GOP Poutrage Diva Peggy Noonan Stays at Hotel Crap, Blames the President

So-called "Celebrated" and increasingly depressed Wall Street Journal writer Peggy Noonan apparently doesn't realize she can just walk out of her bad hotel when she realizes it isn't the Ritz-Carlton. Instead, she projects own sadness (probably about Mitt not winning the election, as predicted by her special vibrations about yard signs) and feels moved to write an extended Best-Days-are-Behind-Us metaphor about Apocalypse America because . . . it's Obama's fault.

Apparently she's never visited Trip Advisor. Or perhaps her secretary should.

The Anti-Confidence Man: Just when America needs a boost, we're stuck with Dr. Doom in the White House.online.wsj.com/article/SB1000…

— Peggy Noonan (@Peggynoonannyc) March 8, 2013

Wall Street Journal

I'm in Pittsburgh, making my way to the airport hotel. The people movers are broken and we pull our bags along the dingy carpet. There's an increasing sense in America now that the facades are intact but the machinery inside is broken.

The hotel has entrances on two floors. I search for the lobby, find it. Travelers are milling about, but there's no information desk, no doorman, no bellman or concierge, just two harried-looking workers at a front desk on the second level. The man who checked me in put his phones on hold when I asked for someone to accompany me upstairs. As we walked to the room I felt I should explain. I told him a trial attorney had told me a while back that there are more lawsuits involving hotels than is generally known, and more crime, so always try to have someone with you when you first go to your room. I thought the hotel clerk would pooh-pooh this. Instead he said, "That's why we just put up mirrors at each end of the hall, so you can see if someone's coming." He made it sound like an amenity.

"What should we do then, scream?" I asked. He laughed and shrugged: "Yeah."

Things are getting pretty bare-bones in America. Doormen, security, bellmen, people working the floor—that's maybe a dozen jobs that should have been filled, at one little hotel on one day in one town. Everyone's keeping costs down, not hiring.

What that hotel looked like is America without its muscle, its efficiency, its old confidence.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A few hours after this column reached WSJ readers, we learned American businesses added 246,000 jobs in February, and 2.33 million jobs over the last year. It's unfortunate that Noonan received poor service at a hotel, her attempt to extrapolate from that experience misses the mark.
I'll never know why Noonan's editors didn't send her a quick note, saying, "Um, Peggy? Are you sure you want to publish this?"
~ Steve Benen on Maddow Blog

Note the seamless segue from Peggy's statement of the preternaturally boring thing she is doing, straight into an unqualified statement about the "sense" of a nation of 300 million people. Peggy Noonan knows these things. She has traveled from frontier to frontier. Of airport hotels.
~ Gawker

Peggy Noonan Didn’t Like Her Hotel Room. Thanks Obama!
. . . Can’t you just smell the mines and poverty and sadness? Can’t you see the little children, their faces unwashed and bodies shriveled, an army of walking Walker Evans photos, making Peggy Noonan sad? Oh, sorry, no, we forgot. There are no waifs in this story, just a dingy carpet.
. . . Why did Obama fire all the hotel workers? Is it because he hates capitalism, and jobs, and wants everyone to be poor so they can all be ACORNs?
Yes. Stupid Obama murdered all the jobs.
~ Wonkette

"The room had one of those sad clown pictures from 1971, and when I looked closed, I could see a resemblance to America. I gazed longingly for a time in America when a gin and tonic before breakfast was okay, and I realized I was staring at myself in the mirror. When had I become a sad clown? Probably 1972."
~ EatsBabyDingos on Wonkette

The bedbugs heard Peggy was checking in and they left in a huff.
~ Barbara on Wonkette

Ask not for whom the bellhops. It hoppeth not for thee, Peggy.
~ Mumbletypeg on Wonkette



peggy noonan tries to exercise at the ymca: another in a series of tales from barack obama’s degraded amercia
. . . It is Wednesday morning, 8:30 AM, and I find myself carrying a faded pink duffel bag across the beaten and worn floors of my neighborhood YMCA as I search in vain for the duffel bag porter to relieve me of this burden and take it to my locker. A fire, perhaps the same fire that is smothering the very richness of American ingenuity under this blinkered administration, as rendered my usual workout facilities unusable, and I am left without recourse on this bitter morning, as bitter as the shapes of discarded American lives I see strewn all around me as I furtively look for someone, anyone, to assist me. There’s no one to call to, no one who can answer my plaintive cry for help, just as the White House is empty of anyone who can respond in kind to the plaintive cry of America herself in this dark time. There is no information desk, no concierge, no sports drink sommelier at this facility. These are good jobs that are going unfilled because of President Obama’s inability to fill them.
I go to the information desk and ask why there are no valets to take my duffel bag, but I am brusquely told to produce an “identification card” by which I may obtain entry into the facility. Yes, in Obama’s America, we are denied access to that which would nourish the steel and brawn of this nation . . .
~ Parody by FastEddie9318 on Wordpress

Yes, Peggy Noonan will still have a high-paying job tomorrow. It boggles the mind. salon.com/2013/03/08/cel…

— William K. Wolfrum (@Wolfrum) March 8, 2013

GOP post-election mental breakdown continued via @peggynoonannyc nymag.com/daily/intellig… @intelligencer

— Frank Rich (@frankrichny) March 8, 2013

How stupid is this woman? Peggy Noonan Wishes Obama Had Done Some Kind of Stimulus-y Thing for Jobs nymag.com/daily/intellig… @intelligencer

— Steve Weinstein (@steveweinstein) March 8, 2013

from the Dept. of Awesome Timing: Peggy Noonan's column hits Obama on jobs today; on.wsj.com/YgOsnK #priceless #iheartPeggy

— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) March 8, 2013

LOL------->RT “@allanbrauer: Peggy Noonan should stop cutting her cocaine with Ronald Reagan's ashes.”

— Cody Jackson (@CowboyCodyJack) March 8, 2013

Is This the End of Ricco Santorum?

Rick Santorum Leaves the Presidential Race:

From New York Times

GETTYSBURG, Pa. — Rick Santorum, with an abrupt decision to end his campaign Tuesday, cleared the way for Mitt Romney to claim the Republican nomination while dashing the hopes of social conservatives who had propelled Mr. Santorum’s surprisingly successful challenge to the Republican establishment.
. . . In a hastily called 12-minute speech in a small hotel meeting room here, with his wife, Karen, and four of their seven children at their side, Mr. Santorum said his campaign was over but made it clear that any retreat from the political stage would be only temporary.
“We made a decision over the weekend that while this presidential race for us is over, for me, and we will suspend our campaign today, we are not done fighting,” Mr. Santorum said as tears welled in the reddened eyes of his wife and the aides and friends who ringed the room. He did not mention Mr. Romney.
. . . as the Romney campaign began running ads against him in Pennsylvania on Monday, polls showed the race tightening, with Mr. Santorum in danger of losing the primary in his home state.
Such a loss could have been too humiliating to overcome if he wanted to resurrect his political career in the future.

Congratulations to Mitt Romney...He won in Wisconsin. Rick Santorum finished second. Newt Gingrich came in fourth behind Ron Paul. But Wisconsin was not a total loss for Newt. He did make off with a 45-pound wheel of cheese. ~ Jay Leno, Here

Mitt Romney is catching heat for a possible violation of election rules. He was at a sub shop handing out free sandwiches. Special Romney sandwiches — they come on really, really white bread.
~ Jimmy Kimmel, Here

Slumlord Donald Trump is telling Santorum to get out of race with dignity. If anybody knows dignity, it's Trump.
~ David Letterman, quoted by Roger Simon of Politico on Twitter

Santorum pulling out before Pennsylvania would be like Custer skipping Little Bighorn.
~ Ben Smith from Buzzfeed on Twitter

[W]hat General Washington understood, some of the best ideas, some of the best plans, in fact what has made this country great is that we have listened to real significant voices of everyday Americans. And he did. And that’s why he crossed the Delaware, surprised the Hessians and turned the tide of the revolution.’
~ Presidential Candidate, Rick Santorum, in a Liberty-Bell-ringing speech in Mars, Pennsylvania after losing three primary races to Mitt Romney. Strangely, one of the races was in Washington, DC, where Santorum failed to get his name on the ballot. Via Washington Post In-the-Loop Blog

We may disagree on a lot of things, but I'm with Santorum 100 percent when it comes to the Hessians.
~ Tim Murphy of Mother Jones on Twitter

Rick Santorum edges toward the embarrassment zone ...
~ Chris Cillizza on The Fix

Santorum really has no choice but to pull out early, same as you'd have for birth control if he'd been elected.
~ pourmecoffee on Twitter

CBS: Santorum Ending Bid for GOP Nomination

Santorum will make the announcement at a press conference in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania shortly, a senior member of his campaign staff told CBS News.