Rodent Regatta

If you have not seen Peggy Noonan latest op/ed piece for the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), find a way to get your hands on it. You’ll be glad you did.

”Let me assert something that I cannot prove with a poll but that is based on serious conversations the past few months with Republicans and also normal people: 9/11 changed everything. Yes, I know you know that. But it has even changed how people who usually vote Republican think about Democratic candidates for president. Our No. 1 question used to be: Can we beat this guy easily? But now we feel the age of terrorism so profoundly challenges our country, and is so suggestive of future trauma and national pain, that our No. 1 question has become: Is he . . . normal? Just normal. Is he stable and adult and experienced?

Only then we ask if we can beat him.”

Peggy Noonan
from General Malaise
January 27, 2004