Musings from Brian J. Noggle: Book Report: <i>The Case Against Hillary Clinton</i> by Peggy Noonan (2000)

Book Report: The Case Against Hillary Clinton by Peggy Noonan (2000)

I bought this book for $.33 at Hooked on Books in Springfield, Missouri, because I think I like Noonan (everyone else on the right side of the blogosphere does) and because it was on the three for a dollar rack. I expected a partisan book, and I got it.

Noonan wrote the book in 2000 to dissuade New Yorkers from voting Hillary Clinton into the Senate. We all know how that turned out, and it didn't quite play out like Noonan feared it might--Hillary! never beat Giuliani, for example. Noonan spends a lot of the book bashing the Clintons for the crimes and malfeasance of the Clinton presidency, but I'll be frank, I have sort of moved beyond my distaste for Clinton and that particular circus. So most of the book doesn't work on me, particularly the parts where Noonan pads chapters with anecdotes about friends who are New York voters and who might be tempted to vote for Hillary or where Noonan pads the book with dream sequence chapters where Bobby didn't die....I mean, where Hillary gives phantom speeches and takes Republicanish stands.

So I could almost walk away from the book without any particular additional dislike of Hillary, but for an chapter wherein Noonan accidentally provides actual evidence for why Hillary should scare us. It's a chapter on Hillary's views on the rights of children, wherein they should have the same rights as their parents in their upbringing, and where the state will further intrude on behalf of destroying actual families whenever the angelic little demons have temper tantrums. Scary stuff, reminding us that when it takes a villiage, HRC means it takes The State.

So I've made my commitment here. If the Democrats inadvertantly nominate Her Royal Clintoness to run for president, I will support and volunteer to elect anyone the Republicans nominate. Even, Heaven forfend, Mitt "RomneyCare Ain't HillaryCare Because I Am A Republican, Sorta" Romney.

Very far afield from what Noonan intended, but in line for what she might have dreaded.

Interesting note about the particular book I bought: I think it was material for some course or another. A half sheet of paper contained a list of books in a political vein:

The Declaration of Independence
Letter from Birmingham Jail
On the Beginning of Political Societies
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
The Seneca Falls Declaration of 1848
The Fundamental Principle of a Republic
Civil Disobedience [sic]
Selected Poems from Song of Myself
The Case of Hillary Clinton [sic]

Quite a reading list there. Previous owner left the half sheet about half way through the final chapter of the book. Now that, my friends, is going through the motions: not bothering to finish the book when you've only got a few pages left. Even in my college days, I'd finish the book or I'd leave it on my to-read shelf for decades until I did actually finish it (or I will, honest). Of course, this reading list misspells or mistitles a couple of the works upon it, so I have to wonder about the class. I mean, the founding Fathers, Thoreau, King, and Whitman? And Noonan? That must have been some interesting inculcation.

Books mentioned in this review:

- posted by Brian J. @ 9:53 PM