Peggy Noonan: Raving Idiot of the Week

Peggy once made some decent contributions to her country and to the conservative cause by writing speeches for Ronald Reagan and President Bush Sr. Unfortunately, in her old age, she completely lost any sense of judgement and endorsed 0bama's candidacy for president in 2008. Her Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal on October 31, 2008:

The case for Barack Obama, in broad strokes:
He has within him the possibility to change the direction and tone of American foreign policy, which need changing; his rise will serve as a practical rebuke to the past five years, which need rebuking; his victory would provide a fresh start in a nation in which a fresh start would come as a national relief. He climbed steep stairs, born off the continent with no father to guide, a dreamy, abandoning mother, mixed race, no connections. He rose with guts and gifts. He is steady, calm, and, in terms of the execution of his political ascent, still the primary and almost only area in which his executive abilities can be discerned, he shows good judgment in terms of whom to hire and consult, what steps to take and moves to make. We witnessed from him this year something unique in American politics: He took down a political machine without raising his voice.

What was clear to me and most non-0bama voters at that time was that this was a man who (1) Leaned to the far left, (2) Had connections with some very questionable people: Ayers, Dohrn, Wright, etc, and (3) Had really never done anything other than serve as a 'community activist', run for political office, and make flowery speeches in which he did nothing more than glibly repeat the conventional leftist bromides.

So now Peggy, after observing 0bama in office for 16 months, has concluded he isn't so great after all. In a recent Op-Ed in the same Wall Street Journal:

He Was Supposed to Be Competent
The spill is a disaster for the president and his political philosophy.

I don't see how the president's position and popularity can survive the oil spill. This is his third political disaster in his first 18 months in office. And they were all, as they say, unforced errors, meaning they were shaped by the president's political judgment and instincts.
There was the tearing and unnecessary war over his health-care proposal and its cost. There was his day-to-day indifference to the views and hopes of the majority of voters regarding illegal immigration. And now the past almost 40 days of dodging and dithering in the face of an environmental calamity. I don't see how you politically survive this.

Supposed to be competent, eh Peggy? Based upon what evidence? 0bama has college degrees from the prestigious Columbia and Harvard universities. However, he has refused to release his education records. There is a high probability he was admitted under racist "affirmative action" admission standards.

And its not surprising that his policy choices leave him so far out of the mainstream. Thats exactly how he was talking during the campaign. All his supporters like Peggy were too busy kissing his ass or swooning over his 'gifts and guts' to notice that he was merely a glib marxist with a messiah complex. 0bama actually fell for all the crap that was being spewed about him during the campaign. He really believed that he was someone who could bring about 'change in the direction and tone' without the hard work and intelligence such change requires.

Why does the Wall Street Journal bother keeping Noonan on as an Op-Ed columnist? I have no idea.