During the early to middle Bush years we were like peas and carrots, Peggy and I. Mid to late years, and her anti-Iraq equivocation and left-lurches to the dark side? Not so much. Early Obama? Nope…not at all; she was chillin’ in Berkely, and I was driving around in circles on my red Snapper.

But now Peggy has boarded the Greyhound, and is heading back home. Together once again, in Greenbow, we shall be.

In her “Tea Party To The Rescue” piece, Peggy gives us two basic points to ponder. The first one suggests that Republicans, for reasons they still can’t see past themselves far enough to understand, have been selected – for now – by the Tea Party as the best alternative to a Political Party of its own. The second one makes clear that, despite Democrats’ unwillingness to admit as much, these 2010 midterm elections are NOT local, and have everything to do with Barack Obama himself:

It is not, broadly, about the strengths or weaknesses of various local candidates, about constituent services or seniority, although these elements will be at play in some outcomes, Barney Frank’s race likely being one. But it is significant that this year Mr. Frank is in the race of his life, and this week on TV he did not portray the finger-drumming smugness and impatience with your foolishness he usually displays on talk shows. He looked pale and mildly concussed, like someone who just found out that liberals die, too.

This election is about one man, Barack Obama, who fairly or not represents the following: the status quo, Washington, leftism, Nancy Pelosi, Fannie and Freddie, and deficits in trillions, not billions.

Everyone who votes is going to be pretty much voting yay or nay on all of that. And nothing can change that story line now.

Yes, Miss Peggy…a thousand times yes.

The one thing Noonan needs to give more thought to, as she comes back to the reservation, is her somewhat misguided notion that the Tea party is about George W. Bush. Where she rightly suggests that Bush went adrift in the sea of Conservative ideology…especially during his later years in office…she unfairly conflates that with the Tea Party message. While the Obama Administration and the 111th Congress might be an anti-Bush movement, the Tea Party clearly is not:

The tea party did something the Republican establishment was incapable of doing: It got the party out from under George W. Bush. The tea party rejected his administration’s spending, overreach and immigration proposals, among other items, and has become only too willing to say so. In doing this, the tea party allowed the Republican establishment itself to get out from under Mr. Bush: “We had to, boss, it was a political necessity!” They released the GOP establishment from its shame cringe.

Some of those over-reaches to which Noonan refers happened on Bush’s watch, to be sure, but they pale in comparison to those that have taken place in the time since he left town. This Tea Party business is not about “party”…it’s about what is right for the country despite whichever party happens to be in charge of it at any given time. And…it’s about taking BACK control of the place now that our Political Heroes have made such a mess of things…and making sure no one else gets elected that could ever do it again.

It’s ok though-I forgive her. She’s come a long way in a fairly short period of time. Enough R & R back in Greenbow with the rest of us pitchfork-totin’, bible-thumpin’, gun-clingin’ rubes and she’ll get her head right again.

[Crossposted]