Nooonan Starts Putting The Final Nail In O'bama's Re-election Chances...


Selene

Recommended Posts

Noonan is an excellent writer and quite astute...this one of her more devastating evaluations of the incompetent in the White House.

"Nothing echoes out like that debate. It was the moment that allowed Mr. Romney to break through, that allowed dismay with the incumbent to coalesce, that allowed voters to consider the alternative. What the debate did to the president is what the Yankees' 0-4 series against the Tigers did at least momentarily, to the team's relationship with their city. "Dear Yankees, We don't date losers. Signed, New Yorkers" read the Post's headline.

America doesn't date losers either.

Why was the first debate so toxic for the president? Because the one thing he couldn't do if he was going to win the election is let all the pent-up resentment toward him erupt."

Continuing...

"But maybe these questions are all off. Maybe what happened isn't a mystery at all.

That, anyway, is the view expressed this week by a member of the U.S. Senate who served there with Mr Obama and has met with him in the White House. People back home, he said, sometimes wonder what happened with the president in the debate. The senator said, I paraphrase: I sort of have to tell them that it wasn't a miscalculation or a weird moment. I tell them: I know him, and that was him. That guy on the stage, that's the real Obama. "

She concludes that:

"People saw for the first time an Obama they may have heard about on radio or in a newspaper but had never seen.

They didn't see some odd version of the president. They saw the president.

And they didn't like what they saw, and that would linger."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204530504578079232194509700.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_opinion

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't have the link but I was amused to watch a video which featured our president talking about the issue of trust. He went on and on about how the American people deserve a leader in whom they can believe and who will tell them the truth. He spoke as if he were that kind of person and pointed out that it is hard to trust a person like his challenger who has voiced one position on a topic on one occasion and the opposite opinion on the same issue at another time.

Kim Strassel devoted a recent opinion piece to this issue and included quite a few paragraphs in which she documented how Obama has done just that on many issues. But then Obama is cashing in on the fact that not many people can afford to read the Wall Street Journal and remain uninformed of his inconsistencies or are they lies and if so which position is the lie and which the truth?

One marvels at the audacity displayed and the arrogance of a person who criticizes the behavior of another while being the perfect example of that of which he is critical.

An item in the so called mini mental status exam classically asks for one to interpret a proverb, namely, "People who live in glass houses, shouldn't throw stones."

I guess in this case, even though one shouldn't, one does, if he thinks he can not only get away with it, but also that he may profit by so doing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 years later...

Mr. Obama is doing what he knows how to do—stare them down and face them off. But his circumstances have changed. He used to be a conquering hero, now he’s not. On the other hand he used to have to worry about public support. Now, with no more elections before him, he has the special power of the man who doesn’t care.

Noonan notes, astutely, that President O'bama[she calls him Mr.!] is:

... essentially alone. He’s got no one with him now. The Republicans don’t like him, for reasons both usual and particular: They have had no good experiences with him. The Democrats don’t like him, for their own reasons plus the election loss. Before his post-election lunch with congressional leaders, he told the press that he will judiciously consider any legislation, whoever sends it to him, Republicans or Democrats. His words implied that in this he was less partisan and more public-spirited than the hacks arrayed around him. It is for these grace notes that he is loved. No one at the table looked at him with colder, beadier eyes than outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid , who clearly doesn’t like him at all.

Putin with one small kinesic move sent a non-verbal image to the whole world that he was the dominant one...

Vladimir Putin delivered the unkindest cut, patting Mr. Obama’s shoulder reassuringly. Normally that’s Mr. Obama’s move, putting his hand on your back or shoulder as if to bestow gracious encouragement, needy little shrimp that you are. It’s a dominance move. He’s been doing it six years. This time it was Mr. Putin doing it to him. The president[no capitalization?] didn’t like it.

As Noonan looks back for another President who was this alone, she stops at Nixon, I would add Johnson as a close second, and reminds me why I so loved Barry Goldwater:

The last time we saw a president so alone it was Richard Nixon, at the end of his presidency[guess caps are not necessary], when the Democrats had turned on him, the press hated him, and the Republicans were fleeing. It was Sen. Barry Goldwater, the GOP’s standard-bearer in 1964, and House Minority Leader John Rhodes, also of Arizona, who went to the White House to tell Nixon his support in Congress had collapsed, they would vote to impeach. Years later Goldwater called Nixon “The world’s biggest liar.”

And this is why I read Peggy Noonan, she "sees" interesting aspects of these folks.

I mentioned last week that the president has taken to filibustering, to long, rambling answers in planned sit-down settings—no questions on the fly walking from here to there, as other presidents have always faced. The press generally allows him to ramble on, rarely fighting back as they did with Nixon. But I have noticed Mr. Obama uses a lot of words as padding. He always has, but now he does it more. There’s a sense of indirection and obfuscation. You can say, “I love you,” or you can say, “You know, feelings will develop, that happens among humans and it’s good it happens, and I have always said, and I said it again just last week, that you are a good friend, I care about you, and it’s fair to say in terms of emotional responses that mine has escalated or increased somewhat, and ‘love’ would not be a wholly inappropriate word to use to describe where I’m coming from.”

When politicians do this they’re trying to mush words up so nothing breaks through. They’re leaving you dazed and trying to make it harder for you to understand what’s truly being said.

She then exposes in a tight paragraph what many of us have sensed about this economic infant in the White House:

It is possible the president is responding to changed circumstances with a certain rigidity because no one ever stood in his way before. Most of his adult life has been a smooth glide. He had family challenges and an unusual childhood, but as an adult and a professional he never faced fierce, concentrated resistance. He was always magic. Life never came in and gave it to him hard on the jaw. So he really doesn’t know how to get up from the mat. He doesn’t know how to struggle to his feet and regain his balance. He only knows how to throw punches. But you can’t punch from the mat.

He only knows how to do what he’s doing.

Anyone who has lived understands this precise observation that Peggy makes about him.

Unfortunately, there is a deep seated hatred and anger in the man.

Now, we are all at risk.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-loneliest-president-since-nixon-1415920451

A...

really good writer Peggy...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now