The president. Sitting atop a white rock—America, pure as snow, a monument. Lincoln. The ballot box—a throne of our nation. Shall the free press poop atop it? Undulating, in the wind.

Peggy Noonan. A wielder of pen and paper—then transferred to screen. Ideas. Election. President. Hillary. Journalism. All together, at last. A blog. A blog? A blog, by Peggy.

Two points on the general feel of the 2016 campaign so far.

One is that in the case of Mrs. Clinton we are going to see the press act either like the press of a great nation—hungry, raucous, alive, demanding—or like a hopelessly sickened organism, a big flailing octopus with no strength in its arms, lying like a greasy blob at the bottom of the sea, dying of ideology poisoning.

A blob. A blob? A blob, amorphous, like Ronald Reagan's wrinkles, containing the vastness.

On the Republican side there is a good deep bench and there will be a hell of a fight among serious and estimable contenders... Will the American people look at them in 2016 and see dynamism and excitement and youth and actual ideas and serious debate? Will it look like that’s where the lightning’s striking and the words have meaning? Will it fortify and revivify the Republican brand? Or will it all look like mayhem and chaos? Will the eventual winner emerge a year from now too bloodied, too damaged to go on and win in November? Will the party itself look bloody and damaged?

Uh.. I dunno, you tell me. You're the expert .

[Photo: Getty]