{"id":7240,"date":"2009-01-08T00:06:20","date_gmt":"2009-01-08T05:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theanchoressonline.com\/?p=7240"},"modified":"2017-03-16T15:13:26","modified_gmt":"2017-03-16T15:13:26","slug":"peggy-noonan-roger-ebert-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2009\/01\/08\/peggy-noonan-roger-ebert-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Peggy Noonan, Roger Ebert & me"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Noonan \u2013 October 2005<\/a><\/p>\n

A few weeks ago I was reading Christopher Lawford\u2019s lovely, candid and affectionate remembrance of growing up in a particular time and place with a particular family, the Kennedys, circa roughly 1950-2000. It\u2019s called \u201cSymptoms of Withdrawal.\u201d At the end he quotes his Uncle Teddy. Christopher, Ted Kennedy and a few family members had gathered one night and were having a drink in Mr. Lawford\u2019s mother\u2019s apartment in Manhattan. Teddy was expansive. If he hadn\u2019t gone into politics he would have been an opera singer, he told them, and visited small Italian villages and had pasta every day for lunch. \u201cSinging at la Scala in front of three thousand people throwing flowers at you. Then going out for dinner and having more pasta.\u201d Everyone was laughing. Then, writes Mr. Lawford, Teddy \u201ctook a long, slow gulp of his vodka and tonic, thought for a moment, and changed tack. \u2018I\u2019m glad I\u2019m not going to be around when you guys are my age.\u2019 I asked him why, and he said, \u2018Because when you guys are my age, the whole thing is going to fall apart.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Lawford continued, \u201cThe statement hung there, suspended in the realm of \u2018maybe we shouldn\u2019t go there.\u2019 Nobody wanted to touch it. After a few moments of heavy silence, my uncle moved on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawford thought his uncle might be referring to their family\u2013that it might \u201cfall apart.\u201d But reading, one gets the strong impression Teddy Kennedy was not talking about his family but about . . . the whole ball of wax, the impossible nature of everything, the realities so daunting it seems the very system is off the tracks.<\/p>\n

And\u2013forgive me\u2013I thought: If even Teddy knows . . .<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read it all.<\/p>\n

Me, back when I used to write more<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Some might argue that what is coming \u201coff the tracks\u201d are the easy illusions of 20th century America: The perhaps naive notions that our elected leaders actually seek office to serve the public good. That the press is interested only in presenting the truth, no matter what. That our courts are peopled with lofty higher beings and geniuses who know better than the rest of us. That our churches are both safe havens and by-ways to heaven.<\/p>\n

There was a time in America when all of those statements would have been accepted at face value. In our nation\u2019s babyhood we believed and we trusted all the parent figures \u2013 the governments, the courts, the press, the churches.<\/p>\n

Now, past infancy, we have come to look upon those institutions with the glare of adolescent angst. We\u2019ve observed enough to understand that those in authority over us are not the paragons of perfection we\u2019d so looked up to as toddlers. We see them flawed, weak, seducable, wholly human and fallible, and like good adolescents who have caught Mom and Dad lying or stumbling drunk, we at first sneered about it and gave some voice to our sense of betrayal. Now, we\u2019re merely numb.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A slightly frantic Ebert \u2013 December 2008<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\nIt\u2019s all coming to pieces, isn\u2019t it \u2014 the world we live in, the continuity we thought we could count on, the climate, the economy, the fragile peace. The 20th century was called \u201cthe American Century,\u201d with some reason. I do not believe the 21st century will belong to anybody, and it may not last for 100 years of human witness. There are nuclear weapons in the Middle East and on the Indian subcontinent, and if one is used, more will follow and who can say when the devastation will end?
\n[\u2026frenetic paragraphs and much \u201cclimate\u201d alarmism\u2026]
\n If you are a member of the U.S. Congress, you should not give a damn if you are a Democrat or a Republican. You should discard ideology and partisanship. You should be searching only for what works, or gives promise of working. You should be listening to the best counsel of the wisest people you can find. This is no time for playing to the crowd. That is all over with. This is the hour to seek what might lead us back from the brink.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I wonder if we are finally moving past the adolescent angst, and the numbness,<\/strong> and \u2013 per Ebert\u2019s column, simply waking up to the fact that a bunch of loud, exploitative so-called \u201cfriends\u201d crashed the house, called it a party, drank all the liquor, cracked Mom\u2019s prize crystal egg and then decided to have a tug-of-war donnybrook on the front lawn before toilet papering the trees, puking and passing out. The press? Some \u201cfriends.\u201d Congress? Some \u201cstatesmen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hungover, we\u2019re stumbling around, and realizing that if we do not start demanding adult behavior, adult leadership, less spin and a little honesty, not only from our leadership and our \u201celites\u201d but from each other, we\u2019re not going to be around to demand much of anything, of anyone.<\/p>\n

Our friends on the left have put their faith and hope in President-elect Barack Obama<\/a>. Those of us still on the fence about him hope that he is at least half as great as they say. That is more than the Bush-haters ever offered Bush, so perhaps it is a place to start.<\/p>\n

And those of us with faith know that prayer is essential. Essential.<\/em><\/p>\n

Your thoughts?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Noonan \u2013 October 2005 A few weeks ago I was reading Christopher Lawford\u2019s lovely, candid and affectionate remembrance of growing up in a particular time and place with a particular family, the Kennedys, circa roughly 1950-2000. It\u2019s called \u201cSymptoms of Withdrawal.\u201d At the end he quotes his Uncle Teddy. Christopher, Ted Kennedy and a few […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,22,38,62,70,72,73,74,76,96,112,113,129,209,251,252,253,261],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-america","category-barack-obama","category-bush-bad","category-culture-of-lifedeath","category-dont-try-me-too-high","category-dumb-democrat-moves","category-dumb-gop-moves","category-economic-woe","category-egregious-harry-reid","category-faith","category-free-speech","category-freedom-of-worship","category-hoo-hah-bs","category-prayer","category-the-fourth-estate","category-the-pelosi","category-the-perpetual-adolescents","category-tvpop-culturemusic"],"yoast_head":"\nPeggy Noonan, Roger Ebert & me<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Noonan - October 2005 A few weeks ago I was reading Christopher Lawford's lovely, candid and affectionate remembrance of growing up in a particular time\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2009\/01\/08\/peggy-noonan-roger-ebert-me\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Peggy Noonan, Roger Ebert & me\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Noonan - 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