If even Peggy Noonan knows...

Roy Odroso, as always, takes on the Nooner's latest ravings with his usual rapier wit and urbane insight, but let me just say that amidst her mixed metaphors (moats, boats, and trolleys...where does this end?) her fear that we're careering over the cliff, and that there's no one in charge is terrifying simply because if it's occurred to her than maybe, just maybe, we lefty Cassandras have been right all along for the past five years and, indeed, there is no one in charge.

She does not, of course, acknowledge this. She goes on and on about how the presidency is overwhelmed and makes no mention of who that president is who is so obviously in over his pin-shaped head. She complains that the "elites" who are supposed to be leading us out of harm's way, "the elites of the Hill and at Foggy Bottom and the agencies," but failes to mention that these are the very "elites" that the Cheney administration has so forcefully and disdainfully dismissed as, well, "elites," preferring to tap their old cronies, ideological hacks, college roommates, and various lifeguards, yoga instructors, and Talmudic scholars to manage the very agencies that are supposed to make sure the "trolley" stays on the track. Or, when it comes off, make sure that the response is organized, the haz mat suits are there, the police and fire departments have the right communications devices, etc.

But I was particularly struck by this:

Let me veer back to the president. One of the reasons some of us have felt discomfort regarding President Bush's leadership the past year or so is that he makes more than the usual number of decisions that seem to be looking for trouble. He makes startling choices, as in the Miers case. But you don't have to look for trouble in life, it will find you, especially when you're president. It knows your address. A White House is a castle surrounded by a moat, and the moat is called trouble, and the rain will come and the moat will rise. You should buy some boots, do your work, hope for the best.

In the Peg's fevered mind, it is Miers who is held up as an example of Bush's startling choices, and the discomfort she's felt regarding Bush's leadership has only arisen in the past year or so.

If the wheels are off the trolley, or the trolley off the track (whatever she's getting at) it isn't because of Harriet Miers. She is the least of Dear Leader's startling choices.

That dread you feel is real, Madame Dolphin Lady, we've felt it with every "startling choice" preznit has made for the past five long, disastrous years. Glad you've noticed, but you're a wee bit tardy.