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Now he is a statesman, when what he really wants is to be what most reporters are, adult delinquents.

Peggy Noonan

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Peggy Noonan
Age: 74
Born: 1950
Born: August 7
Author
Journalist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Adult
Journalist
Journalism
Adults
Wants
Delinquents
Really
Statesman
Statesmen
Reporters

More quotes by Peggy Noonan

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The Irish are often nervous about having the appropriate face for the occasion. They have to be happy at weddings, which is a strain, so they get depressed they have to be sad at funerals, which is easy, so they get happy.
Peggy Noonan
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Boundaries aren't all bad. That's why there are walls around mental institutions.
Peggy Noonan
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Morals are concerned with what aids or impedes the fulfillment of basic human needs.
Peggy Noonan
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Speeches are more important in politics than talking points, as a rule, and are better remembered.
Peggy Noonan
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It's better for the country when each party looks like it stands for something serious, for some big things, but they're not narrow and they're not bought.
Peggy Noonan
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At some point, don't voters start to see all of public life as one big polluted river? And if they do, don't they stop saying things like That's a busted tire floating by and That's an old shoe?
Peggy Noonan
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The tea party saved the Republican Party. In a broad sense, the tea party rescued it from being the fat, unhappy, querulous creature it had become, a party that didn't remember anymore why it existed, or what its historical purpose was. The tea party, with its energy and earnestness, restored the GOP to itself.
Peggy Noonan
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Part of courage is simple consistency.
Peggy Noonan
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A great speech is literature.
Peggy Noonan
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If you commit a big crime then you are crazy, and the more heinous the crime the crazier you must be. Therefore you are not responsible, and nothing is your fault.
Peggy Noonan
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Abortion is either OK or it's not.
Peggy Noonan
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We must try again to be alive to what the people of our country really long for in our national life: forgiveness and grace, maturity and wisdom. ...Our political leaders will know our priorities only if we tell them, again and again, and if those priorities begin to show up in the polls.
Peggy Noonan
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The thing political figures fear most is a terror event that will ruin their careers. The biggest thing they fear is that a bomb goes off and it can be traced to something they did or didn’t do, an action they did or didn’t support. They all fear being accused of not doing enough to keep the citizenry safe.
Peggy Noonan
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Ted Sorrenson, JFK's presidential speech writer, when asked how it came about that he wrote the ask not what you can do... speech, he would answer 'ask not.'
Peggy Noonan
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In ancient Israel and Rome the judge had appeared as a stand-in for the divine, and corruption was a blinding of the representative of the divine.
Peggy Noonan
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Speeches are not magic and there is no great speech without great policy.
Peggy Noonan
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In the 1950s and '60s the [democrat] party included many obviously earnest and thoughtful liberals who supported goals that were in line with and expressions of serious beliefs. They believed that America was an exceptional country.
Peggy Noonan
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What conservatives and Republicans must recognize is that the White House has broken with them. What President Bush is doing, and has been doing for some time, is sundering a great political coalition.
Peggy Noonan
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The Democratic Party will now stick with its guy forever, no matter how harmful he is. Perhaps you call that loyalty, and perhaps there's something to it, but a bigger part, I believe, is that you have come to think that winning is everything-that victory is the purpose of politics.
Peggy Noonan
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Some of the stupidest brilliant people who ever lived.
Peggy Noonan