We'll first go to October of 2008 and these words from Ms. Noonan:
The case for Barack Obama, in broad strokes:
He has within him the possibility to change the direction and tone of American foreign policy, which need changing; his rise will serve as a practical rebuke to the past five years, which need rebuking; his victory would provide a fresh start in a nation in which a fresh start would come as a national relief. He climbed steep stairs, born off the continent with no father to guide, a dreamy, abandoning mother, mixed race, no connections. He rose with guts and gifts. He is steady, calm, and, in terms of the execution of his political ascent, still the primary and almost only area in which his executive abilities can be discerned, he shows good judgment in terms of whom to hire and consult, what steps to take and moves to make. We witnessed from him this year something unique in American politics: He took down a political machine without raising his voice.
That was then... this is now:
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.
...
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.
And so yet another Obama supporter succumbs to the reality. Ho hum. I'm getting a little bored with the flip floppers. The Obama supporters who've lost their mojo. But this one at least has one thing right when she calls Obama good at dismantling. He's dismantling this once great country. He's dismantling that which made her great but thankfully, he's also dismantling the false pedestal upon which he was placed by his supporters and an accomplice media. The house of cards that formed the basis of who we were told the man is is collapsing.
Don't get me wrong, there's still work to do. There are still ardent supporters, some of which will never be swayed but the hope is that there are those like Noonan who see the man for what he truly is.
He is not what he was portrayed back then to be. He never was.
How in the world was Peggy Noonan fooled so badly to begin with? There were a precious few of us who knew from day one what this man was and is. After all, there are some principles set in stone and one is this: you are what your friends and books are! The fact that we couldn't dig up any facts about the man should have put us all on notice that something was very fishy! How many people drop from the sky with no his-story - well, seems this POD (President of Dereliciton) did. Yeah, Peggy, you surely blew this one!
Posted by: Patricia | Monday, August 01, 2011 at 04:23 AM