Another great article by Peggy Noonan. As a side note, Ms. noon will participate in the Robert Morris University Speaker's Series this fall in Pittsburgh. I a hoping I can score tickets.
A couple of my favorite excerpts:
There is a growing meme that Mr. Obama is too impressed by credentialism, by the meritocracy, by those who hold forth in the faculty lounge, and too strongly identifies with them. He should be more impressed by those with real-world experience. It was the "small people" in the shrimp boats who laid the boom.
There is still a sense about Mr. Obama that he needs George W. Bush in order to give his presidency full shape and meaning. In this he is like Jimmy Carter, who needed Richard Nixon, or rather the Watergate scandal, which made him president. Mr. Carter needed Richard Nixon standing in the corner looking like he'd spent the night sleeping in his suit as it hangs in the closet. The image is from Joe McGinnis's "The Selling of the President, 1968." Mr. Carter needed to be able to point at Nixon and say, "I'm not him. He dirty, me clean. You hate him, like me." Carter's presidency was given coherence and meaning by Nixon, Watergate, and without it that presidency seemed formless. Mr. Obama, in the same way, needs Mr. Bush standing in the corner like Boo Radley, saying "Let's invade something!" But Mr. Bush is wisely back home in Texas finishing a book, and the president never sounds weaker than when he suggests his predicament is all his predecessor's fault.
I think Ms. Noonan article highlights the effect of this ineptitude on the view of mainstream media and those just left of center. The complete lack of executive experience of any kind whatsoever has never been more evident during his presidency than during this crisis. Anyone who has ever managed a project knows at the very least the President should be meeting weekly with the governors of the stats who have been impacted to find out what they need and how he can help them. He coud accept the offers of foreign assistance, like that offered by the Dutch, by wiaving the Jones Act. He could do things like make sure that red tape does not stand in the way of oil vacuums being grounded while the Coast Guard counts life jackets or waiting weeks on end to only approve 2 of the requested barrier island rebuilding that Governor Bobby Jindal requested. His leadership has been absent. Cursing in a TV interview only shows that he thinks he is Patton when he is more like Carter.Perhaps worst of all, instead of problem-solving, he has devoted his energy to pushing his ridiculou National Energy Tax (Cap and trade) which will only further damage our weak economy.
