Opinion Journal columnist, former Reagan speechwriter and manhandled — or rather, butch-handled — airline passenger Peggy Noonan declares that she’s reclaiming feminine modesty as her Lenten gesture. The response to Noonan’s column last week, which dismissed the debate over port security with a cutesy meditation on her experiences dealing with gruff airport security personnel, prompted her to elaborate on what offends her most about the boarding process: how “America has become creepy for women who think of themselves as ladies.” Ladies like Peggy Noonan, who as Irish descendents shouldn’t be searched at all, let alone as frequently as Peggy has been (though from her first column it seems likely that Noonan is bringing this “special customer” treatment on herself), but in any case, certainly not searched by dykey-looking “slobs with clipboards” like the one who waved a wand over Noonan: “She was muscular, her biceps straining against a tight Transportation Security Administration T-shirt. She carried her wand like a billy club.” It was, Noonan writes, like being in “a 1950s women’s prison movie.” And this near-lesbian experience is just part of the constant violation of Noonan’s lady dignity that’s daily assaulted not just by advertisements for birth-control, tampons, Viagra and popular music, but also when politicians are asked their views about the sexual politics issues of the day. So, for the next 40 days, Noonan is going to “sacrifice” the habit of not speaking her mind — a lady has “some rights,” after all, Noonan protests — and instead tell the purveyors of cultural degradation that they are “embarrassing the angels.” For those who fail to understand Noonan’s redefinition of sacrifice as meaning doing exactly what you’ve already been doing, except now with a martyrly attitude, try to understand how hard it is for her to hold polite civilization together with just her two gloved hands. And likewise disregard the seeming contradiction of a conservative columnist’s newfound modesty over the very same sex issues that propelled her favored candidates to office.