Yin and Yang: Peggy Noonan

Yesterday I called Mark Steyn "one of my all-time favorite political commentators".

That hasn't changed, but now I see it's time to introduce another: Peggy Noonan.

Ms Noonan often writes for the Wall Street Journal (see the link on the sidebar, under WSJ Opinion Journal), and if Steyn's style is to go for the gonads (in the nicest possible way), Noonan's style is to go to the heart (in the deadliest possible way).

Steyn and Noonan are the Yin and Yang of political commentary.

I love this lady. She has style, she has verve, and she has the sharpest knife in the drawer. She can slice and dice you in 600 words, and you wouldn't feel a thing as she cuts out your heart.

Today her target was Joe Biden.

For twenty years, I have referred to him as "The Distinguished Windbag from Delaware".

Imagine how rewarding it is to read the following paragraph from today's column, as Ms Noonan typifies the congressional interrogation of Judge Samuel Alito by Senator Joe Biden. In part:

Must he sit there bland-faced and unmoving as they say what they say? Yes, of course. Judge Alito and the White House know they have to let these men talk. They don't want the senators to feel resentful or frustrated. They know each senator feels he has to play to his base. They know the senators are, by nature, like Conair 2000 hairdryers: They just love to blow, and hard. Fwwaaaaahhhhhhhhh. And they know it is good, it is helpful, to let each senator reveal himself through his own words. I think senators feel that their words, when strung together, become little bridges. I think the White House feels that their words, when strung together, become little nooses.

"Little Nooses".

I just love that, don't you?

They (the Judiciary Subcommittee) abused Alito to distraction; and then, when Lindsey Graham spoke nicely to Sam Alito, the poignancy of the moment drove Alito's wife, Martha-Ann, to tears. From that moment on, if it hadn't already happened, Alito became a shoo-in.

Alito's wife, Martha-Ann Alito, was overcome with emotion as Sen. Lindsey Graham called her husband "a decent, honorable man." (Watch wife brought to tears -- 1:57)

In the words of Robert Culp (or was it Bill Cosby, in "I Spy":

I just love it when a plan comes together.

Lindsey Graham for President?