Peggy Noonan just doesn't like the war anymore.

The See-Dub clan is a bunch of big Peggy Noonan fans. But this is her second big misfire in a pretty short time. Dean Barnett summed up very well what I thought about her last substandard bit of speech-criticism here. That one, though, was just a rare badly-written column. Today's column, praising the courage of Chuck Hagel, isn't clunky the way that other one was. But in terms of the ideas that underlie it, it's even worse: PN elevates that Senate non-binding resolution--the one everyone's pledging about-- into a "no-confidence vote" on the administration's handling of the Iraq war.

I think Peggy is in a long, slow, public process of talking herself out of the idea of winning the war. Which is her right; and of course a lot of people have already done so. But when that process makes you praise Chuck Hagel's most recent stunt as "courageous", well...no, sorry, Peggy. It's calculation at this point. You could have written about "Hagel's courage" back in when he first began questioning the war effort against his party's decisions. But now, with a possible presidential campaign shaping up, and the war unpopular, and a Democratic majority in the Senate to be cozened? There's nothing courageous about Hagel's opposition to the war today.

How about Lieberman's support of the war? His unwavering, principled support that cost him his party's nomination in his home state? There's some courage in a politician. Hagel's grandstanding in the current climate is expedience, not courage.

I wish Peggy would go back to writing about Hillary. Someone needs to, and Peggy does it so well. She understands Hillary's tightly-wound mind better than any of the Hillary-critics do. When Peggy writes about Hillary!, she perks up out of her post-Sept. 11th melancholy and puts her dancing shoes on.

Yes, that was sort of a Noonanism. Like I said, I'm a fan. Still am. But "Chuck Hagel's courage"? She is not making it easy.