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Everyone looks forward to Fridays, but there's one thing about the day I'm especially fond of. Every Friday, I know Peggy Noonan will write a column I disagree with in the Wall Street Journal, and some friends of mine will write very amusing responses to it so I don't have to.
But today's Noonan column, by way of Dan Amira, is a little too remarkable to pass up. She begins by reflecting on her recent experience at a hotel in Pittsburgh.
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.
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.
[T]he president is stuck in his games and his history. He should have seen unemployment entering a crisis stage four years ago, and he did not. At that time I was certain he'd go for public-works projects, which could give training to the young and jobs to the experienced underemployed, would create jobs in the private sector and, in the end, yield up something needed -- a bridge, a strengthened power grid. He instead gave his first term to health care.
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?"
In our reality, President Obama saw unemployment entering a crisis stage four years ago, and long before launching a health care initiative, he championed the Recovery Act. What was in the Recovery Act? Well, as anyone with access to the Internet can easily find out, it included over $100 billion in "public-works projects," which "created jobs in the private sector," and focused on infrastructure, including bridges and the power grid.
Even if the Republican columnist had forgotten this, shouldn't she have looked it up first?
Conservative media should stop taunting the president because he spent the past month warning of catastrophe if the sequester kicks in, and the catastrophe hasn't happened. It hasn't happened yet. He can make it happen. He runs the federal agencies. He can decide on a steady drip of catastrophe -- food inspectors furloughed on the 15th, long lines at the airport on the 18th, sobbing children missing Head Start on the 20th, civilian contractors pointing to a rusting USS Truman on the 25th.
He can let them happen one after another, like little spring shoots of doom. And it probably won't look planned and coordinated, it will look spontaneous and inevitable.
And you have to assume that's the plan, because that's kind of how he rolls.
I haven't the foggiest idea what this means. For one thing, the executive branch doesn't have power of the purse, so the fact that the president "runs the federal agencies" isn't relevant -- the GOP plan to give the White House authority over sequestration cuts failed. For another, "kind of how he rolls"? Noonan thinks Obama, out of habit, is too eager to cut spending across federal agencies?
He was the candidate of hope and change, of "Yes, we can," but the mood of his governance has been dire, full of warnings, threats, cliffs and ceilings, full of words like suffering and punishment and sacrifice.
Noonan does realize the warnings, threats, cliffs, and ceilings didn't start until 2011, when her own party started a campaign of extortion politics, right?
Mr. Obama is making the same mistake he made four years ago. We are in a jobs crisis and he does not see it. He thinks he's in a wrestling match about taxing and spending, he thinks he's in a game with those dread Republicans. But the real question is whether the American people will be able to have jobs.
Those of us who cover politics for a living probably watched the State of the Union address, and noticed the president urging Congress to pass his American Jobs Act. It's because, unlike congressional Republicans, Obama doesn't want "a wrestling match about taxing and spending"; he wants to lower unemployment.
The real oddity of inaccurate columns like Noonan's is the underlying point: she agrees with Obama and sees real value in his policy agenda, but since she doesn't fully understand what the president has proposed, Noonan is criticizing policies she supports.
What's worse, it seems this keeps coming up. It's happening with other Republican columnists and it happens with Republican lawmakers -- criticism of the president over his failure to do things he's actually done.
If Obama is as awful as his detractors insist, shouldn't critics be able to focus on his real missteps, instead of strange claims predicated on ignorance?
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Didn't she do a guest appearance on Downton Abby recently? Check the credits in Season 3, listed as "Boorish Aristocrat who drinks too much".
I swear, my cat has more sense than this babbling know-it-all.
BTW, no offense to the writers of Downton Abby. The characters there are wonderful, and far more real than Peggy Noonan ever could be.
Which is kind of ironic, but so true.
Let's be fact based. Sure, Noonan is full of crap about hiding the truth that the 1% is interested in denuding the rest of the country of wealth and jobs. But to be fair, it is Benen who is citing misleading job statistics, not Noonan. Here are the facts she based her assertions about the job situation:
Those are factual statements. The population to employment ratio took a massive hit in 2008, and not only is it not recovering, but it is declining further as shown by Ezra's job participation chart today. (chart. Whole Ezra article)
Noonan is using the fact to spin a myth that the reason that the downward trajectory of the middle class is due to factors like Obama's opposition to a new fossil energy boom. The real cause as Robert Reich points out is due to the wealth not flowing into consumer's hands and instead flowing to the top 1%. (more in my morning post here.)
Benen is attempting to deny that the job situation is getting worse, not better. He pushing propaganda, and it is reprehensible.
That's an accurate assessment of today's economic disparity. IMO.
However...
This just jumped the shark. No such attempt was made. No such propaganda was pushed. And declaring Benen's post as "reprehensible" is awkwardly inaccurate, if not downright irresponsible.
Relax, buddy. Have a drink.
Here are the facts:
Benen runs 3 times as many stories on Austerity versus those on Jobs. As for the jobs "stories" he does do- it is the same one. Click on the Maddowblog tag for jobs, and you will be treated to the same chart over and over telling the same story over and over about how the unemployment picture, contrary to republican claims is getting better, not worse.
Propaganda is a pattern of repetitiously promoting a particular false message. That's why I think the charge is not hyperbole- it is a fair assessment.
If I am mistaken, and his coverage this week has painted an accurate picture of US jobs continuing their decline, kindly direct me to the article or sentence where he writes any such thing.
He does precisely the opposite.
I don't think you understand the difference between facts and opinion. But writing is a skill that's best practiced, and Benen is pretty good at it. Better than most, it seems.
Somebody got hold of John's account. One reason for the lower participation rate is demographics. Every baby boomer that I have known in suburbia has retired before his/her 60th birthday.
They spent their 20s and 30s pushing for tax cuts in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. They rode that wave until somebody realized that there were a lot more of them than 'the greatest generation' and they hadn't been paying into the system at the same rate. Rather than blame themselves, they blame the system that allowed them to do it.
It's like Aesop's grasshopper showed up at his nephew the ant's place and instead of meekly asking for some supp, marched over to the larder, shot off the locks and took what they wanted. Ant won't be travelling the country in a 40 foot Class A RV using SSI checks for diesel running money. Now Uncle Grasshopper is in Ant's living room, an extension cord running from the house to the RV, lecturing Ant on austerity and insisting that Ant invest in better security for the larder, but please leave Grasshopper a spare key...
You misunderstand. For us to confront the dire job situation, we have to recognize how bad it is. Noonan is using the fact of how bad it is to promote her solutions. Benen ignores the reality and sells a happy talk message that lulls us into acceptance of the ineffectual Jobs policies in place today.
The only way to get action on aggressive action is to acknowlege the dire situation of Jobs and Wealth inequality.
Benen's lead on his thesis that Noonan is "ignorant" is the proposition that she saw with her eyes low employment.
Yet her "extrapolation" did not miss the mark. She was not ignorant on this point, and her experience does in fact accurately reflect reality. Jobs are decreasing not increasing.
Although Benen describes himself as a fact based political writer, let's take your position we should evaluate this as an opinion piece. Ok fine. I'll bite. As a piece of political persuastion, you begin with your lead- you convince the reader you see the world from their perspective, feeling their pain- seeing what they see, taking the reader from common ground reality. As with the Reagan style she honed long ago, Noonan starts with a personal experience- one that many Americans are alarmed about. She has them with that image, and she then reinforces that perception with some facts. From there, she proceeds to use that leverage of trust to swerve with the reader into crazy solutions- that the problem is lack of confidence, regulations, and hostility to energy companies.
Compare Benen's approach. What does Benen do with his lead? He denies Noonan's premise. He tells the reader to forget what their eyes are telling them about anecdotal evidence that jobs are drying up. To counter this impression and Noonan's unfortunate experience, his cudgel is the fact thatthe unemployment rate is in fact going down? Really? It's at best a limp open. People looking for jobs know the dirty secret about how unemployment is counted- they know what Noonan said about people giving up on job searches is true. So Benen looses the credibility battle on his lead- both on personal anecdotal experiences as well as facts about job statistics.
Benen then proceeds to attack Noonan's specious claims about recent events, and the suggestion that Obama didn't undertake any infrastructure or job creation programs. For a neutral, non aligned reader Benen has lost credibility on the opening. From there on, they are thinking he is the one spinning, because he does not appreciate the reality of the bad job situation. So the impact of his debunking of the Noonan criticisms of current Presidential actions are significantly muted.
Noonan's thesis is that we continue to have a Jobs crisis in this country and that Obama's policies have not gotten the country going in the right direction. We both violently agree that Noonan's idea of the "right" direction are crazy, but the direction of the job participation graph is undeniably the wrong direction. Sure, her ideas for growth (giveaways foto energy companies and further deregulation) are ludicrous, and sure, she distorts the record on the infrastructure and jobs programs included in that stimulus.
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But regarding the opinion that these were inadequate, there are many on the left- including Krugman and Christina Romer who argued the stimulus and jobs program was woefully inadequate compared to what was needed.
So on the contrary, I do not think you understand good opinion writing, and how bad a job of it Benen is doing.
Benen has often argued exactly as you do that the stimulus was inadequate, and prefaces virtually every iteration of his jobs graphs with "it isn't good enough, but. . ." Benen has repeatedly reported on the need for the American Jobs Act, and Obama's pushing of that Act, and how it is a shame that the Republicans won't get on board with helping job creation. So I'm not sure exactly what your complaint is.
It is equally true that (a) the job situation is vastly better now than when Obama took office -- while there may be other metrics that provide context, you have not and cannot argue that the job creation chart Benen posts every month is not supported by facts. It is what it is, and represents the consistent, common metric it represents. And (b) the job situation is vastly better than if the Republicans were in charge and making all of the policy decisions.
And that, really, is my central disagreement with your approach. If we are having a caucus of Democratic officials and attempting to figure out the best way to address a jobs crisis, then your approach would make a lot of sense. And there are, if you are to be fair, times when Benen does that -- he analyzes what empirical evidence shows does or does not work for job creation. But addressing Noonan is a very different task. Republicans are not looking for a reasoned debate, they are looking simply to score political points at Obama's expense. And the correct response to that is to take away the political point. And it is perfectly truthful and legitimate to point out that contrary to Noonan's assertion that Obama has failed on jobs, he has changed the direction of what had been a catastrophic trend -- and also contrary to Noonan's efforts to assign blame, the reason more hasn't been done is her party, not the leader of ours.
Was I supposed to read that whole thing? See, that was fine example of what not to do in a blog comment. So I skipped to the end and likely missed whatever point was buried deep within.
And Benen wins. Seriously, go have a drink and pretend to fight another day.
Shorter Zeitgeist*, "It's not valid in this context to blame Obama for not picking up after the Republicans' mess deftly enough and quickly enough".
*this sub-thread needs concision.
The issue is addressing the problem that neither Obama or Benen is confronting. The focus should be on examination of the issue of Jobs, and getting side tracked turning this into an evaluation of particular heroes ought to be resisted.
What? Sure I stated that Krugman and Romer made the same criticism about the stimulus that Noonan did, but my argument is: "The real cause as Robert Reich points out is due to the wealth not flowing into consumer's hands and instead flowing to the top 1%". That challenge is structural, not a cyclical issue that can be addressed with stimulus spending. And 2009-2010 legislation addressed none of the structural factors that are have for the last 40 years been starving the purchasing power necessary for consumer economy growth.
This is MaddowBlog- not exactly a hangout for right wing thinkers.
It is true that Benen once wrote in his Washington Monthly column that the stimulus was inadequate due to miscalculation of how bad the jobs numbers were, but he has no interest in examination of policy alternatives regarding the issue that polls continue to rate as most important:
Jobs Jobs Jobs.
Instead, he indulges in cheerleading for the administration. Well, the administration deserves praise for the stimulus, but preaching to the choir is a waste of time for this audience. The structural problem goes a lot deeper than baby boomers. Jobs at the high end are declining, and the job growth is at the low end. This was true prior to the meltdown (graph) and baby boomers have nothing to do with that trend.
Automation and outsourcing does.
Messerly - You forget to factor two important issues within the worker participation rate, be prepared to think abou this....
In the late 70's under Jimmy Carter's term we added jobs at a nearly astonishing rate compared to the current anemic economy, and the ratio of men's participation in comparison to women's continued its steady exchange, men lost participation rates for decades, women gained steadily.
And the primary reason that the late seventies was suddenly creating so many jobs, the baby boomers started to enter the workforce en mass. It was a tidal wave that flooded the market and created massive job expansions. After the sudden implosion in Reagan's first term - with unemployment peaking over 10% - there was resumption of more baby boomers filling the market, expanding opportunities, and driving up inflation.
So let us take a bit of a reality check on this idea that economic participation is worse, or better. The reality is that in the past fifty year's time, we have seen a steady decline in male participation, a steady increase in women's participation, and now the baby boomer's are entering the American dream age of retirement as established in their mythically perfect childhood years.
So unless you mistakenly believe that the 70,000 anual increase in the number of people looking for jobs over the age of 55, and the decrease of 41,000 people looking for work for those age 25-54 is not an indication that participation is a function of the baby boomers aging out of the markets.
This retirement generation is quickly reaching natural, and forced retirement ages. The overal tidal wave of an aging population will soon turn our entire economy into a giant retirement home, stripping our tax revenues into more retirement funding, escalating medical costs and new entitlement programs to keep them comfortable into their retirement years.
Participation rate is not the problem, the retirement generation poses many more challenges than just unemployment, we are about to face more austerity for investments in our future, so that we can pay for the ill-prepared economy of the retirement generation.
If you are over 55 you are part of the problem, if you are younger we have our work cut out for us.
Here's the teensy problem with your thesis: 12 million jobs were shed after the meltdown, and those job losses were not due to age. Chris Hayes called attention to how long it will take for those jobs to be restored even assuming optimistic forecasts in this graph based on one from the Hamilton project (see caption for citations). Perhaps the Hamilton Project and Chris Hayes along with his staff are also confused about the problem with job participation?
Sure I understand the points you make about the changing dynamics of the workforce. It would be hard for an interested observer not to be aware of them. Paul Solman on PBS has done a good job explaining these factors since I can remember. Recently, Robert Reich gave an excellent talk at Google which provided a concise history of these developments since the 70s. (link)
There have been some complaints my notes are already overlong, and I agree your point that you have made in other posts on Maddow Blog about the fiscal challenge posed by the baby boomers entering retirement age is a real one.
We are seeing both contraction in the number of jobs- and the pay for those jobs. Together that means a contraction of the purchasing power of the consumer economy. Meanwhile the wealth claimed by the top 1% is accelerating. Although the aging of the workforce is part of the reason for that reduction in middle class wealth, it has little to nothing to do with the reasons why 97% of profits go to the top 5% of the population.
If a fraction of that obscene confiscation of wealth were re-allocated to the consumer economy, (which constitutes 70% of the overall economy) then growth would be robust, and the costs of supporting the elderly would be easily covered by the greater tax revenues. So really, what you are pointing to is a significant challenge, but only if nothing is done about wealth inequality in the US and the starvation of the consumer economy.
Or do you disagree with Reich and Stiglitz that the real problem is that wealth not flowing into consumer's hands and is instead flowing to the hands of the top 1%?
@Messerly
Quit taking up all the damn space. Benen never said what Noonan should or should not write about and Benen is not under any obligation to write about the jobs issue. It is not a race or competition JM...Benen just commented on the un-reality of Noonan's column which should insult any serious reader.
Obama has focused every ounce of energy toward stimulating the jobs market but has had to battle with republican created crisis every step of the way. It is the republican states who are laying off the most government employees and refusing to fund federal programs resulting in job loss at the national level. Geez Meserly, so times your long winded comments are like mental masturbation...it was good for you but frustatrating for the rest of us.
Noonan's column if gibberish as far as making sense in the real world. Benen's response was right on the mark.
Wall street at all time high while unemployment is too and 100% of all new money has gone entirely into the hands of the 1%. No available jobs and wages for the ones that are available are stagnant. Pelosi's House passed bills to stop the tax breaks for off shoring jobs but filibustered in the senate. Closing Corporate tax loopholes and deductions for the $4million/yr wealthy also filibustered. Obama is one man and the power of the purse rests with the extremists in the House...(now see how none of this really directly related to Benen's post about Noonan's ridiculous column?)...but it was good for me.
Are we running out of typing paper?
Sure- it's easier to write about personalities rather than the issues.
Think about those wealth disparity statistics. Do you really think closing loopholes will fix it? If Obama had both houses with comfortable majorities, would Obama's entire jobs agenda correct that fundamental structural imbalance.
I put it to you that it wouldn't. It is true we don't have the power for such an agenda. But that is ok, because as far as I can see, few are in agreement about how to address this. So perhaps it is just as well that we have some time to work through examination of the facets such as
Ezra Klein and Chris Hayes have done some great work examining some of these issues and progressive proposals to address the problem. In the realm of politics, Sherrod Brown, Bernie Saunders and Elizabeth Warren have been working on facets of the wealth inequality problem.
But I don't care to talk about Sherrod Brown's lovely wife, or the way Hayes dismounts from his bike. Simply because many well paid pundits do that to fill time and garner ratings doesn't mean we have to clutter our posts with it.
The Republicans love to complain about the country having poor teachers in the schools because of tenure.
So when was the last time that you heard of a Peggy Noonan type that got canned because of incompetence?
Anyone over the age of 12 four years ago knows that the President was proposing various job stimulation programs and the Republicans were going crazy fighting it.
So how can a Peggy Noonan get things such as this in print and not be called out on it?
Both sides do it.
Sorry, D.C. Sessions, but the whole "both sides do it" argument is not based in reality. Political criticism from popular journalists on the left, and there are many (shoutout to our girl Rachel, duh!), is based on fact, not garbage. Noonan's brand of nonsense is just one fish in an incredibly stupid sea of right-wing things that make you go hmmmm.
Sarcasm tags failed again, I see.
I'm hoping DC was trying to be ironic
Since DC and others have often leapt to my defense, I must return the favor.
(Before replying, check the batteries in your SnarkOmeter.)
Totally optional, Day. Appreciated, but I wear snark counterfire-resistant undies.
Can you imagine the nonsense we'd be hearing if Mitt were Prez and these numbers came out?
Little Randy, Cruz-Kontrol & Marko-the-Magnifiko would all be saying it was "the Mitt effect"...
We have a few things to be thankful for!
People like Peggy Noonan and Bob Woodward are still around because someone is still willing to consider their outright lies and fabrications as legitimate points of view.
For "someone" substitute "editors"
I looked up Sublime Oblivion in my bartender's guide, and there was her picture!
"If Obama is as awful as his detractors insist, shouldn't critics be able to focus on his real missteps, instead of strange claims predicated on ignorance?"
They are figuring that their supporters only read or listen to what they say and do not know what is actually going on. They guessed wrong during the elections and are still guessing wrong but trying harder at their wrongheadedness...
You're right about Noonan's audience being complacently ignorant of the facts. So she's pandering, and for the most part, it works. After a while it gets tiresome explaining so many lies to people who really ought to know better. Sort of wears you down.
Noonan's lying and she knows her sycophants will not do the research to find her wrong. End of story.
"If Obama is as awful as his detractors insist, shouldn't critics be able to focus on his real missteps, instead of strange claims predicated on ignorance?"
No. They have been inculcated and inundated for so long with "fear of other" and a false ideology (that's failed for US) that they refuse to "see" what's right in front of them. The fact is when I heard that some of those Congress-critters hadn't "heard" of his plans before I was horrified. These people have staff that are supposed to be reading this stuff and so should they to keep abreast of what is going on! Are they that self absorbed that they haven't a clue about their jobs, the government or basic civics.
The media has gotten lazy and Peggy Noonan is evidence of how low they've fallen. And maybe it's time that she retires.
It's exploiting the "fear of others" that has been driving the Republican Party for at least six decades now.
Well done, Benen -- would love to see a 'Chronicling Noonan's Nonsense' column every Friday -- there's certainly no shortage of material!
Steve, this isn't hard:
What a disgruntled, privileged, witch of wealth Ms. Noonan has made herself out to be! Her words, published by a national daily, are not worth the paper she first laid them down upon!
Hey Peggy - shut up and become part of our American nation as it moves into the future, or just lie there in fetal position wondering why you are not relevant anymore! -Kevo
She is just ticked that the "help" has been thinned out and don't kowtow to her with the usual reverence befitting of her position.
Oh if only they would do away with that dastardly minimum wage we would have more people scrambling for jobs. Why my friends on wall Street could do even better than they have in the past few days hanging on to more cash and not having to spend it on eeewwww laborers
Oh Peggy. Just because you have an unlimited ride pass on the CrazyTown Express, you are not actually required to board the train. This lady has been grasping at straws for meaningful things to say and for years, nay-DECADES, she has been unsuccessful. It's time for her to hang up her hat, turn in her laptop, and put her babblings to better use. For example, perhaps she can start a blog about how to talk softly, and for a very long time, making absolutely no sense, and get paid way too much for it.
Everything she has said about THIS president has been so devoid of facts that it blows my mind that she can be a regular in any form of political commentary outside of Fox and Idiot Friends. What irks me is that she puts herself out there, for example in a Sunday show with other people, and when she spews her nonsense she is not called out on it in the least. So people who can't read (like FoxNews viewers) believe her, because she speaks slowly enough and without big words.
Now, Peggy, what's that again about entitlements? Something about people getting stuff they don't deserve? Take a look in the mirror, little lady.
Oh, what a perfect description of this woman. Her oh-so-stately manner on TV of delivering wisdom as Queen of Olympus would be intolerable if it weren't so hysterically irrelevant.
Lots of performers have schticks. Minnie Pearl and her hats, for example.
While anyone with a brain and capable of rational thinking, know that Peggy is lying. The inherent problem is, her column is not written for 'those kind of people'. It's written for the people who need to be spoon fed political views and talking points. Because they lack the higher brain functions of thinking for themselves.
Secondly you have to marvel at conservatives who will loudly scream this country was in a jobs crises 4 years ago. The turn right around and flat out deny that the previous administration had anything to do with. Like the crises just magically appeared out of thin air, as if it were an act of God.
Lying? Or has the experience with the ignorant lawmaker shown us that the echo chamber is worse than we thought? When it comes to Peggy, I can go either way, I just want all the options listed first. She built a lot of the structure of the echo chamber, after all.
Wow- usually there is a waiting period for such revisionist history. I'm not sure how much longer the GOP can depend on the public not knowing what is going on. Making the rich richer and the working class poorer as their number one priority has been obfuscated to varying degrees over the years, but recent voting patterns ought to alert them folks are catching on.
Oh, for pete's sake, it's not ignorance! Its ubiquity identifies it as the new Republican strategy: pretend the popular policies of a very capable re-elected president DO NOT EXIST. Then they can attack him for not doing what the people want, even though that's exactly what he's doing. Since their party is now made up of fanatics acting out their ideological fantasies and calling it policy, this "la-la-la, I can't hear you" tactic is all they've got.
Hey Peggy...Fox News shart canned Palin...maybe you could take her place..you'd fit right in.
To quote Ann Romney, " we love you women".
Yesterday, I read a piece about the schmoozefest that Obama had (was it here on maddowblog?) where one of the attendees mentioned that he hadn't known about the cuts that Obama had offered. That pretty much typifies the whole republican modus operandi. They really don't know what is going on and, think Dunning-Kruger effect, don't realize that they are clueless.
Dunning-Kruger effect is exactly on target! It equals the first and most primitive level of knowledge - not knowing what you don't know. It is practiced to a sinful extent by the right wing because there is an underlying anti-knowledge bias -- "Don't confuse me with facts, my mind is made up!"
"While it may be true that I know nothing that is useful or good, at least I am better than these (the sophists) because I know that I do not know." Socrates.
The first step towards wisdom is the admission of ignorance.
Really? No one has pointed out with bemusement yet that poor, pampered Princess Peggy thinks something must be wrong with America because she didn't see a doorman (one she no doubt envisions as black) and had to carry her own bags?
Peggy actually has a slight grain of relevant substance buried deep in the nonsense of her column, but her gripe isn't with Obama, it is with corporations and a foolishly short-sighted and cheap American public that has let corporations know they are willing to be abused. The hotel hasn't hired those experience-improving-but-non-vital positions because they figured out they make more money without them. Just like Americans continue to buy airline tickets in record numbers even as the level of depravation visited on air travellers increased -- causing the airlines to learn that people just won't pay for niceties, or at the very least will keep paying without them. So instead, the hotel management, ownership and investors horde the cash or enrich themselves rather than making the hires they used to make and improving the consumer experience.
Obama has nothing to do with that. Even if Peggy thinks he'd make a swell doorman.
I just wanna know who forced that Poor Woman to go to PITTSBURGH!
Oh, come on, Pittsburgh is a very beautiful city, (no sarcasm intended).
News flash, Peggy -- 1) the hotel industry is one of the hardest hit during the Bush-caused recession and is still struggling; 2) the industry reacted just like you are asking the government to do -- by slashing and cutting without figuring out how to increase revenue (bring in more happy guests) at the same time. In the hotel biz, it's guest services, ambiance and a decent restaurant; 3) it stands to reason that Pittsburgh would be one of the later markets to recover because it isn't even close to a destination city. So, Peggy, dear, it won't hurt you to carry your own luggage and if you don't like the service at one hotel, I am sure there are others (American competition being what it is) that would suit you better. Consumer choice. One hotel in one city (hardly an industry random sample) not meeting your Princess and the Pea requirements does not make President Obama's policies in regard to job creation a failure. It makes that one hotel operation, over which the President has no control, a failure. Quit whining and coming to pathetically insane conclusions.
Noonan is stuck in the same Frank Luntz trance as the rest of the GOP - rather than deal with real policy and the real world - they caucus and agree on what story they are going to tell - nobody checks for the facts because they think (and have been right in the past) that voters are oblivious to the facts. remember welfare queens with Cadillacs? Wasn't true but Ronnie kept on telling it and Noonan didn't stop him. That's how the bubble works.
Didn't she write some of those speeches?
Yes. Noonan wrote the "welfare queens" meme for Ronnie. I have never respected that woman.
Don't believe that heavy use of alcohol leads to impaired memory? Peggy Noonan will leave you ... Scared Sober.
Peggy Noonan calling out her flying monkeys to torture and gut another strawman.
What planet is she from, Uranus?
No, that's where she usually pulls her columns out of. .
No, Noonan resides on the planet Heranus.
She reminds me of Pelosi, dumber than a bag of rocks and totally out of touch...how do these people make to where they are....totally baffles me.
Actually from your posts we get the impression that you listen to people like Peggy daily. Why in fact your rant about Pelosi reeks of Peggy type nonsense, you don't know a thing about Pelosi or what she did yet you try your very hardest to make out like Pelosi was as bad as agent orange, bonehead.
I will forgive your word-o, Fumbledore; you must have meant Palin. Your description fits her perfectly.
Maybe we need to put Peggy Noonan in the "pants of fire category". Mitt Rmoney has quite afew entries there. Not that there are no Democrats there, but just look at this:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/rulings/pants-fire/
Pants on fire - SOtH John Boehner tops the list with:
"There's no plan from Senate Democrats or the White House to replace the sequester."
Plus we have that silly cell phone crap:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/oct/31/adam-putnam/putnam-obama-campaign-gives-free-cell-phones-suppo/
People really need to stop lying so much. Rmoney was the most frequent guy with pats on fire there at that first link, plus his PAC people.
Yes, I saw the scant D pants on fire ratings, but I say the Rs have no pants, but Rmoney can buy new pants any time.
I've heard Peggy say some lousy stuff before. I turn it off when I see her.
peggy noonan is remarkably mis-informed about facts. but really, she is just in her job for the entertainment aspect and she needs a job so shee too can be not listed among the unemployed. that is very important to her that she be employed so that she can dis President Obama for the unemployed.
But if all that about her scenario has to reconcile, add up, make sense, one would also have to say that according to peggy, LYING ON THE JOB AND GETTING PAID FOR IT is something the unemployed should consider.... she did.
Old Peg is just jealous of Sarah Palin. She thinks she's one of the queen bees of conservative thought. Fact is, she's a beltway insider who's very moderate and trending down.