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PrintJanuary 30, 2011
What's wrong with Peggy Noonan?
Peggy Noonan's latest article, entitled An Unserious Speech Misses the Mark , expressed disappointment in President Obama's recent State of the Union address. Noonan is surprised and unhappy that Barack Obama is not focused on spending cuts, appears timid, is off-point by prioritizing electric cars and internet access, and is generally not credible.
Whether naiveté or denial, Noonan's refusal to recognize Barack Obama's ideological intransigence is unbelievable. By all means, hope is a virtue, but it must be tempered with wisdom. Noonan is unwise and begging to be lied to, as long as those lies are less obvious and better spun than those told by the President last Tuesday evening.
Noonan bullet pointed her article into major sections, which sections highlight well her lack of critical seriousness.
Noonan's first letdown was that Barack Obama did not focus on serious spending cuts, instead offering a laughable spending "freeze." It is news to almost no one but Peggy Noonan that the President's ideology is big government spending. One word: Obamacare (total cost, $2.3 trillion). For Barack Obama to have attacked spending would have been ideological suicide and there is no inkling that he would perform such a charitable act.
Second, Noonan can't understand why Obama and the Democrats will not assume the risk of leadership, demand action and grab our very real fiscal crisis by the horns. Count me unsurprised. Whether the topic is Toyota brakes, financial volatility or income disparity, the Obama administration has proven time and time again that his is the party of risk aversion.
Third, Noonan suggests that the administration is "struggling" with priorities. She is flabbergasted that Obama could have his priorities so inverted as to be focused on internet access, renewable energy, electric vehicles, wind and solar and information technology; instead of our fiscal and economic health. Back door cap and trade, ethanol subsidies and the job-killing de facto drilling moratorium clearly show that Obama has his priorities just where he wants them. Peggy, where have you been?
Fourth, Noonan finds that the President is not believable. You don't say. President Obama lied about Citizens United, C-span's airing of healthcare debates, pending legislation appearing on the internet, Guantanamo being closed in a year, an end to earmarks, experts recommending the drilling moratorium, no public funding of abortion and his record of funding AIDs research. How could his recent speech been anything but completely factual and in good faith?
Like a battered spouse, a moderate hoping for rational behavior from Barack Obama should expect disappointment. There is no such realism in Noonan' words. Her column implies that high expectations of the SOTU speech were justified, when in fact all prior evidence suggests just the opposite.
