Republicans are still debating whether she has a future on the national ticket?

And Newt Gingich votes yes. [This audio, Newt Gingrich interviewed by his former mistress/now wife Calista, was posted to his website on Friday, July 10.]

One has to wonder with guys like Newt Gingrich still not giving up hope for Palin's future, whether NPR analyst Jennifer Pozner is right, that the public treatment, and Newt's tacit endorsement, of Sarah Palin is much more about her looks and sex-appeal than about her painfully obvious lack of qualifications:

Ironically, though Palin has railed against unfair treatment by the mainstream media, she has mostly been referring not to blatant sexism but to reporters who wouldn't show her "respect and deference." The last thing journalists owe any politician is deference.

In other Palin discussion among the GOP, Peggy Noonan created a major stir with this oped, opining that Palin wasn't qualified to run for high office and never will be. One good article out of a hundred, Peggy, but I still haven't forgiven you for your "GOP sex scandals can be traced back to Bill Clinton" wack-a-news bite. I for one am ready to stop talking about the Clenis and let GOP-nees take responsibility for their own wanderings and motivations. [h/t Nicole for the new lingo.]

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Part two of the Peggy and Kathleen show on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. This time the topic is health care. After some straight talk from Paul Krugman about the importance of including a public option to control costs and the fact that there is no real competition in the health care markets now, we get another "Oh my goodness" moment from Peggy Noonan. Noonan seems to think she knows what most "normal humans" think and forget all those mushy details those darned economists like Krugman tend to bring up. Let's just talk about taxes. Doing her best to channel a little bit of Sarah Palin here:

Noonan: Oh my goodness. Well let...you know how I feel from my column this week. I think things have become a little bit scattered. Um...Paul...if you just limit this conversation to taxes alone, you have some sense that people, normal humans in America, might be getting a little bit nervous about health care and energy care and all of this stuff. America has a huge deficit. We've never seen anything like it before.

Spending is very big. A Warren Buffet, who people tend to trust on economic matters says look, this energy thing the House just passed is a big tax. Health care, the Congressional Budget Office says is probably $1.8 trillion over the next ten years...

Krugman: No...it's not...

Noonan: Well, without gettin' into the weeds, you gotta' assume it's going to cost money. We've got California going under. We've got New York with I think a $20 billion deficit. They're going to be raising taxes. Income taxes are going to be going on up. At a certain point, you've got to realize, people are going to say "Whoa...this is no good. You've got to stop this." (crosstalk) Yes.

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Listening to Republicans Peggy Noonan and Kathleen Parker on the panel of This Week practically swooning over Mark Sanford's emails to his mistress and excusing his behavior was truly a sight to behold. They both looked downright giddy this morning while dismissing his actions because he was in love.

Paul Krugman and Michael Eric Dyson do their best to try to point out that the trouble is not so much the cheating since it is human nature which is not reserved for one party, but the hypocrisy of the Republicans being the party of family values and people like Mark Sanford's words coming back to bite him. Of course Noonan and Parker were having none of that.

Noonan: Ooohh...I never think that when politicians, Democrats and Republicans get in these stories, that the story itself, the sin itself if you will, undermines what the politician stands for necessarily. Mark Sanford's Libertarian/traditional views are right or wrong on their own. Um..I must say I've been thinking about Clinton a lot and it seems to me that in the Clinton era, during that famous story, a new devilishness was unleashed, especially in the media where a new meanness took style.

And I feel like in every one of the scandals of the past few months, and we've had so many of them, the political sex scandals, the level of meanness of the response, publicly, and on cable and the newspapers, gets meaner each time. It seems to me that we are coming, we are reacting as almost as a nation, but certainly in the media as kind of Puritans without faith, which is the worst of both worlds. To be Puritanical and not even have faith.

I'm sorry Peggy, but the treatment any of the Republicans of late have gotten in the press pales in comparison to what the media did to Bill Clinton. And the media are not the ones being Puritans. The Republicans are the ones who have held themselves out there as the party of virtue and family values. The press didn't invent that.

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Lindsey Graham admitted that he was godfather to two children disgraced Gov. Mark Sanford in South Carolina. How does NBC expect Graham to be objective in any sense of the word? He should not be on TV talking about this situation.

Graham and Romney and the rest of the Republicans are hypocritical windbags for defending Sanford now when they all tried to get Bill Clinton impeached. Sanford left his state completely without leadership for almost a full week and if an emergency had occurred in South Carolina there was nobody with the authority to help his constituents. That is the firing offense for Sanford. He was derelict in his duty. All he had to do was give the word and the Lt. Governor could have taken over, but he was in love so it's just alright if you listen to the Peggy Noonans of the conservative movement.

MTP:

MR. GREGORY: ...of South Carolina. Governor Mark Sanford disappeared for five days then announced that, in fact, he'd had a mistress, he was visiting a mistress in Argentina. He misled his staff, he misled the voters. Should he resign?

SEN. GRAHAM: Well, the first thing, I'm the godfather of Mark and Jenny's youngest child, so I'm just going to put that on the table. My main focus right now is can this marriage be saved? Can these kids have a mom and dad to guide them through life? That is my main focus. I think if Mark can reconcile with Jenny, and that's not going to be easy, that he can finish his last 18 months. He's had a good reform agenda. And I do believe that if, if he can reconcile with his family and if he's willing to try, that the people of South Carolina would be willing to give him a second chance. But he's also got to reconcile the legislature. If he can get his family back together, I think he can continue out his term and maybe do some good things next year.

Suddenly the party of moral values is the party of sinners.

SEN. GRAHAM: Yeah. I think we're a party of sinners, just like every other group in America, but we're also a party that openly talks about good things. It is good for Mark and Jenny to get back together, if that's possible, because it's good for families to have a mom and dad. And it's OK to talk about those things. And part of life is failing. So from Mark's point of view, if he can get his family back together, people are pretty fair in this country. Bill Clinton had his problems. People looked at his job performance, they looked at his personal failings and they said, "You know what, we're going to put one over here and the other over there." That's no justification for what Mark did, but I think the people of South Carolina appreciate what Mark tried to do as governor to change their state.

Sanford's presser was crazy. The people of South Carolina should be asking, "Was Sanford in his right mind dealing with the stimulus package?" He was refusing the money to a state in deep unemployment and obviously battling being in love with another woman. Well we knew that, but if you think Americans will be easily duped by the claim Sanford was acting in their best interests, think again.

And Graham's remarks underscore the fact that the witch hunt that Republicans and the media perpetrated on Bill Clinton was disgusting and should never be forgiven. The same behavior now is OK in their books, of course, if it involves a Republican.

SEN. GRAHAM: And they're very disappointed in what he did as Mark the individual and his malfeasance at, at times, but they can reconcile the two only if, if Jenny and Mark can get back together. I think the people of South Carolina will give him a second chance.

MR. GREGORY: Do you think you had that kind of compassion during the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton?

SEN. GRAHAM: Well, I can tell you this. I'm the only Republican that voted against the article that dealt with lying about Monica Lewinsky, because I think lying about a consensual affair when you're blindsided is not a high crime or misdemeanor. The reason I vote for impeachment is because it was a lawsuit about nonconsensual behavior where President Clinton was accused of doing some very crude things; he manipulated witnesses, he undermined the integrity of the legal system like Richard Nixon undermined the integrity of the political system. That's what I focused on, not the fact that he lied about a consensual event.

Riiight, and Sanford didn't fly to Argentina on the state's dime and didn't lie about it and didn't leave his state without leadership and none of the charges he raised against Clinton were proved true.

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