No Class or Jelly Beans
By Steve Young

Nov. 4, 2002 - LOS ANGELES (APJP) -- The lovely Ms. Peggy Noonan spent her Friday Wall Street Journal space speculating what the late Paul Wellstone might have said about the behavior of some of the attendees at his funeral.

In the fair and balanced spirit of equal time, I thought it might be interesting to hear what former President Ronald Reagan might have said about Peggy's column.

MEMO
To: Peggy Noonan
From: Dutch
Date: Nov. 4, 2002

My dearest Peggy,

I miss you and send you love. Without you, words are difficult to come by.

Your article was really . . . something. I read it from where I am, in the place beyond. It's wonderful here, wherever I am. And I have two words to tell you:

Have another martini.

Have it with Johnny Fund in the Manhattan Institute's men's room.

We have to talk. I know what you were trying to do in your little article, or what you sort of meant to do. But it was bad. Bad as the thinking that comes out of the Heritage Foundation's think tank. I know why you did it, or what was immediately behind it. Politics is a hard business. The US Senate is up for grabs in a time of war. You wanted to get out the vote, rev up the troops. And of course you want to take the Senate, keep the House and your cushy job at that conservative mouthpiece of a paper.

Of course you want to win. I loved winning. Right, Mommy.

But I have to tell you, I know things now that I didn't fully know before. You learn things where I am quickly. And you'll learn them sooner or later and that's how it supposed to be. But here your vantage point is altered. Your level of observation is changed. You can literally see the big picture. You can see people's souls. That's why I'm so sure I was wrong to give away America's future and create an ungodly deficit for the sake of a few billion dollars in the pockets of people who already have billions of dollar in their pockets.

I was once a union Democrat and I am now once again a Democrat, I think.

Peggy, you hurt a lot of people. You didn't mean to, you just meant to be the wild intoxicant you have always been. But you offended and hurt and antagonized more than half the country. And you have to think about why. Here, I think, is the reason: a dulling of the senses, a kind of despair that has led you to let politics completely take over your life. That's the reason you go on every right-wing hate-filled radio and TV show to demonize half of America (though not even counting all the votes in the 2000 presidential election, you actually have hurt at least 500,000 more than half). That's why Ann Coulter is green with envy. That's why D.C.'s Caucus Room has named a drink after you...The Stinkin' Trollop...sixteen ounces of pure alcohol which can only be drunk out of the far right side of the glass and no matter how dark the liquor, any clear thinking person can see right through it.

This is what I feel you have to think about. You can make your life sick and small, you can fill it with poison, when you turn everything into politics. Of course, knowing your past, I'm a little late here. And what makes me sad is not that you used your article to get out the vote. It's not that you were cold. It's that the only way you could show any warmth is through politics.

That article was the triumph of politics at the expense of the personal. At the expense of what makes you human. Remember what that was like. Look at it this way with me for a minute. Indulge me. Hand me a couple of those jelly beans, Mommy.

Imagine you died in a plane crash last week.

Please--stop crying. This is just one of those made-up stories I liked to tell.

Take another drink.

Imagine you die and there's a big memorial at the back home at Peter Luger's Steakhouse. No one shows up to show respect except a couple of ex-Giuliani staffers and a couple of the Gambinos. They show because you were one of the great partiers. But the people who don't show up don't to show solidarity with democracy. To show the rest of us are all Americans together, and we respect the ballot together, and we are big enough to feel regard and respect across party lines. You know, where I am, party lines are nothing--they're a mirage, an old joke you half remember. You know, like you.

You're dead and none of the people who worked with you show up. Then Paul Wellstone walks in, not out of respect, but to make sure that one, you're dead, and two, that you don't end up going where he is. He also wants to know where you have the fucking nerve to speak for him, alive or dead. If he wanted some know-nothing political hack dressed up as a newswoman, he would have asked Bob Novak to speak for him.

Then Martin Luther King shows up to ask how, as a fairly bright pundit, you never questioned talking heads who like to assert that he would have been against affirmative action.

Then Richard Nixon shows up just to make sure you're not one of those Jews coming to join him.

Then Jack Kennedy shows up. Actually he doesn't have anything to say. He just heard you were pretty hot for a one-note fascist!

But I digress.

When I read your column I realized that YOU, yes, YOU, were using Paul Wellstone's corpse to make partisan gains, to get the turnout up next Tuesday.

Let me tell you, when I read your column, I wasn't alone. Charlton Heston shows up here every so often and you're not going to like this, but he said that he'd shoot your ass for even thinking what you did.

I'm telling you this because I care about you.

You wrote:

"You can only push it forward with love and respect. No, I haven't turned into a wuss. You got to have hunger for better things, for more justice and a heightened life for everyone, but you can't get it through hate. It doesn't work!"

I almost choked on could not stop laughing. How did you ever get that typed without splitting a gut?

Then you wrote:

"If you operate each day in politics with anger and resentment and finger pointing-'We're compassionate, the other guy's a bum'--it doesn't just reflect on your politics, it reveals your politics. It shows that what you say is a desire for justice is really a desire to push people around--"I hate those comfortable people, let's hurt 'em. That's just envy and revenge and resentment. That's just small-time, small-bore nothing."

YIKES! And there's more...

"When you say you believe in good things but you give yourself license to be vicious in the pursuit of the good--well, you corrupt more than yourself."

Holy moly! When are you going to appear at The Comedy Store? I realize that this was supposed to be Wellstone's words as you figured he would say them, but if you thought these were righteous, you were basically calling yourself and your buddies "corrupt," small-time nothings," and "angry and resentful." And that's just not my Peggy. Is it?

But this is what really got me.

"A lot of you--you need to stop, sit down, think, question yourself, look at your actions and ponder what you've become. And how somehow love for your side in the fight became hatred for the other."

Omigod. Are you trying to put Rush, Sean and Bill out of business? They've spent so much time calling anyone who questions their views, including Republican moderates (who Rush said "stand for nothing") as anti-American, they might not let you on their shows to push your next book after they push their next book. Right-wing talk-radio has made a science out of labeling Dems morons and terrorist supporters and then turn around to demonize them as being the ones who are mean-spirited by using unsubstantiated accusations. Even as a Republican President I never stooped that low.

Let me be very candidly specific. You need to get a good psychologist and a good holy man or woman, a priest or rabbi or minister--or how about the Gipper--and figure out why you're turning everything in your life into politics or a bad night at the University Club.

When you're in politics not to live life but avoid it, kind of like an raging, aging alcoholic does, you become especially susceptible to a kind of polar thinking. You become convinced you're with the good team and the good people over here. You become convinced anyone who doesn't want the same policies you want must be bad. After all, you're good, so if they disagree they must be bad. When you're polar like that you dehumanize the people on the other side.

I'm telling you, this polar thinking thing has gotten worse on our side the past few years. I would consider this a Democratic disease if it wasn't for the fact that the Republicans have been using it as their modus operandi for years. This embittered sense of constant war with a wicked foe, and anything you can do to defeat the wicked is justified. And we have to stop it, both because we're better than that and because it isn't good for democracy. Which means sadly, if you believe anything of your Paul Wellstone fantasy, you, my dear, must get out of the business.

So please ponder what I say. And if it applies to you, or you think it might, stop, sit down and figure out a plan to do something about it. That's what I have to say. Hope I didn't anger you; I just meant to warn you. And let me tell you: I miss you. But I hope it doesn't embarrass you if I speak here as I would at a memorial for you. You meant the world to me. You changed my life. And I love you. Whether you sober up or not.

Best, Dutch

Yes, Steve Young is author of "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful" (now available from Tallfellow Press). His new film, "My Dinner With Ovitz", has all of Hollywood abuzz. Visit the Great Failures Web Site!