Big-Name Pundit Sings Trump's Praises

Conservative pundit Peggy Noonan is drawing attention for a Friday column that Mike Allen at Politico calls "jaw-trumpingly Trump-friendly (or at least Trump-respectful)." In her Wall Street Journal piece, Noonan writes that she cannot "understand the inability or refusal of Republican leaders to take Mr. Trump seriously." In trying to dismiss him as a candidate of "anger, angst and theatrics," the party establishment is missing a huge part of the picture—Trump's role in driving the conversation on policy issues such as immigration. "Trump has functioned this year not as a great communicator or great compromiser but as the great disruptor," writes Noonan.

"He brags that he has brought up great questions and forced other candidates to face them and sometimes change their stands—and he has." He's also "touched an important nerve" with his proposal to temporarily ban Muslim immigration. "In the age of terror, that looked suspiciously like common sense. Americans do not want America to become what Europe is becoming." It doesn't speak well of the GOP that Trump has emerged as"the party's 2016 thought leader," writes Noonan, but that's clearly the case. None other than Bernie Sanders seems to have recognized this with this recent push to woo Trump backers. Click for her full column. (More Donald Trump 2016 stories.)