Peggy Noonan has long been a favorite of mine, but she seems to have lost her moorings this election cycle. She’s repeatedly encouraged the Republicans to bring a knife to a gunfight, so to speak. While urging, through her writing, some “new” civility, a rising above all the clamor, she has written hateful things about Sarah Palin and been caught on-mic, off-camera saying them audibly.

In her most recent column, she comments:

This is the thing: If Mr. Obama wins, and governs as a moderate liberal, not veering left, not seeming to be the cap that pops off a kettle that’s been boiling for eight years, but governs to a degree, at least in general approach, as Bill Clinton did—as a moderate Democrat well aware of the terrain—he may know some success.

Dear Peggy forgets one big thing: For most of his term, Bill Clinton had an opposition-controlled Congress as a restraining force. His hands were often forced or tied, as the case may be, by the Republicans in Congress. All indications are that, regardless of who wins the presidency, the Congress is headed for Democratic control, by a wide margin. If that is the case, Obama has no motivation whatever to govern as a moderate liberal (if there even is such a thing). He’ll be a success, all right, for the radical, liberal Left. Let’s not let that happen.

In the rest of her column, Noonan makes some good points about McCain’s current 43% polling, but it’s becoming undeniably clear that the Betty Ford Clinic needs to add a wing for Obama Kool-Aid detox.