Peggy Noonan recounts her harrowing brush with death

[Cocoa]

between this column about the Cessna and her previous one about how Bush makes things more "exciting" I think Peggy needs to get drafted and see some real danger.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110006677

<snip>

You witness a lot of pared down and unmediated human nature in situations like this. During the Reagan funeral, when many were gathered in ceremonial rooms in the Capitol, a gallant old woman, a former government official, calmly and very definitely informed a security man she was not leaving. A friend saw a powerful media figure almost knock over a wheelchair-bound woman as he raced from the room. A witty and brilliant woman turned her heel as she ran in high Manolo Blahniks down the Capitol steps. She slowed at the bottom and told a close friend to leave her, she couldn't run anymore. He said: No, if you die my life won't be fun anymore, I'm staying. And he did.

And I am thinking what the woman from the Hart Building told me about the young. It reminds me of Lesley Stahl. After 9/11, Lesley found that the young people in her office in New York were especially shook. Panic attacks, anthrax in the news, the fear that more death was coming.

When a young person would confide his or her fears, Lesley started saying, "Come sit next to me." She would talk to them softly about how lucky they all were to have to concentrate on getting the news. They would sit with her at her desk and do their work next to her. Then after a while they'd leave, and if they got scared again an hour later, they would come and sit next to her again.

The young are new to history. The job of the mature is to be mature. Here's to them.

[democracyindanger]

1. There's never a magic dolphin around when you need one.

[Benhurst]

2. ...

:puke:

[LisaM]

3. Has anyone ever deconstructed her loony ravings?

Her writing reminds me of something but I can't quite put my finger on it.

[gratuitous]

4. I had a friend who worked in a psych ward

He talked about one of the patients who'd shit his drawers and then use the material to write on the walls, the floor, and everywhere else. I think he's a state senator now.

[emulatorloo]

5. Karen Hughes on acid n/t

[Cocoa]

6. great question

Peggy is what is known as "a real piece of work."

[noiretextatique]

12. it's just propaganda

she's one of the grown-up, mature ones showing the young ones how to be lemming-like and unquestioning of the lunatics running the asylum.

[ragin_acadian]

15. reminds me a little of Big Sur

i wonder if she's got the DT's too.

[comsymp]

7. the young people in her office in New York were especially shook

Were especially shook?

[mitchum]

13. Yes, "shaken" is only for that scribbling loon's cocktails

[LisaM]

17. Ha ha

best laugh I've had all day.

[UTUSN]

8. Oh. Thought the Fumes from RAYGUN's Foot Had Knocked Her Out

[cmd]

9. Death didn't want her either n/t

[lonestarnot]

10. She's about a barf bag if I ever saw one!

[Jacobin]

11. It comes from having a VERY GUILTY CONSCIENCE

They know they are whores in Sodom...that they are living the high life by lying, cheating, stealing and fellating this corrupt administration....they KNOW their time is coming and they can't sleep a wink knowing the other shoe is about to drop. They just can't get away with their criminal behaviour forever and they know it.

This was a little panic situation and they thought they were about to get theirs.

That's all it is with these self-important spewers of corporate vile

[KlatooBNikto]

14. None of her pieces ever ring true to me,they have a manufactured

quality to them.I feel the same way about David Brooks and Tom Friedman.They seem to be in the business of exalting the powerful.Truth telling is an unknown art for them.

On Edit: The writer's responsibility to tell the truth seems to be followed by the incomparable Jimmy Breslin, Paul Krugman, Paul Craig Roberts and Bob Herbert.

[Flying Dream Blues]

16. Besides the apt Karen H. on acid reference,

I'd add that it's all just a little too precious, her bird's eye view from the top; the heroic friend of Little Miss Manolo Blahniks, the less-than-heroic powerful media figure she no doubt lunches with, not to mention the Buddha-like calm and wisdom of Lesley Stahl.

Blecch...aren't we just so special??