Peggy Noonan on hero worshipping
Wednesday afternoon’s big White House rally celebrating its passage was embarrassing. All these grown men and women slathering personal, obsequious, over-the-top praise—“exquisite presidential leadership,” “a man of action,” “the president of the United States, whom I love and appreciate so much”—as Donald Trump emceed and called new praisers to the stage. They do this to keep the president happy, feed his needy ego and insist on his competency. It looked less like praise than self-abasement.
Actually, and I’m sorry to say this, the mood reminded me of the tale of Stalin telling some lame joke in a dinner speech. His ministers all laughed as if it were the wittiest thing they ever heard. Then they kept laughing, louder, and wouldn’t stop, because they knew the first one to stop would be noticed by Stalin and would soon be gone. So boy did they laugh.
The president thinks this kind of thing makes him look good. It doesn’t, it diminishes him: Keep the buffoon happy. Here is what would make him look good, and elevate him: normal human modesty. If he modestly waved off the praise, shut it down, said, “Please, let’s talk about the bill and how it will help our country . . .”
He would look bigger, as modest people always do, and his praisers would not look smaller.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-tax-bill-may-do-some-good-1513899773
This was as far as I read. Once she started to praise the tax "reform" I stopped, before getting nauseous.
= new reply since forum marked as read
omg
ha!
