Peggy Noonan was a Republican speech writer … then she jumped on the Hope & Change train … then she fell out of love with O … then the Tucson speech reignited her enthusiasm … then came the State of the Union.
Here a few of the notable quips from her WSJ op-ed …
I hate writing this. I wanted to write “A Serious Man Seizes the Center.” But President Obama was not serious and he didn’t seize the center, he went straight for the mush.
It is a strange and confounding thing about this White House that the moment you finally think they have their act together — the moment they get in the groove and start to demonstrate that they do have some understanding of our country — they take the very next opportunity to prove anew that they do not have their act together, and are not in the groove. It’s almost magical.
Rhetorically the speech lay there like a lox, as if the document itself knew it was dishonest, felt embarrassed, and wanted to curl up quietly in a corner of the podium and hide. But the president insisted on reading it.
The President continues not to comprehend America’s central anxiety about government spending: that it will crush our children, constrict the economy in which they operate, make America poorer, lower its standing in the world, and do in the American dream.
We’ll focus on “greater Internet access,” “renewable energy,” “one million electric vehicles on the road by 2015,” “wind and solar,” “information technology.” “Within 25 years, our goal is to give 80% of Americans access to high-speed rail.” The administration continues to struggle with the concept of priorities. They are like people who’d say, “Martha, the house is on fire and flames are licking down the stairs—let’s discuss what color to repaint the living room after we rebuild!” A better priority might be, “Get the kids out and call the fire department.”
The president will limit the cost of government by whipping it into shape and removing redundant agencies. Really? He hasn’t shown much interest in that before. He has shown no general ideological sympathy for the idea of shrinking and streamlining government. He’s going to rationalize government?
On education, the president announced we’re lagging behind in our public schools. Who knew? In this age of “Waiting for Superman” and “The Lottery,” every adult in America admits that union rules are the biggest impediment to progress. “Race to the Top” isn’t the answer. We all know this.
There is often about the president an air of delivering a sincere lecture in which he informs us of things that seem new to him but are old to everyone else. He has a tendency to present banalities as if they were discoveries. “American innovation” is important. As many as “a quarter of our students aren’t even finishing high school.” We’re falling behind in math and science: “Think about it.” Yes, well, all we’ve done is think about it.
When you talk this way, as if the audience is uninformed, they think you are uninformed. Leaders must know what’s in the national information bank.
He too often in making a case puts the focus on himself. George H.W. Bush, always afraid of sounding egotistical, took the I’s out of his speeches. We called his edits “I-ectomies.” Mr. Obama always seems to put the I in. He does “I implants.”
The president made a semi-humorous reference to TSA pat-downs, but his government is in charge of and insists on the invasive new procedures, to which the president has never been and will never be subjected. So it’s not funny coming from him.
WSJ, An Unserious Speech Misses the Mark, Jan. 27, 2011
The Homa Files 
March 19, 2011 at 2:10 am |
You are incorrect. Peggy is paid by WSJ to write nasty things about BO.