Peggy Noonan Thinks Adam Lambert is Ruining America

Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan has a problem. She calls it her Adam Lambert problem, and it might best be described as the crippling fear that America's moral character will devolve so rapidly in the coming years, that children as young as four will be forced to wear black leather pants to school, and watch their teachers engage in simulated oral sex while the words "under God" are stricken from the Pledge of Allegiance and replaced with Barack Hussein Obama. For good measure, let's also put Lady Gaga's face on the nickel.

Noonan's apocalyptic view comes across in a screed this week in the Wall Street Journal (better renamed by Wonkette as the Wall Street Journal banking pamphlet), where she says that America is undergoing a wave of depravity, and it's bringing the whole country down faster than the closing scene of Cabaret. Gone are the days of High School Musical. These are the days of gay folks like Adam Lambert, who want nothing more than to turn television into a parade of S&M orgies.

Huh, can't wait to see what that looks like on TBS. But in the meantime, Peggy Noonan can take her "cultural depravity is killing the American Dream" meme and blow her nose with it. Noonan cites polls showing a high number of folks (66 percent) worrying that their children's lives won't be better than theirs, and that 55 percent think America is on the wrong track. But if there's a renewed sense of worry in America, it has less to do with Adam Lambert, and a whole lot to do with a certain son of a Bush who Noonan herself campaigned for that led this country to the brink of chaos.

Here's Noonan's take. "Americans are worried about the core and character of the American nation, and about our culture," she writes. "It is one thing to grouse that dreadful people who don't care about us control our economy, but another, and in a way more personal, thing to say that people who don't care about us control our culture. In 2009 this was perhaps most vividly expressed in the Adam Lambert Problem."

Funny that Noonan picks an easy target like Adam Lambert to heap her culture war messaging on. She could have easily said, "You know, in a country where previous Presidents and Vice Presidents have openly advocated for torture, it's not so hard to see why America's lost some character."

Noonan could have said that, except she campaigned pretty extensively for former President George W. Bush or Dick Cheney.

Or Noonan could have said, "In a country where we continue to deny basic civil rights to hundreds of thousands of loving couples by not recognizing marriage equality, it's no wonder people believe that America isn't living up to its promises."

Noonan could have said that, except Noonan celebrated the idea of a marriage amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would define marriage as solely between one man and one woman. (Presumably, though, Noonan would be OK with divorce.)

Or Noonan could have said, "You know, it's no wonder we're ending this decade feeling jaded. The banking industry is all effed up, we were taken into two wars that are bleeding our country of money and costing our troops dearly, and we spent eight years of this decade with a President who thought climate change is what happens when you travel from Crawford, Texas to Washington, D.C."

Noonan could have said all of that. Except it's a whole lot easier to say Adam Lambert. He did, after all, kiss a boy on television and gyrated near some dancers.

A few weeks back change.org's Global Warming blog asked the question, "Where are the conservative solutions to climate change?" That's a pretty interesting question, and one that I'd like to extend. It's kind of like a game of Mad Libs. "Where are the conservative solutions to health care? ___________" "Where are the conservative solutions to the economy? ___________" "Where are the conservative solutions to Afghanistan? ____________"

The answer? Apparently, it's Adam Lambert.

Progressives should own this. If Peggy Noonan wants to talk about the character of America, then bring it on. If all she's got is Adam Lambert, that's a debate I'd like to see happen. Because Adam Lambert ain't got nothing on a decade of torture, a decade of health insurance companies who've gotten rich off of the backs of the uninsured, or a decade of politicians who've prayed to Jesus for the demise of progressive legislation before heading off to spend an evening in bed with their mistresses.

(Photo courtesy of burningkarma's photostream on Flickr.)