Is it Noonan or is it Not?
by Barry Friedman
America is full of reaches—broad ones, like Reagan on his horse, the clop-clop as he brings the mare in, masterfully, firmly, gently patting her hide, calming an America gutted by past Democratic American presidents and future ones, like THIS one, who calls out his friends in Texas to besmirch a good, bespectacled man with a lovely wife and an impressive upper body.
Did he not reach, the wise one, the one buried, facing west? Was there not a reach in his watchful eye, an eye that still watches. Yes, Reagan reached for us, touched us, held us, caressed us. Oh, shivers I feel. Perry does, too, in his own bravado, in his own Texas way.
Hook 'em, Rick
My mind tells me what’s being done to him, this man so ridiculed for a simple OOPS, for a fashionable MEMBERS ONLY jacket, is crazy.
And my mind knows crazy.
Oh, to have my hide patted like Reagan patted it … again.
But I digress.
There are American sounds, too, like reaches, but the sounds are tougher to hear, to grasp, to wipe clean, like the soft whimpering of tears being shed. I have shed such tears, felt them slowly stream down my face—and in doing so, they take with them my consternation, my frustration, my loneliness and sensuality. I long for Reagan, I long for that horse. I long for a new stallion—maybe this Perry. I long for him to dry those tears. I long, too, for America that doesn’t pick on governors and call out IRS goons and doesn't elect presidents who golf while regions burn and fist tap their wives. I don’t fear my tears—oh, no—I embrace them (Indict me for them if you must!) and, as they flow, tears that scream for sustenance and validation, they point the way to my heart … America’s heart, a heart not chilled by falling ice from a bucket.