Peggy Noonan: Miley Cyrus 'ugly' at MTV awards

The opinion we've been waiting for on Miley Cyrus' twerking performance at the MTV Video Music Awards show last Sunday.

Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal:

To today: I've been thinking about the big bad stories of the summer, the cultural ones that disturb people. The sick New York politician who, without apparent qualms, foists his sickness into the public sphere again. ... and sure, the young pop star who is so lewd, so mindlessly vulgar and ugly on the awards show.

We're shocked. But we're not shocked. And that itself is disturbing. We're used to all this, now, this crassness and lowness of public behavior. The cumulative effect of these stories, I suspect, is that we're starting to fear: Maybe that's us. Maybe that's who we are now. As if these aren't separate and discrete crimes and scandals but a daily bubbling up of the national character.

@eScarry