Peggy Noonan: Obama's Not A Revolutionary, He's Just A Loser

I'm not sure if I think much of this column. Not that I object to name-calling Obama. I think that's fine. I just think her line of attack is wrong.

The line of attack that he's not a leader is an accurate one. Or that he is cowardly.

But a "loser"? I suppose, yes, but that's not the main problem.

And her assertion that "no one loves Obama"? Are you quite sure, Peggy?

Anyway, here are some excerpts.

The secret of Mr. Obama is that he isn't really very good at politics, and he isn't good at politics because he doesn't really get people....

Mr. Obama seemed brilliant at politics when he first emerged in 2004. He understood the nation's longing for unity. We're not divided into red states and blue, he said, we're Big Purple, we can solve our problems together. Four years later he read the lay of the land perfectly—really, perfectly....

The fact is, he's good at dismantling. He's good at critiquing. He's good at not being the last guy, the one you didn't like. But he's not good at building, creating, calling into being. He was good at summoning hope, but he's not good at directing it and turning it into something concrete that answers a broad public desire.

And so his failures in the debt ceiling fight. He wasn't serious, he was only shrewd—and shrewdness wasn't enough. He demagogued the issue—no Social Security checks—until he was called out, and then went on the hustings spouting inanities. He left conservatives scratching their heads: They could have made a better, more moving case for the liberal ideal as translated into the modern moment, than he did. He never offered a plan. In a crisis he was merely sly. And no one likes sly, no one respects it.

So he is losing a battle in which he had superior forces—the presidency, the U.S. Senate. In the process he revealed that his foes have given him too much mystique. He is not a devil, an alien, a socialist. He is a loser. And this is America, where nobody loves a loser.

If you care, Mediaite has video of Noonan talking about this column on Scarborough.

I'm amused that Tommy Christopher tut-tuts her for her childishness...

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed Friday morning, conservative columnist Peggy Noonan channeled her inner middle-schooler, calling President Obama a “loser,” and likening White House Press Secretary Jay Carney to a “ferret with flop sweat.”

... right before attempting to make a lame joke about that idiotic "Republicans watched The Town!" scandal that liberals apparently think is a pretty damn good talking point.

Tommy, if you want to play the grown up, act the grown up.

posted by Ace at 05:38 PM

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