Vanitas Politatum

I'm generally unimpressed with Peggy Noonan's partisan rants in the Wall Street Journal. But this week she's avoided the partisanship and pointed out the sheer shameless vanity of public officials.

...the senators who spoke referred to themselves with such flights of vanity and conceit--we're so brave, so farsighted, so high-minded--that it was embarrassing...

Sen. Barack Obama, flapping his wings in Time magazine and explaining that he's a lot like Abraham Lincoln, only sort of better... There is nothing wrong with Barack Obama's résumé, but it is a log-cabin-free zone. So far it also is a greatness-free zone. If he keeps talking about himself like this it always will be...

I admire Bill Frist, but can you imagine George Washington referring in public, or in private for that matter, to his many virtues? In normal America if you have a high character you don't wrestle people to the ground until they acknowledge it. You certainly don't announce it...

Why did [the Clintons] feel it right to inject a partisan political component into a spiritual event? Why take advantage of the good nature and generosity of an old hero? Why, after spending their entire adulthoods in public life, have they not developed or at least learned to imitate simple class?

The Supreme Court this week and last issued many rulings, and though they were on different issues the decisions themselves had at least one thing in common: They seemed to reflect a lack of basic human modesty on the part of many of the justices... Local government can bulldoze Grandma's house because it's in the way of a future strip mall that will add more to the tax base? The Ten Commandments can appear on public land but not in a courthouse, but Moses, who received the Ten Commandments can appear in the frieze of the House but he'll be sandblasted off the Supreme Court? Or do I have that the other way around?

OK, so it's not an equal-opportunity bashing. But just because the majority of her examples are political opponents doesn't exempt most conservatives from the ego-inflationary horn-blowing of politics. Maybe that's why we liked George W. Bush: he was more interested in telling us what he saw in America than what he saw in the mirror. Of course, he's not immune to Washington Syndrome and (like Frist) his public persona has changed a great deal since arriving in this town. In fact, it's gotten so bad that I didn't even read his speech from yesterday, since the headlines are basically, "Bush Says He's Doing a Good Job".

Is there any hope in sight? I don't think so. But when in doubt, vote against the incumbant.