Peggy Noonan, write another book

SOUPEATER says...


In the past few days, I have been driving through Ohio, enjoying the extraordinarily warm weather for this time of year. This morning I was driving along a country road passing through some very small towns when I took notice of an interesting phenomenon which may explain the political results we all now know. I had been observing the political lawn signs and was surprised to see that there wasn't much difference between an Obama sign and a McCain sign. They both were the same colors and you had to
read the sign before you knew whom it was for. Closer to Cleveland, the signs were overwhelmingly for Obama but as I moved away from the big city, it became more even handed. In many neighborhoods in this battleground state, the signs were mixed; a few Obama signs followed by some McCain signs and so on.When I moved through the farming communities, the Obama signs completely disappeared and all you could see was McCain.
In one of the more mixed towns I passed through this morning the older houses along the main street exhibited the usual mix but as I got out of town there were some newer houses, very recently built from the look of them, and certainly large enough that they would not embarass their owners even in Monsey. One of these mcmansions placed far back from the road had an Obama sign along the road. I considered this significant. Crane Brinton, in his book "Anatomy of a Revolution," points out that among the necessary ingredients for a revolution to take place is the movement of some of the ruling class to the cause of the rebels. This was a classic case. Here was probably a member of the ruling class who had thrown in his lot with those, who, historically, were incapable of leading but were now challenging those in power. This was a revolution which would initially succeed.
But take heart, my friends. Almost all revolutions, as futher pointed out by Mr. Brinton, progress to a stage of excesses which eventually leads to a reaction and puts the original ruling class (what is left of them in the case of the French Revolution and Bolshevik revolution) back in power. Let's see how this plays out. I hope the excesses won't become dangerous to the personal safety and freedoms of the citizens and will be more like an excess of stealing, lying, sexual pecadillos and general venality and corruption. In four years the Republicans will be back.

If you are thinking of putting your money into the market, don't. We've had "irrational exuberance" and all out panic, both of which make some sense. But a drop of 200 points today and a rise of 350 points tomorrow is totally without reason and is more like the fluctuations of the Asian stock markets which defy reality.
I am more pessimistic than usual. The current economic disruptions - stock market crash, financial system breakdown, commodity price plunges - all point to a more than usually severe recession and has all the earmarks of a repeat of the great depression. Now don't get me wrong. Notwithstanding the constant barrage of news comments indicating that we are in the grip of a very severe economic slowdown, the general economy has only retrenched a little bit and doesn't even meet the criteria usually used to indicate the start of a recession which is two quarters of negative growth. We have had 7 percent unemployment before and, not to dismiss the hardships this causes, it does not in any way shape or form resemble the depression. If a repeat of the great depression is on the way, we are now in the very early stages of it and it can be controlled. Remember that Roosevelt who tried, unsuccessfully, to stem the tide, did so only three years after the start of the depression by which time it was an unstoppable downwards spiral. George Bush is not Herbert Hoover. He won't be involved as long as Hoover was. Our next president will have to work hard to keep us out of trouble.I predict he will fail as did other black politicians who wanted the job so badly that they were willing to take on an impossible situation and they failed miserably.

Who says the American electorate is stupid?