Fraters Libertas

The Eye of the Beholder

I see Peggy Noonan is currently running in third place in the “Who’s Hotter” poll being conducted on the left hand side of this fine Internet site. All things considered, not a bad showing for her. But she’s not getting my vote.

Let me say at the outset, she has many things going for her. Smart as whip, insightful writer and news analyst, terrific prose stylist, professionally accomplished (including a stint in the White House with the great man himself, Reagan). She’s Irish, with an enchanting 100 proof Irish name. Wonderful voice too. A soft, feminine, beautiful tone to it. Warmth and refinement surrounding every syllable she utters. Her three hour CSPAN interview from 2002 was an aural odyssey of pleasure I’ll not soon forget.

As a package deal, the woman is a thousand points of light. And if I were a 40-year-old features writer for the New Yorker (or the heir to Al Jaffe’s Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions at Mad Magazine), I’d be proud to have Gawker report the news that she was on my arm as we entered Tavern on the Green on a Saturday night.

But in the cold calculus of the “Who’s Hotter” genre, the package deal is not taken into account. Her looks are the thing, and there we have a bit of an issue. Now, there’s nothing terribly wrong with her face. In fact there’s a lot right about her beautiful, fashionably cut blond hair, her bottomless pale blue eyes which reveal a piercing intellect and just a hint of a tragedy. Her forehead, ears, cheekbones - fine, fine, fine. Draw a horizontal line across her face, centered about mid nose and concentrate on the top half only and she’s a knockout.

It’s the lower half of the picture where the heretofore divine genetic code got a little scrambled. To be specific, it’s her big, flaring nostrils and long, thin lips. Upon intensive study, I believe they can only be described in one way: porcine.

I was going to say “overly porcine”, but when it comes right down to it, there’s no degree of pig-like features that can be considered aesthetically pleasing. It’s either porcine or it’s not. And truth be told, as it must in context of something as important as the Who’s Hotter poll, the lower half of her face kind of/sort of looks porcine. For this reason, my vote has to go to Ashley Banfield. On a superficial level, she is hotter.

As I’ve clearly articulated above, I’m crazy about Peggy Noon. I just hope my critics in the mainstream media and the selective, skim readers out there don’t run wild with the out of context excerpting. Because it would be an injustice to wake up tomorrow and see the scream headline “Saint Paul from Fraters Libertas Calls Peggy Noonan a Pig.” Not true! Not true!