Peggy Noonan and "Narrative"
Or:
Making Shit Up

If you think that "narrative" (in the trendy sense) is a respectable concept, then here's something you should enjoy: Peggy Noonan just making shit up about Obama.

She's "constructed" a "narrative" alright...one with only the wispiest connections to the, y'know, facts.

Conservatives have, since before Obama even took the oath of office, been calling him "the black Jimmy Carter." Yes, he's a reasonable man who had high hopes for bringing civility and cooperation to D.C...yes, he is succeeding a disastrous, criminal Republican president...but none of that is what Republicans mean. The moniker shows that, lacking any substantive criticisms, Republicans decided to try to hang one of their generic criticisms of Democrats on him--he's feckless or something. It's not terribly clear. Other generic, groundless criticisms: he's "all talk," he's arrogant. Whatever.

Of course no one could have turned around the Bush/Cheney disaster in three years...especially with the GOP working its hardest to undermine any Democratic president. But the facts just get in the way when we have a good "narrative" in mind. So Noonan does what she does best, and what the GOP is intent on doing: making up a story ("constructing a narrative") according to which Obama is a terrible president. Of course if Saint Ronnie of the Teleprompter had gone through the same thing, he'd have been the steely-eyed patriot, the Last Sensible Man, fighting the good fight against the chaos of Washington. And so forth. Noonan, like so many of her ilk, has her story...oops...I meant narrative...'story' is far too pedestrian...in mind ahead of time, and it is impervious to facts.