That's the only explanation I can find for the fact that this morning's Richard Cohen column is heartening (he abandons Roe, which proves the jig really is up) and eminently reasonable (albeit from an abortion-rights standpoint), whereas Peggy Noonan has managed to pen a column even more small-souled and patronizing than hers of last week (one such column I can ignore. Could be a bit of bad beef the night before. Two in a row?). In the midst of her snide attempt to psychoanalyze the President, she manages to make the point I've been making: George Bush has guts, isn't afraid to tackle big things, and isn't afraid to stand alone in the face of criticism. If that's what you think he's like, Peggy, why are you so quick to proclaim with the rest of the President's putative friends that he is either stupid and ignorant (not equipped to take on Court reform because he can't understand it); or a traitor (throwing over Conservatives, not giving them respect, selling out a cause for which he's fought brilliantly for the past 4 years)? That position makes no sense.
A friend points out we know less about John Roberts than we do about Harriet Miers. Practically everything in Roberts' record that sheds light on his views he wrote as an advocate --and an advocate speaks on behalf of his client, as Roberts himself reminded us again and again during his hearings. Where is Roberts' questionnaire to a Texas pro-life group? Where is the report of Roberts' address to a lesbian rights group in which he says forthrightly he can't support gay marriage? The President has far less reason to be sanguine about Roberts, whom he does not know, than Miers, whom he does.
A crony writes me this morning: Lincoln was faced with similar quondam friends who agreed that he was as ignorant as Peggy and her buds think Bush is for choosing his crony nonentity instead of theirs. The conventional conservative soul is shriveling day by day.
UPDATE: Terry Eastland has a good piece on Miers' pro-life cred. Too lazy to link, but note that Ramesh Ponnuru is more favorably inclined towards Miers now --offering three points in her favor in one post. And boy, if you think I'm mad at Peggy Noonan, Ninme's really out to get her.
