Woozy 80s icon Peggy Noonan is, despite all rational reasoning, a professional political expert, paid real American money to deliver her thoughts on the public affairs issues of the day. Is Peggy Noonan a psychic psychologist super-detective? Maybe...

You may recall past gems of professional Peggy Noonan political analysis like "Mitt Romney Will Be Elected President Because I Saw a Lot of His Yard Signs" and "Poor Service in My Hotel Is Symbolic of the Failure of Obama's America." It is no wonder she is still employed, as a professional expert, in the field of political analysis, what with her rich track record of insight and wisdom. For if, say, some rash-headed boss had fired her, after reading all that stuff she's been writing for the past decade, then you, the American public, would be deprived of the rich and hard-won knowledge, like this, that comes only from a lifetime spent in the hallowed inner halls of America's government:

For a while I've assumed Hillary Clinton would run for her party's nomination and be a formidable candidate in the general election. After Tuesday's news conference I'm not so sure.

Did she seem to you a happy, hungry warrior? She couldn't make eye contact with her questioners, and when she did she couldn't sustain it. She looked at the ceiling and down at notes, trying, it seemed, to stick to or remember scripted arguments. She was shaky. She couldn't fake good cheer and confidence.

Hillary Clinton looked at the ceiling. Not to mention the fact that, hey, I haven't seen many of her yard signs lately. Telling signs to the discerning eye of Peggy Noonan, the Sherlock Holmes of America's Republican pundit class, who can infer quite a bit from such subtle clues:

Maybe what happened to her, in part, is the homes of her Manhattan mega-donors. She's been in the grand townhouses and Park Avenue apartments since 1992. She'd go in and be met and she saw what they had. Beauty. Ease. Fine art of a particular, modern sort, the kind that is ugly, that reminds its owners that just because they're rich doesn't mean they don't understand that life is hard, painful, incoherent. It is protective, cautionary, abstract and costs $20 million a picture...

She'd like those things! But she went into "public service" and had to live on some bum-squat-Egypt Southern governor's salary.

Yes... maybe.

[Photo: Getty]