Today's Theme: Sarah Misinterprets, Again, As Does Peggy Noonan

PHOTO: Louis Page

Sarah Palin:

"And you know what they say about "fences make for good neighbors"? Well, we'll get started on that tall fence tomorrow, and I'll try to keep Trig's squeals down to a quiet giggle so we don't disturb your peaceful summer. Enjoy!"

The poet Robert Frost actually began the poem she references with this line:

"Something there is that doesn't love a wall"

The whole point of the poem is a man wondering why he and his neighbor must rebuild their wall each spring.

There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Frost asks: 'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.'

 Once again, Sarah Googles a quote and misses the point. Hugely.

Continuing with today's theme.

Peggy Noonan wrote of President Bush after Hurricane Katrina and the projected impact on his presidency:

"Is the Bush Era over? No, no, no. It has three more years. That’s a long time. History turns on a dime. There is much ahead, and potential for progress."

Of President Obama and the BP oil disaster in the Gulf?

"I don’t see how the president’s position and popularity can survive the oil spill."

She continues:

"I wonder if the president knows what a disaster this is not only for him but for his political assumptions. His philosophy is that it is appropriate for the federal government to occupy a more burly, significant and powerful place in America—confronting its problems of need, injustice, inequality. But in a way, and inevitably, this is always boiled down to a promise: "Trust us here in Washington, we will prove worthy of your trust." Then the oil spill came and government could not do the job, could not meet need, in fact seemed faraway and incapable: "We pay so much for the government and it can't cap an undersea oil well!"

She does have a point. After all, Bush never promised a government that would hold a powerful place in America--confronting its problems of needs, injustice, inequality...He just demanded that we trust him.

The problem with Noonan's piece is that:

1. Bush knew ahead of time what would happen and how to prevent it
2. He avoided New Orleans afterward
3. He claimed that everything that could be done was being done (heck of a job, Brownie)
4. Bush to this day accepts no responsibility, none, for any mistakes that were made
5. President Obama was in the Gulf on May 2
6. He has already acknowledged the mistakes made
7. Rather than trying to evade responsibility in an off-year election year, he is trying to ensure that the American people know what is happening and that ultimately, it is his responsibility for the failures of the MMS even though it was the Bush Administration that made the decisions resulting in this disaster

Another GOPher apologist spouting the party line. Get in line. That woman is an idiot.

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