Doctor Zero at HotAir’s Greenroom (later promoted to the front page) hits the nail on the head with this comment on Peggy Noonan’s piece about Sarah Palin in Friday’s WSJ:

Peggy Noonan used her Friday column in the Wall Street Journal to throw some dirt on Sarah Palin’s grave. It’s vintage Noonan: airheaded, dripping with condescension, and completely missing the point. No serious conservative needs to hear anything from Noonan except her groveling apology for being so horribly wrong about Barack Obama, who she energetically supported for president.

I really wonder what happened to Noonan. Obviously, her transfomation hasn’t been nearly as drastic as that of Ariana Huffington. But she used to be a quite eloquent defender of “big idea” conservative principles and Reagan conservatism. Now she’s . . . what? Writing for writing’s sake, I think, to string together flowery words that roll off the tongue, and picking the nearest available target.

Which would explain why she fell under Obama’s spell. It would appear she engaged in her previous defense of Reagan convservatism because the principles involved allowed her to write and speak eloquently. Obama gave her the chance to do that last election cycle. Who will it be the next?

UPDATE (7/12/09): Stacy McCain offers a reasonable explanation for Noonan being unimpressed with Palin — that Palin is a lightweight compared to Reagan when he came on the presidential scene — that would have led me to cut Noonan a break . . . until McCain points out that on that basis, Noonan should have been equally unimpressed with Obama. McCain’s theory makes me think all the more that Noonan signed on to Obama for the lofty rhetoric.