There’s much to be said about Ms. Noonan’s column “The Unwisdom of Barack Obama” in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal. For starters, she writes it as the all-wise observer from afar who’s known all along that Big Guy was in waaaaay over his head; knew that he actually Peter Principled out somewhere between Harvard Law and Chicago community organizer.
To read Saturday’s column, you might think that Peggy has seen through Barack Hussein Obama’s veneer from the start. You might assunme that she, unlike other so-called conservative columnists, was not sucked in by those sharply creased pant legs,
…mistaking them for a sign of competency and discipline, when in fact it was simply a conceit.
Butt alas, Peggy was also an early on cheerleader. Ah well, better late than never in the “journalism is truth” game. So now Ms. Noonan informs us:
“We are overthinking the president.” [it’s hard to under-think him]
“His essential problem is that he has very poor judgment.”
Bad judgment: *ahem* right from the very start
And we don't say this because he's so famously bright—academically credentialed, smooth, facile with words, quick with concepts. (That's the sort of intelligence the press and popular historians most prize and celebrate, because it's exactly the sort they possess.) [ed. that “press” includes you too, Peggy] But brightness is not the same as judgment, which has to do with discernment, instinct, the ability to see the big picture, [like I said, Peggy…] wisdom that is earned or natural.
THEN…she informs us that Big Guy might actually be as bad as Jimmy Carter!
The other night, at the end of his Syria speech, he sang a long, off-point aria to the economy. Supposedly it would be ringing and rousing, but viewers looked at each other and scratched their heads. It didn't belong there. It showed a classic misjudging of his position. The president thinks people are depressed because they don't understand how good the economy is. Actually right now they are depressed because he is president. It was like Jimmy Carter's malaise speech. It wasn't a bad speech, but he wasn't the person who could give it [although he didn’t use a teleprompter and he may have written it himself] because voters weren't thinking malaise was the problem, they were thinking Mr. Carter was. He couldn't relieve public unhappiness because people had come to think he was the source of it.
Boy, who could have foreseen that!?!
Never gets old
Other pearls extracted from Ms. Noonan’s Saturday essay:
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Mr. Obama misjudged from day one his position vis-Ã -vis Republicans on Capitol Hill.
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Libya? Poor judgment. A nation run by a nut was turned into a nation run by many nuts, some more vicious than the dictator they toppled.
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Russia? The president misread it, which would only have been a mistake, if a serious one, if it hadn't been for his snotty high-handedness toward those who'd made warnings.
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He misjudged public reaction to the Snowden revelations, did not understand Americans were increasingly alarmed about privacy and the government.
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Does Benghazi look to you like it's going away? Was the IRS's reputation buttressed by his claims that there wasn't a "smidgen of corruption" within it, or was its reputation ruined by its stonewalling?
How could this be? Big Guy has a gift; his golden teleprompter tongue and he’s been more than willing to share it with us:
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In his handling of the Islamic State the president has been slow to act, slow to move, inconsistent in his statements, unpersuasive, uninspiring.
Along with the rest of us Peggy even wonders out loud why BO insists on calling ISIS “ISIL”
- The world calls it ISIS or Islamic State. Why does he need a separate language? How does that help?
When in doubt, always invent your own language; that way nobody will know exactly what you’re talking about.
So thanks, Peggy, for your insightful analysis explaining why Barry’s popularity polls have taken a hit lately. And thanks for lending your “discernment, instinct, the ability to see the big picture:”
Mr. Obama can see the trees, name their genus and species, judge their age and describe their color. He absorbs data. But he consistently misses the shape, size and density of the forest. His recitations of data are really a faux sophistication that suggests command of the subject but misses the heart of the matter.
That, too, could describe just as well the fawning press and historians that speak so highly of Barry.
So, there we are; a few more people coming out of their stupor with each passing phony scandal. They’re going to need some therapy to get through this, and I think I’ve got just the thing. Tune in tomorrow for my patented Post Obama Syndrome - P.O.S. – Therapy Session. We all need it.
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Cross-Posted on Patriot Action Network