President Obama Is Embarrassing Peggy Noonan
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Peggy Noonan’s WSJ column this week is utterly brilliant in so far as, had President Obama at the last minute decided to stick with his plan to visit to Australia and Indonesia she would have only had to change a few words and voila! She could still make her point. Which is: the President is a failure and he is embarrassing her. A lose-lose for Obama is merely a win-win for columnists! Also, he’s being mean to Australia.
Excuse me, but it is embarrassing—really, embarrassing to our country—that the president of the United States has again put off a state visit to Australia and Indonesia because he’s having trouble passing a piece of domestic legislation he’s been promising for a year will be passed next week. What an air of chaos this signals to the world. And to do this to Australia of all countries, a nation that has always had America’s back and been America’s friend.
Poor Australia! Who knew. Now just imagine how much more excoriating that opener would have been had Obama decided to leave for a state visit in the middle of this health care vote! Noonan also weighs in on Obama’s Fox interview with Bret Baier. Showing no fear of the hyperbolic, she described the 17 minute sit down as “the most revealing and important broadcast interview of Barack Obama ever.” Ever!
It revealed his primary weakness in speaking of health care, which is a tendency to dodge, obfuscate and mislead. He grows testy when challenged. It revealed what the president doesn’t want revealed, which is that he doesn’t want to reveal much about his plan. This furtiveness is not helpful in a time of high public anxiety. At any rate, the interview was what such interviews rarely are, a public service. That it occurred at a high-stakes time, with so much on the line, only made it more electric.
Short version: This was the Couric/Palin equivalent of presidential interviews. Which is overstating it slightly, I think, though the interruption factor was certainly tailor made for SNL. The larger question, of course, is what will we talk about after Sunday?
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14 comments
Once again a Mediaite column reads like it was written for a Daily Kos obama fanboy/fangirl crush site. Pretty boring Glynnis…
You left out some of the best parts of Peggy’s article:
Mr. Baier pressed on the public’s right to know what is in the bill. We have been debating the bill for a year, the president responded: “The notion that this has been not transparent, that people don’t know what’s in the bill, everybody knows what’s in the bill. I sat for seven hours with—.”
Mr. Baier interrupts: “Mr. President, you couldn’t tell me what the special deals are that are in or not today.”
Mr. Obama: “I just told you what was in and what was not in.”
Mr. Baier: “Is Connecticut in?” He was referring to the blandishments—polite word—meant to buy the votes of particular senators.
Mr. Obama: “Connecticut—what are you specifically referring to?”
Mr. Baier: “The $100 million for the hospital? Is Montana in for the asbestos program? Is—you know, listen, there are people—this is real money, people are worried about this stuff.”
Mr. Obama: “And as I said before, this—the final provisions are going to be posted for many days before this thing passes.”
That’s awfully damning stuff! Obama is supposed to be the smartest person in the history of the world or something like that according to the Left. But he doesn’t even know what the Connecticut deal is (let alone whether it’s still in the bill)! I bet 95% of the readers of this website know what it is.
Gynnis, I totally agree that this will be a classic SNL skit where a reporter constantly interrupts the President of the US. We can expect some fun from this. Can’t you just see SNL taking the premise of the (not knowing the specifics!!!!! gasp) CT deal and asking him other questions (and interrupting of course) about absolutely piddly squat details that no one really gives a crap about and then berating him for not knowing?
Mr. President!! Are you telling me you do not know how many paragraphs are in this document? I know you don’t want to get down into the policy “weeds”, so to speak, but surely you must be a dimwit not to know that!
sueNaustin:
The country does care. The dems have 59 votes in the Senate (it was 60 until January) and 255 votes in the House, yet they weren’t able to pass this stinker of a bill for the last 14 months without resorting to the moral equivalent of bribery of their own members. Let’s not forget, the Republicans are, and have been, completely irrelevant to this vote; the Democrats need only convince their own people that it’s worthwhile–AND THEY CAN’T DO IT. That’s a substantive problem, not “piddly squat details.” Indeed, the MOST LIBERAL STATE IN THE UNION voted for a republican to replace Ted Kennedy as a direct and proximate result of such corrupt deals.
Glynnis MacNicol’s column is utterly brilliant in so far as, had Peggy Noonan decided to write about President Obama visiting Australia and Indonesia in a time of domestic policy meltdown, she would have only had to change a few words and voila! She could still make her point.
The Brett Baier interview with Obama will go down as one of the most important interviews of the Obama Presidency.
For the first time, a journalist has had the balls to actually ask hard hitting questions of this President.
Obama has had a pass from the press for his entire life. In fact, they never asked him about his life. They took his books as gospel.
So what did we find out from this interview? This guy folds under pressure and can’t deliver the answers just like he can’t deliver the goods. The jokes about the teleprompter all seem to be true.
Has anyone noticed that Obama has not had a primetime presser in months? Where is the cool collected “No Drama Obama?”
His approval numbers are plummeting because more and more Independents, Democrats and of course Republicans, see that this guy is indeed an empty suit and realize they were duped in the 2008 election. This interview just seemed to confirm what they already felt.
If other journalists only did their jobs and asked hard hitting questions of Obama, the truth would have surfaced earlier. Now they can only get the run around from Robert Gibbs.
Does anyone think Obama will ever appear on FNC again and pitched “hardball” questions or will he appear on the program “Hard Ball” and get pitched softball questions only to be applauded for giving talking point answers?
Will journalism have a re-birth in 2010?
That can only happen when the MSM decides to take their collective lips off the Presidential ass!
Kudos to Brett Baier!
Oh and as far as the Australia state visit……..This is very much in keeping with Obama foreign policy: Diss your allies embrace your enemies.
My take on Noonan’s article:
http://www.anonymousfinch.com/2010/03/19/shame-on-peggy-noonan-glenn-beck-is-crazy-jokes-are-the-new-george-bush-is-dumb-jokes/
Memo to SNL, for true comic brilliance set the interrupt piece side-by-side with the tongue bath Brett gave Bush.
Surprise, surprise, the doyen of Washington Insiders disapproves of another Democratic President, consistent and persistent Republican failures notwithstanding.
The President loves to filibuster and Brett only had fifteen minutes. Brett was perfectly within his right to badger Obama. Good God, look at the ‘fawning’ Brian Williams (et al) do over Obama. SOMEONE has to stand up to the guy. Thankfully there’s only one cable channel with the seeds to do it. All the others are a bunch of limp-wrists.
Memo to Mediaite: SNL is a rerun this week.
It is so sad that Ronald Reagan ever gave this dimwit a job. She thinks Glenn Beck is insane, she needs to check herself into a clinic.
Mediaite is starting to turn me off. The writing is childish.
Well for all the badgering that Baier has received it has to be clear by now that he revealed a lot of the disingenuous posturing we have had on this legislation by the President. Here he was, just this week, declaring the bill was going to be posted days ahead so everyone can read it. They are
deemingvoting on the bill this Sunday — so where is it? The tranparency is as clear as a mudslide.Even the most devout disciple of “Teh One” would have to admit (in private of course) the guy hasn’t answered a question with a real answer since the day he took office in the Senate. I admire his ability to segue away from everything asked, but come on, just admit it boys and girls, he’s an empty suit full of “hope-n-change” rhetoric,
There just ain’t no substance to be had.
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