Peggy Noonan on Daniels-as-Coolidge

Has Peggy Noonan been reading my blog? I suppose it’s just an instance of great minds thinking alike (said he, modestly). At any rate, former Reagan speechwriter, author, and columnist Peggy Noonan does make the Coolidge-Daniels link I ventured recently, singling out recent speeches by governors Mitch Daniels and Chris Christie as particularly important and memorable.

We’ll have to wait and see if all this is mere talk with no substance. But I feel the rising popularity of “tough love” governors such as Daniels, Christie, and now apparently Wisconsin’s Walker may be an indication that a sea change in the direction of more austerity is on its way.

Update: Michael Gerson at the Washington Post also discovers a Coolidge-like coolness about Mitch Daniels 🙂

Hertzberg constructs Obama’s speech

Having received my own info about Obama’s press conference (or “presser”, as media types like to say) solely from sites such as reason.com, where it was roundly trashed, as well as from -what I thought- an incisive commentary from Peggy Noonan, I was surprised (well, not really) by Hendrik Hertzberg at The New Yorker. As if to underscore my recent posting about constructivism, he appears to construct reality in an entirely different way when he concludes the American people (or that portion actually watching the “presser”, which I suspect is not too many) will “like” the President’s proposal. Polls indicate otherwise, but then they’re probably dismissed by the Obama cheering section at The New Yorker.