Quote

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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Peggy Noonan
Age: 74
Born: 1950
Born: August 7
Author
Journalist
Writer
Brooklyn
New York
Things
Rivers
Life
Shoes
Polluted
Like
Saying
Busted
Stop
Shoe
Public
Tire
Start
Floating
Point
Voters
Bigs
River

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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.'
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Beware the politically obsessed. They are often bright and interesting, but they have something missing in their natures there is a hole, an empty place, and they use politics to fill it up. It leaves them somehow misshapen.
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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.
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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.
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The first snow always startles. It covers the tricycle in the driveway, turning its frame into an abstact sculpture that says: See how quickly yesterday turns into today.
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The Democrats often seem like the Not Republican Party, no more and no less.
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Cynicism is not realistic and tough. It's unrealistic and kind of cowardly because it means you don't have to try. ---in Good Housekeeping
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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.
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[democrats] have become the party of snobs. You have become the party of Americans who think they're better than other Americans.
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Resentment isn't a magnetic personal style.
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We are all afraid. That's the thing that unites all truly successful people: fear, fear of failing, fear of criticism, fear of letting down the team in some way. That why they try so hard, that's why they pay attention to detail and try to get every possible duck in a row. It's fear
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The biggest improvement in the flow of information in America in our lifetimes is that no single group controls the news anymore.
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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.
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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.
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Speeches are not magic and there is no great speech without great policy.
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I do not know what the Democratic Party spent, in toto, on the 2004 election, but what they seem to have gotten for it is Barack Obama. Let us savor.
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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.
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A great speech is literature.
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What is in the air there in Washington, what is in the water? What is wrong with them? This is not a rhetorical question. I think it is unspoken question No.1 as Americans look at so many of the individuals in our government. What is wrong with them?
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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.
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