PEGGY NOONAN, FOLKSINGER OF THE DAMNED


BushDick sycophant Peggy Noonan is at it again. In the Wall Street Journal - hardly a publication known for its progressive viewpoint or its concern for regular people, Noonan writes to praise not bury the (allegedly) conveniently_deceased Ken Lay. Yes, he who presided over the economic ruin of tens of thousands, the destruction of the retirement of thousands, the economic pillaging of the State of California, all to his personal financial benefit is lionized in death as though he were a flawed giant of mankind, a man who made but a most trifling error. A sample of this syrupy sweet drivel

Ken Lay's death reminds us of what we know.

All deaths are sad, and some are shocking and sad. Ken Lay's this week was both, though I don't suppose it should have been a shock.
Putting aside all judgments and conclusions, all umbrage, outrage and indignation, and all debates on who was most responsible for the Enron scandal--putting all those weighty and legitimate concerns aside--isn't it obvious that Ken Lay died of a broken heart? . . .His life was broken and would never be healed. Or if it was to be healed it would happen while he was imprisoned, for the rest of his life, with four walls to look at. All was wreckage around him . . .
. . . Is this Shakespearian in the sense of being towering and tragic? I don't know. I think it's primal and human. And I think if we were more regularly conscious of the fact that death through sadness happens we'd be better to each other. I'm thinking here of a friend who reflected one day years ago, . . .He said--I paraphrase--"It's a dangerous thing to deliberately try to hurt someone because it's not possible to calibrate exactly how much hurt you're doing. You can't know in advance the extent of the damage. A snub can leave a wound that lasts a lifetime, a bop on the head with a two-by-four will be laughed off. One must be careful. We'll always hurt others by accident or in a passion but we mustn't do it with deliberation. . . .
. . .On TV Wednesday, on cable news, they weren't calling him "CEO scam artist" but, literally, on CNN, "beleaguered businessman." They didn't know how to play the story. To rehearse, on the day of his death, the allegations against Lay and the jury verdict--guilty of fraud and conspiracy--would be . . . ungracious, lacking. But to ignore the scandal--which is after all the reason he is famous, the reason we are reporting his death--is journalistically incoherent. Reporters tried to find a middle ground. Lay came from nowhere, rose high, messed up, fell.

Fair enough. But part of what happened to him, one of the interesting parts of the sad story, is that it is an illustration of the changing nature of scandal. . . .Once you could get in terrible trouble and just vamoose and find a place to hide. You could lam it, lay low, start over. You could reinvent yourself. You could cross an ocean and go to another continent and begin again. You could leave the scandal behind you. . . .Now, with modern media, there's no place to hide. In the age of Google there's an endless pixel trail. You can't disappear and start over because you can't disappear . . .
. . .there's a sadness to this, a less human, less rich, more constricted and constricting quality to modern life because of it. . . . If Ken Lay had been found not guilty and gone to live on the most obscure street in the third biggest town in Chad, you know what they'd say as he walked by. "That's the guy that headed the company that stole the money." They have CNN there. They have it everywhere.
. . . Too bad. People need second chances, and thirds, and fourths. . . .The answer? There is no answer. The lesson is not, "Human beings will have to have fewer scandals and embarrassments," because human beings can't have less scandals and embarrassments. They're human . . .

No, Peggy, there is an answer, and you know what it is. Duke Cunningham should be allowed to move to Indiana and merely re-run for Congress. Just a "mess up" that's all. Tom DeLay, well, same thing, lay low, and just re-up in a year or two when all has blown over. Peggy, Newt Gingrich championing Presidential impeachment for marital infidelity while he himself was, ahem, adulterating, is a mess-up. What Lay did was a commit major crimes which victimized millions. Oh and while we're on the subject Peggy, still lookin' for those second and third and fourth chances you all gave Bill Clinton? Got any clues where we should look?

LOST is just glad you weren't around when Bob Dylan wrote his 1962 Anthem - well okay, you were 12 at the time. But if you, and not Minnesota Zimmerman had penned this classic, the words would've looked something like this (sorry Bob):


Whisperin' En-Ron
(Sung to the Tune of "Blowin' in the Wind")



How many times must a man
Cry foul
Before he is given some slack?
How many news-pa-per stories
Must blare
Before they stop stabbing in the back
Yes and how many briefs must that
Poor rich man file
Before he is free of the flack?

The answer my Son
Is whisperin’ Enron
The Answer is whisperin’
Enron

And how many reasons
Does anyone need
To see such a no-o-ble cause
Yes and how many taxes
Must be-e retained
So we give our losers some pause

Yes and how many words
Must those naysayers say
Before they’re cut down to applause
The answer my son
Is whisperin’ Enron
The answer is whisperin’ Enron

How many Whales
Does anyone crave
If we have to give up our yachts?
Yes and how many redwoods
Do we have to save
‘Cause we all want Estate Si-ized lots?
Why must clean air restrictions
keep us enslaved, because of
some glo-bal hot spots?

The answer my son
Is whisperin’ Enron
The Answer is whisperin’
Enron