Noonan on Obama

Peggy Noonan has a column in the Wall Street Journal that articulates the devastation that Obama has caused himself.  Some quotes:

"...the president is coming across more and more as a trimmer, as an operator who's not operating in good faith. This is hardening positions and leading to increased political bitterness. And it's his fault, too. As an increase in polarization is a bad thing, it's a big fault."

She itemizes the blunders Obama has made in recent months. In January the mandate that the Catholic Church's agencies would be forced to provide birth control, a concept that goes against the Church's teachings, caused an immediate negative reaction. "Faced with the blowback, the president offered a so-called accommodation that even its supporters recognized as devious. Not ill-advised, devious. Then his operatives flooded the airwaves with dishonest—not wrongheaded, dishonest—charges that those who defend the church's religious liberties are trying to take away your contraceptives."

Then came the open-mic incident with Russian president Medvedev. "When he knew he'd been caught, the president tried to laugh it off by comically covering a mic in a following meeting. It was all so...creepy."

Then there was the shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. Obama's statement, "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon" came across as political grandstanding during a tragedy. Noonan: "At the end of the day, the public reaction seemed to be: "Hey buddy, we don't need you to personalize what is already too dramatic, it's not about you."

"Now this week the Supreme Court arguments on ObamaCare, which have made that law look so hollow, so careless, that it amounts to a characterological indictment of the administration. The constitutional law professor from the University of Chicago didn't notice the centerpiece of his agenda was not constitutional? How did that happen?"

Noonan, always a great writer, outdoes herself with this column.