Peggy Noonan Terrified By Nuclear War, Mutants, Running Out Of Beefeater Post-Apocalypse

The grand dame of columnists takes to her bunker, but the world still needs her pen.

What might be going on in the surface world? Sister Peggy Noonan of the Order of the Tofranil Funk had no idea. She had retreated here to her nuclear bunker, an abandoned subway tunnel deep beneath her beloved Manhattan, and here she intended to stay until the crisis passed or the irradiated mutant survivors of humanity finally shuffled off to their reward.

She had not been down to the bunker since her dear Ronnie Reagan had ended the Cold War all by himself with his sunny grin and steely demeanor. A layer of dust coated all the supplies she had toted down here throughout the 1980s – the canned soup, the bottles of Bartles and Jaymes and Lambrini and the four-packs of Snowballs, the multiple sets of collectible Voltron glasses from Burger King that she thought would give the place a bit of color.

Yes, Burger King! Her secret weakness! The 1980s had been a wondrous culinary time, but every once in a while, perhaps while she was pulling an all-nighter trying to polish up one of the Gipper’s speeches with tiny words that would not make him stop and squint in confusion at the Teleprompter, she would gorge herself on a Whopper and some fries. Followed by a week of gorging on diet pills. Heady days indeed!

But there would be no more Whoppers after the nuclear apocalypse. No more fries. No more commemorative glasses of which she could collect all four. All the Burger Kings would be dust, along with everything else. But she would be here, safe and snug, reading classic literature and waiting hopefully for something…

She jerked upwards. What was that infernal banging? Someone seemed to be pounding on the heavy steel hatch she had installed in the wall she had built to seal off the tunnel. She stumbled along the disused tracks. Who could possibly have found her secret bunker? Was it radiation-sickened orphans desperate for shelter? Mutant hordes? Ed Meese?

No! The hatch swung upon to reveal an even more hideous sight. It was the Burger King himself. But something was wrong. His clothing was torn, his pupils burned and sightless. His crown had melted and fused itself to his skull. He gave off a horrific stench of decay as he stumbled into the shelter and fell down.

“Ah God, Miss Noonan!” croaked the Burger King-like thing at her feet. “Not everything is lost! Not yet! In fact, your beloved Wall Street Journal is still publishing, and although all the editors have fused into one grotesque radiation monster with multiple heads like something out of Oppenheimer’s nightmares, they still need a column !”

 Since the tanks first moved in February, one of this column’s preoccupations has been the tone, volume and swiftness of the declarations, tweets, one-liners and ad libs that followed. 

The Burger King was scrabbling at a box of Trivial Pursuit. “Oooo, haven’t seen this in awhile,” it cried. “How about a game? I’ll be the red pie, obviously. You might have to read the questions for me, what with my pupils having melted like sunny-side-up eggs.”

  Since then, and as the stakes got higher, leaders have become all too casual—unserious and sloppy. Part of it is social media, on which the whole world is hooked. Ambassadors launch taunting tweets like rockets and get high-fives instead of irradiated craters. I can’t get the phrases “possible nuclear war” and “let’s do snark” to go together in my head. Many others can.  

“Listen, there are a few ways to react to the nuclear saber-rattling. One way is sheer terror about something which, frankly, you and I have no control over. Unless you think Vladimir Putin cares what we think, which he doesn’t. Another way is to push down the existential terror of impending death in the nuclear fire by snarking about it. We all have to make our choices. Oh wow, are those collectible Voltron glasses? I haven't seen any of those in awhile!”

 What’s needed is a serious, weighty, textured document that reflects the gravity of the moment we’re in, a full Oval Office address that doesn’t emote but speaks rationally to a nation of thoughtful people. 

“But Joe Biden is not the president of Canada, am I right?” The Burger King giggled at his obvious joke and several of his teeth flew out of his mouth and arced across the tunnel. “Oops! Maybe I shouldn’t be jawing about this with you after all!”

 It is possible conversations have begun among members of the institutions that might most effectively move against him—the state intelligence apparatus, the military, even the cabinet. If they are talking, it would be going like this: Mr. Putin himself drove the war, which was a bad idea badly executed; it likely can’t be won by conventional means; the use of nuclear or chemical weapons would create a physical danger to, and reputational disaster for, Russia[.] 

“Or it could be something along the lines of ‘We will follow our beloved leader Vladimir Putin straight to the gates of hell!’ No one really knows, isn’t that the point?” The Burger King sighed and looked down at the flipper-like protuberances that used to be its feet. “A minute ago you were complaining that people aren’t being serious enough about this threat, and now you’re reading minds in the Kremlin based on exactly nothing but your own vibes. Why not sit down and we’ll play some Boggle instead?”

 We’ll be helping dissidents only if we show now seriousness and sobriety and gravity, and repeat again the old Cold War distinction: We are against the Russian government’s actions but feel only respect and regard for the people of Russia, with whom we only want peace. 

“Hoary clichés!” The Burger King-thing was crawling back up the tracks and through the hatch. “Lord, I can’t be trapped down here with this brain-destroying pabulum forever. I’m going back to the surface! I’ll take my chances with the roving bands of feral and super-intelligent kangaroos that have enslaved the remains of mankind, thank you very much. I will be much happier toiling under their whips in the bamboo mines. Goodbye forever, Miss Noonan!”

With that, the Burger King was gone, back to test his fate among the ruins of humanity. Not that she minded. She didn't think she had enough Snowballs for both of them.

[ WSJ ]

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