Peggy Noonan is so weird. I especially enjoyed her projection of how the president feels about sexual repression as it relates to Americans’ opposition to junk-touching (SAR is short for Noonan’s proposed “Special Assistant for Reality”):
President: I’ve wondered if this general feeling of discomfort might be related to a certain Puritan strain within American thinking—a kind of horror at the body that, melded with, say, old Catholic teaching, not to be pejorative, might make for a pretty combustible cultural cocktail. This heightened consciousness of the body might suggest an element of physical shame we hadn’t taken into account.
SAR: Mr. President, the rebellion isn’t shame-based, it’s John Wayne-based.
President: I don’t follow
SAR: John Wayne removes his boots and hat and puts his six-shooter on the belt, he gets through the scanner, and now he’s standing there and sees what’s being done to other people. A TSA guy is walking toward him, snapping his rubber gloves. Guy gets up close to Wayne, starts feeling his waist and hips. Wayne says, “Touch the jewels, Pilgrim, and I’ll knock you into tomorrow.”
President: John Wayne is dead.
SAR: No, he’s not. You’ve got to understand that. Everyone’s got an Inner Duke, even grandma.
I get Noonan’s point about how we’re all John Wayne deep down in our souls, but I think she’s telling us that the president isn’t a Catholic (like all but one of our American presidents), so he can’t relate to our high level of sexual repression. And that’s insane.
