MICHAEL LEDEEN: Peggy Noonan And The American Spirit. “Peggy is entirely right when she says that our intellectual and political leaders have no sense of the mood of the country. But that is not new. The new thing is that such types have now acquired an outrageous amount of power, and they are doing their damnedest to make us pay for our lack of adulation. That’s what the big fight is all about these days, and is likely to be about for several years.”