Peggy Noonan of the WSJ Gets It Right Again – Then Goes Too Far

She Cannot Help It – It’s What Conservatives Do

In her latest column Ms. Noonan muses on the popularity and appeal of Mr. Obama.  She find that as a political animal, Mr. Obama is sorely wanting.



Ms. Noonan



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 other day a Republican political veteran forwarded me a hiring notice from the Obama 2012 campaign. It read like politics as done by Martians. . . .

He went into the 2008 general election with a miraculously unified party and took down another machine, bundling up all the accrued resentment of eight years with one message: "You know the two losing wars and the economic collapse we've been dealing with? I won't do that. I'm not Bush."

Now saying that Mr. Obama is not very good at politics is like saying the Chicago Cubs are not very good at getting into the World Series.  Mr. Obama is terrible at politics.  More importantly Ms. Noonan recognizes, as so few in the Obama campaign do or did, that he won in 2008 because he was not the other guy.


But then Ms. Noonan goes overboard and uncharacteristicly turns a little mean, unable to resist the internal boiling hatred that all Conservatives have for Mr. Obama.



He is not a devil, an alien, a socialist. He is a loser. And this is America, where nobody loves a loser.



Self Made Man (left) and Inherited Made Man (right)



No, Mr. Obama is not a loser.  He has won the American dream, and he did it the hard way, as an African American with an alien sounding name and none of the “born with a silver spoon in his mouth” advantages of people like Mr. Bush (Jr). 

He is losing the current political battle because his
governing philosophy, which is a desire to bring civil discourse and compromise and negotiation to a process that is polarized, is thwarted by Conservatives and their.  “win at all costs regardless of damage to the country” position.

But compared to the men and women he has gone up against, he stands tall and strong, and history will accord him that status after the petty attacks and personal hatred by his opponents have been consigned to history's trash pile.