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Football coach Joe Paterno and other Penn State officials didn't do enough to try to stop suspected sexual abuse of children at the hands of a former assistant football coach, the state police commissioner said Monday. Paterno may have fulfilled his legal requirement to report suspected abuse by former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, state police Commissioner Frank Noonan said, "but somebody has to question about what I would consider the moral requirements for a human being that knows of sexual things that are taking place with a child." He added: "I think you have the moral responsibility, anyone. Not...

I can’t shake the feeling that this column might not be well received by the base. She’s referring, of course, to his comments about Bernanke’s near-treason and offhand musings about secession: Mr. Perry’s primary virtue for the Republican base is that he means it. He comes across as a natural conservative, Texas Division, who won’t be changing his mind about his basic premises any time soon. His professed views don’t seem to be an outfit he can put on and take off at will. In this of course he’s the anti-Romney. Unlike Ms. Bachmann, he has executive experience, three terms...

The phrase of the day is "new lows." It blares from every screen. The number of Americans satisfied with the ways things are going hits new lows—11%. President Obama's popularity: new lows. The Dow Jones Industrial Average this year: new lows. Maybe it will enter ordinary language. "Charlie, it's been ages. How are you, how's Betty?" "I'm experiencing some volatility, but she's inching toward new lows." The market is dispirited. I'm wondering if the president is, too, and if that won't carry implications for the 2012 race. You can imagine him having lunch with political advisers, hearing some unwanted advice—"Don't...

What we've got here is far worse than a failure to communicate. There was drama at the White House this week when a man tried to hurl himself over the fence. But the Secret Service intervened and talked the president into going back inside and finishing his term. That's from Conan O'Brien's monologue the other night. It captures the moment pretty well. Mr. Obama's poll numbers continue to fall, his position in the battleground states to deteriorate. From Politico: "Obama emerges from the months-long [debt ceiling] fracas weaker—and facing much deeper and more durable political obstacles—than his own advisers ever...

Yesterday, I pushed back on the bothersome Beltway meme that President Obama is invisible in this epic fight over raising the debt ceiling. Today, I want to dispute Peggy Noonan’s assertion that “nobody loves Obama.” Her opinion piece is all the more noteworthy for calling the president “a loser.” There are many legitimate criticisms you could level against Obama, particularly about his governing style or his personality. But calling him a “loser” was uncalled for. The notion that “nobody loves Obama” is something Noonan says she’s “never seen in national politics.” She goes on to write: This is amazing...

But that actually is not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about something that started to become apparent to me during the debt negotiations. It's something I've never seen in national politics. It is that nobody loves Obama. This is amazing because every president has people who love him, who feel deep personal affection or connection, who have a stubborn, even beautiful refusal to let what they know are just criticisms affect their feelings of regard. At the height of Bill Clinton's troubles there were always people who'd say, "Look, I love the guy." They'd often...

One of my favorite columnists in existence, Peggy Noonan, had a great piece today on how Obama owes the country an explanation of his actions in Libya. As usual she is spot on. It's not like we're asking him to solve any problems, we just want him to give us an explanation. You'd think he'd treat that like we just asked him to celebrate pre-Christmas. He gets a script, a teleprompter, he doesn't have to answer any questions, and he'll speak from his desk, so doesn't even have to change out of his golf shorts! But no, we wake...

One idea he should embrace: a ban on extended ammo clips. The State of the Union Address is usually among the most important and least memorable of presidential speeches. The speech itself, in an august setting, is an opportunity for a president to break through in a new way. TV and radio carry it live, and it's hard for the average citizen to avoid seeing at least a piece of it. It's a real chance for a White House to tell the American people "This is where we stand, this is why we are here, this is what we believe...

US aircraft history buffs are hopeful that tiny bones along with artefacts from the 1930s found on a remote Pacific island may reveal the fate of pioneering aviator Amelia Earhart. In one of aviation's most enduring mysteries, Earhart took off from Lae, in what is now Papua New Guinea, while attempting to circumnavigate the globe via the equator in 1937 and was never seen again. A massive search at the time failed to find the flyer and her navigator Fred Noonan, who were assumed to have died after ditching their Lockheed Electra aircraft in the ocean, according to the Amelia...

We have not in our lifetimes seen a president in this position. He spent his first year losing the center, which elected him, and his second losing his base, which is supposed to provide his troops. There isn't much left to lose! Which may explain Tuesday's press conference. President Obama was supposed to be announcing an important compromise, as he put it, on tax policy. Normally a president, having agreed with the opposition on something big, would go through certain expected motions. He would laud the specific virtues of the plan, show graciousness toward the negotiators on the other side—graciousness...

Obama's Gifts to the GOP Republicans own the political center for now. Not because they deserve it. Democrats are down, and sniping at each other. That's the way it goes when parties lose. What's interesting is the mood this week among Republicans on the ground. It's not triumphal. They all seem to have in the back of their minds a question: Is this election the beginning of the big turnaround? Is this when the GOP comes to the fore as its best self and soberly, shrewdly pursues policies that will help dig our country out of the mess? Or will...

We can't say we weren't warned. But honestly, I thought the attacks from elite Republicans would be more sophisticated. First, the cartoonish Peggy Noonan, whose breathtakingly misplaced sense of self-importance is matched only by the volume of incoherent hot gas which hisses from her lips (or keyboard), attacks Governor Palin by...calling her a nincompoop. Her evidence? Well, actually she doesn't have any. But that's not surprising since name calling is a tactic one resorts to when they don't have an argument, or the intellectual capacity to make one. In a hilarious bit of irony, Noonan entitled her piece "Americans Vote...

'The people have spoken, the bastards." That would be how Democrats in the White House and on Capitol Hill are feeling. The last two years of their leadership have been rebuffed. The question for the Democratic Party: Was it worth it? Was it worth following the president and the speaker in their mad pursuit of liberal legislation that the country would not, could not, like? And what will you do now? Which path will you take? The Republicans saw their own establishment firmly, sharply put down. The question for them: What will you do to show yourselves worthy of the...

'The people have spoken, the bastards." That would be how Democrats in the White House and on Capitol Hill are feeling. The last two years of their leadership have been rebuffed. The question for the Democratic Party: Was it worth it? Was it worth following the president and the speaker in their mad pursuit of liberal legislation the country would not, could not, like? And what will you do now? Which path will you take? The Republicans saw their own establishment firmly, sharply put down. The question for them: What will you do to show yourselves worthy of the bounty?...

Federal appellate judge John T. Noonan Jr. interogated federal prosecutors today in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and questioned the government's claim and the district court ruling that parts of Arizona's immigration enforcement law preempted federal law. "I've read your brief, I've read the District Court opinion, I've heard your interchange with my two colleagues, and I don't understand your argument," judge Noonan said during today's arguments. "We are dependent as a court on counsel being responsive. . . . You keep saying the problem is that a state officer is told to do something. That's not a matter...

On a recent trip to Omaha, Neb., I found a note prominently displayed in my hotel room warning of the possibility of "extreme weather" including "tornadic activity." The clunky euphemism was no doubt meant to soften or obscure what they were obliged to communicate: There may be a tornado, look out. That's what's going on nationally. Tornadoes are tearing up the political landscape.

All anyone in America who cares about politics was talking about this week was the searing encounter that captured, in a way that hasn't been done before, the essence of the political moment we're in. When 2010 is reviewed, it will be the clip the producers pick to illustrate the president's disastrous fall. It is Monday, Sept. 20, the middle of the day, in Washington. CNBC is holding a town hall for the president. A woman stands—handsome, dignified, black, a person with presence. She looks as if she may be what she turns out to be, an Obama supporter who...

This fact marks our political age: The pendulum is swinging faster and in shorter arcs than it ever has in our lifetimes. Few foresaw the earthquake of 2008 in 2006. No board-certified political professional predicted, on Election Day 2008, what happened in 2009-10 (New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts) and has been happening, and will happen, since then. It all moves so quickly now, it all turns on a dime. But at this moment we are witnessing a shift that will likely have some enduring political impact. Another way of saying that: The past few years, a lot of people in...

All presidents take vacations, and all are criticized for it. It's never the right place, the right time. Ronald Reagan went to the ranch, George W. Bush to Crawford, both got knocked. Bill Clinton even poll-tested a vacation site and still was criticized. But Martha's Vineyard—elite, upscale—can't have done President Obama any good, especially following the first lady's foray in Spain. The general feeling this week was summed up by David Letterman: "He'll have plenty of time for vacations when his one term is up. Plenty of time."

All presidents take vacations, and all are criticized for it. It's never the right place, the right time. Ronald Reagan went to the ranch, George W. Bush to Crawford, both got knocked. Bill Clinton even poll-tested a vacation site and still was criticized. But Martha's Vineyard—elite, upscale—can't have done President Obama any good, especially following the first lady's foray in Spain. The general feeling this week was summed up by David Letterman: "He'll have plenty of time for vacations when his one term is up. Plenty of time." The president's position is not good. The past few months have been...

It's high summer and we're all out there seeing each other. We're not hidden away in our homes and offices as we are in winter's cold. We're part of a crowd—on the street, in the park, on the boardwalk, on the top deck of the ferry to Saltaire. And we can see in some new or clearer ways how technology is changing us.

And out-of-touch leaders don't see the need to cool things off. It is, obviously, self-referential to quote yourself, but I do it to make a point. I wrote the following on New Year's day, 1994. America 16 years ago was a relatively content nation, though full of political sparks: 10 months later the Republicans would take the House for the first time in 40 years. But beneath all the action was, I thought, a coming unease. Something inside was telling us we were living through "not the placid dawn of a peaceful age but the illusory calm before stern storms."

Even those of us who warned against the "canonization" of Shirley Sherrod didn't expect that right-of-center commentators would propose that her radical manifesto become part of the canon. Yet that's what Peggy Noonan is calling for: " This September, when school begins, we should make [Sherrod's] speech required viewing in the nation's high schools." Gee, can't this wait until February, when Black History Month rolls around? JOHN suggests: Or May Day perhaps, when socialist views are traditionally celebrated?

She was smeared by right-wing media, condemned by the NAACP, and canned by the Obama administration. It wasn't pretty, what was done this week to Shirley Sherrod. And maybe something good can come of it. The thought occurred to me after reading her now-famous speech, which is about the power of grace and the possibility of redemption. Here's a way to get some good. This September, when school begins, we should make the speech required viewing in the nation's high schools. It packs quite a lesson within quite a story. You know the essential facts. On March 27, Ms. Sherrod,...

The tenderest words in American political history were cut from the document they were to have graced. It was July 1, 2 ,3 and 4, 1776, in the State House in Philadelphia. America was being born. The Continental Congress was reviewing and editing the language of the proposed Declaration of Independence and Thomas Jefferson, its primary author, was suffering the death of a thousand cuts. The tensions over slavery had been wrenching, terrible, and were resolved by brute calculation: to damn or outlaw it now would break fragile consensus, halt all momentum, and stop the creation of the United States....

"It was the 'small people' in the shrimp boats who laid the boom" -Peggy Noonan

You know, folks like Noonan and Mort Zuckerman whining about Obama, after they praised him, pushed him, and voted for him in the face of all the evidence that led less besotted observers to see him for the empty suit he was, and is, leave me stone cold. Especially because these are the same snotty jackasses who arrogate to themselves superiority over those of us less “perceptive” folks. Listen up, you punked, chumped boobs: We looked at Obama not through your rose colored hallucinations, but through the cold, clear spectacles of reality.

We Are Totally Unprepared' Nine years after 9/11, a chilling complacency about WMD attacks. By PEGGY NOONAN The most important overlooked story of the past few weeks was overlooked because it was not surprising. Also because no one really wants to notice it. The weight of 9/11 and all its implications is so much on our minds that it's never on our mind. I speak of the report from the Inspector General of the Justice Department, issued in late May, saying the department is not prepared to ensure public safety in the days or weeks after a terrorist attack in...

Peggy Noonan supported and backed the presidency of Barry Hussein Soetoro during his campaign for the office and early on into his presidency. Actually it was worse than that Noonan was a certified Obama Girl. She loved her some Obama! So imagine my surprise when I see in her article, “He was supposed to be Competent” a less than favorable critique of the man whom she claimed would be good for America. (see article) The president, in my view, continues to govern in a way that suggests he is chronically detached from the central and immediate concerns of his countrymen....

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.

I am happy to see that my friend Peggy Noonan has graduated from being the star-struck cheerleader of Obama to joinging the ranks of the disillusioned.  Back in the summer of 2008, when much of the country was swooning over The One We’ve Been Waiting for For (remember that?), Peggy was enthusiastically outlining the case for Barack Hussein Obama in The Wall Street Journal: 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...

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...

Dr. John Haas and Peggy Noonan. Philadelphia, Pa., Apr 19, 2010 / 08:58 pm (CNA).- In response to a Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Peggy Noonan in which she criticized the Catholic Church for the “second wave” of sex scandals and charged that the “old Vatican needs new blood,” one critic is saying that Noonan should “applaud” the Church for reforms instead of criticizing it.Noonan's April 17 Wall Street Journal opinion column claimed that the latest sex abuse scandals surrounding the Church have appeared to settle down and that the Vatican is likely thinking that the “worst is over.” Noonan then argued that...

There is an interesting and very modern thing that often happens when individuals join and rise within mighty and venerable institutions. They come to think of the institution as invulnerable—to think that there is nothing they can do to really damage it, that the big, strong, proud establishment they're part of can take any amount of abuse, that it doesn't require from its members an attitude of protectiveness because it's so strong, and has lasted so long. And so people become blithely damaging...

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. How bush league, how undisciplined, how kid's stuff.

On the road to Demon Pass, our leader encounters a Baier. 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. How bush league, how undisciplined, how kid's stuff. You could...

From Obama lover to this?The New York Times today adds yet another installment in my series "what went wrong" with the Obama presidency by focusing the blame on chief strategist David Axelrod. Good old David, who just loves Obama a little too much is under fire for not doing a better job directing the President. Axelrod's response was combative and so typical of the denial of reality which grips the Obama White House: In an interview in his office, Mr. Axelrod was often defiant, saying he did not give a “flying” expletive “about what the peanut gallery thinks” and did...

It is now exactly a year since President Obama unveiled his health care push and his decision to devote his inaugural year to it—his branding year, his first, vivid year. What a disaster it has been. At best it was a waste of history’s time, a struggle that will not in the end yield something big and helpful but will in fact make future progress more difficult. At worst it may... --snip-- Does anyone believe this? Does anyone who knows the ways of government, the compulsions of Congress, and how history has played out in the past, believe this? Even...

There is, I think, an amazing political fact right now that is hiding in plain sight and is rich with implications. It was there in President Obama's Jan. 25, pre-State of the Union interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer, who was pressing him about his political predicaments. "I'd rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president," he said. "And I—and I believe that." Now this is the sort of thing presidents say, and often believe they believe, but at the end of the day they all want two terms. Except that Mr. Obama shows every sign of...

Cannon to the left of him, cannon to the right of him, cannon in front of him volley and thunder. That's our president's position on the political battlefield now, taking it from all sides. And the odd thing, the unique thing in terms of modern political history, is that no one really defends him, no one holds high his flag. When was the last time you put on the radio or TV and heard someone say "Open line Friday—we're talking about what it is we like best about Barack Obama!" When did you last see a cable talking head say,...

From journalist Elizabeth Drew, a veteran and often sympathetic chronicler of Democratic figures, a fiery denunciation of—and warning for—the White House. In a piece in Politico on the firing of White House counsel Greg Craig, Ms. Drew reports that while the president was in Asia last week, "a critical mass of influential people who once held big hopes for his presidency began to wonder whether they had misjudged the man." They once held "an unromantically high opinion of Obama," and were key to his rise, but now they are concluding that the president isn't "the person of integrity or even...

This week, two points in an emerging pointillist picture of a White House leaking support—not the support of voters, though polls there show steady decline, but in two core constituencies, Washington's Democratic-journalistic establishment, and what might still be called the foreign-policy establishment. From journalist Elizabeth Drew, a veteran and often sympathetic chronicler of Democratic figures, a fiery denunciation of—and warning for—the White House. In a piece in Politico on the firing of White House counsel Greg Craig, Ms. Drew reports that while the president was in Asia last week, "a critical mass of influential people who once held big hopes...

This week, two points in an emerging pointillist picture of a White House leaking support—not the support of voters, though polls there show steady decline, but in two core constituencies, Washington's Democratic-journalistic establishment, and what might still be called the foreign-policy establishment. From journalist Elizabeth Drew, a veteran and often sympathetic chronicler of Democratic figures, a fiery denunciation of—and warning for—the White House. In a piece in Politico on the firing of White House counsel Greg Craig, Ms. Drew reports that while the president was in Asia last week, "a critical mass of influential people who once held big hopes...

This week, two points in an emerging pointillist picture of a White House leaking support—not the support of voters, though polls there show steady decline, but in two core constituencies, Washington's Democratic-journalistic establishment, and what might still be called the foreign-policy establishment. From journalist Elizabeth Drew, a veteran and often sympathetic chronicler of Democratic figures, a fiery denunciation of—and warning for—the White House. In a piece in Politico on the firing of White House counsel Greg Craig, Ms. Drew reports that while the president was in Asia last week, "a critical mass of influential people who once held big hopes...

The president has been taking time thinking about Afghanistan. I cannot see why this is bad. If he's really thinking, he's not dithering—thought can be harder than action, weighing plans as hard as choosing and executing one. A question of such consequence deserves pondering. A president ought to summon and hear counsel before committing or removing American troops.

Americans feel increasingly disheartened, and our leaders don't even notice.___ The new economic statistics put growth at a healthy 3.5% for the third quarter. We should be dancing in the streets. No one is, because no one has any faith in these numbers. Waves of money are sloshing through the system, creating a false rising tide that lifts all boats for the moment. The tide will recede. The boats aren't rising, they're bobbing, and will settle. No one believes the bad time is over. No one thinks we're entering a new age of abundance. No one thinks it will ever...

In response to the NY-23 news, Rush Limbaugh tells me: “Hmmm... I thought the Era of Reagan was over? Who was it that said that? Oh yeah, the smart people on our side who told us the only way we could win was with moderate/liberal candidates like Scozzafava. Hmmm...”

OCTOBER 30, 2009 We're Governed by Callous Children Americans feel increasingly disheartened, and our leaders don't even notice. By PEGGY NOONAN The new economic statistics put growth at a healthy 3.5% for the third quarter. We should be dancing in the streets. No one is, because no one has any faith in these numbers. Waves of money are sloshing through the system, creating a false rising tide that lifts all boats for the moment. The tide will recede. The boats aren't rising, they're bobbing, and will settle. No one believes the bad time is over. No one thinks we're entering...

The new economic statistics put growth at a healthy 3.5% for the third quarter. We should be dancing in the streets. No one is, because no one has any faith in these numbers. ... No one thinks we're entering a new age of abundance. No one thinks it will ever be the same as before 2008. * * * The biggest threat to America right now is not government spending, huge deficits, foreign ownership of our debt, world terrorism, two wars, potential epidemics or nuts with nukes. The biggest long-term threat is that people are becoming and have become disheartened,...

At a certain point, a president must own a presidency. For George W. Bush that point came eight months in, when 9/11 happened. From that point on, the presidency—all his decisions, all the credit and blame for them—was his. The American people didn't hold him responsible for what led up to 9/11, but they held him responsible for everything after it. This is part of the reason the image of him standing on the rubble of the twin towers, bullhorn in hand, on Sept.14, 2001, became an iconic one. It said: I'm owning it. Mr. Bush surely knew from the...