Peggy Noonan steps out of Candyland to give us her thoughts

Peggy Noonan, queen of the Beltway drones:

NOONAN: There was a Gallup poll out this week that said, essentially -- it was a fairly broad poll. And people said -- it had gone up about 12 percent, the number of people who thought Obama was governing from the left, not from the center. It used to be about 42 percent. Now it was about 53, or so, percent of people.

I think the president, in a number of ways domestically, but lower it to a lot of busyness, a lot of spending. The promise, I think, of tax increases has taken people aback a little bit. And I think he has damaged his brand, as they say in the language of merchandising, which has now become the language of politics.

I think Jersey was the big election. I think Obama had carried Jersey, I think by about 15 points, just one year ago. Now, the Democratic governor, a strong supporter of Obama -- Obama had come and stood with him three times saying, New Jersey, vote for this man -- he just lost by five points. It was about a 20-point drop in support.

That tells you something. Jersey is a Democratic state, but they're worried about specific things. Unemployment, taxes they worry about a lot in Jersey, terrible property taxes, a bad economy. That's where their minds are. That's who votes in Jersey.

[...]

But the other big thing is that, as you said, partisanship -- which we thought he might be able to reduce -- the poison of partisanship has grown. It's gotten -- it's helped the Republicans. It's partly, I think you're right, the fault of the administration by not calling everybody in, not calling everybody from Bobby Jindal to Nancy Pelosi and saying, let's figure out how we're going to get health care and what the principles are.

[...]

I think the Democrats didn't notice that, when they were passing a stimulus bill that couldn't get one single Republican vote, it might have been viewed as problematic by the American people.

This is exactly the kind of bullshit that feeds through the Washington pundit class everyday. This unattainable fairy tale existence they call bipartisanship, where the machine politician and the fiery populist and the genteel conservative Southerner can all come together, regardless of party, and do what is "right" for the people. Shut up Peggy. When did that ever exist? Or if it actually did, it's long fucking gone. The Republican Party is completely unserious about responsible governing. The Democratic Party is void of any will beyond what keeps them in power. Both parties are corrupt and ultimately shills for whomever pays for their campaign to keep that power.