Congresswoman Kristi Noem celebrates the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan's birth with a C-grade essay for National Review. The essay bears a clunky title, begins with a misplaced modifier ("As a little girl, I..." suggests the subject remains a little girl), and uses the inflated "is something that" construction three times in just twenty sentences. Noem's prose troubles E-Prime devotees, using 72% more to be forms than the standard English frequency.
Noem also makes stuff up:
As a little girl, I remember seeing Pres. Ronald Reagan on the television. I liked him because, like my father, he was a cowboy. His horses were beautiful and his California ranch was an enchanting place I wanted to visit [Rep. Kristi Noem, "Reagan@100: The Gipper's Needed Optimism," National Review, 2011.02.04].
I grew up at the same time Noem did. Never once in the 1980s did I hear a teenage girl, especially not the basketball players or Snow Queen types, rhapsodize about her dreams of visiting the Reagan ranch. But perhaps Kristi grew up weird.
Beyond his unwavering support for cutting taxes... [Noem, 2011].
Stop right there, Kristi. Define "unwavering support." I suspect that if a Democrat claimed to have "unwavering support" for cutting taxes, you would tell Josh and Jordan to go use the Googles and find examples of tax hikes for which that dastardly Democrat voted.
It thus seems fair to point out that, while Reagan lowered a whole mess of taxes at the beginning of his term to fight the recession, just as Obama did, Reagan clawed back almost half of those cuts with tax increases throughout his time in office.
Historian Douglas Brinkley explains that Reagan's pragmatism differs from Noem's myth-mouthing:
Ronald Reagan was never afraid to raise taxes. He knew that it was necessary at times. And so there's a false mythology out there about Reagan as this conservative president who came in and just cut taxes and trimmed federal spending in a dramatic way. It didn't happen that way. It's false [Douglas Brinkley, quoted in Scott Horsley, "Ronald Reagan's Legacy Clouds Tax Record," NPR: Morning Edition, 2011.02.04].
Congresswoman Noem, lest you show up for any more battles of wits unarmed, peruse this Reagan myth-busting reading list:
- Dr. Newquist recommends Will Branch's book on Reagan myths.
- In October 1988, before any political thoughts entered little Kristi's head, staunch Libertarian Sheldon Richman lamented that Reagan had grown government more than Presidents Ford and Carter, reneged on promises to abolish the Departments of Education and Energy, tripled the gross federal debt, and left taxes as a percentage of national income about the same as Carter left them.
- For all his "optimism" and "vision", Reagan enjoyed no unique popularity during his Presidency. He left office not quite as popular as Bill Clinton did twelve years later.
I would suggest that her modifier "As a little girl" is not misplaced at all.
*accidentally and ironically not misplaced, that is.
[Editor's Note: "As a little girl, I remember..." present tense. The opening prepositional phrase describes the immediately following noun, or in this case pronoun. The immediately following verb places that pronoun in the present tense. Immediate grammatical translation: "Right now I'm a little girl and I am remembering...." Compare that with this hypothetical sentence: "As a little girl, I wanted to ride horses with Ronnie." See the difference, based on how that modifier and verb work together to situate the subject? And we cover misplaced modifiers in high school composition, so Noem can't blame not getting to that topic in her SDSU junior comp or technical communication class yet.]
Noem's script writers haven't yet come up with a clear concept of the persona they want to create for her. But like Reagan's, it will be mostly a created myth.
Neither have they examined the Reagan myth very carefully. While there are memories of his horseback introductions to Death Valley Days and a few shots on his ranch in western garb, his horse episodes were not very cowboy-like. He rode Arabian horses wearing jodphurs and Engllish riding boots on an English-style saddle. Most of the clips of him grooming and riding his horses on his ranch show him in that garb.
Kristi probably thinks we invaded Egypt,I wonder if GWB can see what happens , when you don't have to invade a country to get democracy.
I suspect that Noem didn't write this at all. The writer is Josh Shields (he's noem's go to guy on stuff like this.) I met him and he is an arrogant prick but if that's the kind of people she likes that's up to her.
Pretty much my concern with Noem is this:
If she discovered politics after her dad died and had to pay estate taxes then why was that when her mom and dad were married?
Since she ran a restaurant I'm sure she wouldn't mind telling us for how long and how successful it was.
Since she ran a hunting lodge I'd be interested to know if it was a success and not just a hobby.
You see she'd done pretty much everything in her life and I wonder if she's ever done anything well or to what extent. Why did she decide to close it down.
I've also been told she was pregnant and married when her father died so it's hard to see how she did much farming in the middle of being pregnant. If Woster or Ellis care to investigate a little farther than what Josh Shields tells them or what Kristi Noem says in a speech I think we will find she exagerated a lot of her story. I don't doubt it since she was telling varrying stories in February-June before anyone cared who she was or before she had a shot at winning.
My guess is Noem is the person who files the info to collect farm subsidies for the entire family. She seems to be good at getting whatever she wants. If she was ther person putting in the filings then she really wanted the $3,000,000 in subsidies.
With SHS there are a lot of timelines that are easy to follow. With Noem it is a lot of big stuff that seems to cover an eternity but it's so murky and unclear when she did this stuff and how long. I don't even know what era.
It doesn't matter much to me who wrote it: Noem's name is at the top; she owns it. And she's wrong.
My whole comment (above) about Noem's modifier not misplaced wasn't to delve into the finer points of grammar or what Noem knows; it was simple snark about Noem thinking and behaving like a little girl. I should have tagged it with [/snark].
Ah! Of course! My apologies. I clearly need to recalibrate my snark sensors.
Amazing how Republicans who claim such knowledge and admiration for the Constitutions of state and nation are apparently overwhelmed by pretty faces attached to mediocre minds but coupled closely to glib tongues strong on irrelevant platitudes and mythology.
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