Peggy Noonan Has Lost Her Mind

This post, written by Melissa McEwan, originally appeared on Shakesville

Shorter Peggy Noonan: Americans need to speak a common language or my condescending superciliousness might not be as deeply appreciated by brown people as it should be.

Actual Peggy Noonan: “Suddenly in my sight there’s a young woman standing on a street grate. She is short, about 5 feet tall, and stocky, with a broad brown face. She is, I think, Latin American, maybe of Indian blood. … I wanted to say something–I don’t know what, find out where she was from, encourage her. I said hello, and she looked at me and I patted her arm and said, ‘Happy Fourth of July, my friend.’ She was startled and then shy, and she smiled and made a sound, and I realized: She doesn’t speak English. ‘God bless you,’ I said, because a little while in America and you know the word God just as 10 minutes in Mexico and you learn the word Dios. And we both smiled and nodded and I left. I went into Bloomingdale’s and wrote these words: ‘We must speak the same language so we can hearten each other’.”

Shorter Melissa McEwan: Hurl.