Try a Little Tenderness (Noonan on Obama)

Wall Street Journal ^ | 22 Feb 08 | Peggy Noonan

[Robbin]

His problem was, is, his wife's words, not his, the speech in which she said that for the first time in her adult life she is proud of her country, because Obama is winning. She later repeated it, then tried to explain it, saying of course she loves her country. But damage was done. Why? Because her statement focused attention on what I suspect are some basic and elementary questions that were starting to bubble out there anyway.

* * *

Here are a few of them.

Are the Obamas, at bottom, snobs? Do they understand America? Are they of it? Did anyone at their Ivy League universities school them in why one should love America? Do they confuse patriotism with nationalism, or nativism? Are they more inspired by abstractions like "international justice" than by old visions of America as the city on a hill, which is how John Winthrop saw it, and Ronald Reagan and JFK spoke of it?

Have they been, throughout their adulthood, so pampered and praised--so raised in the liberal cocoon--that they are essentially unaware of what and how normal Americans think? And are they, in this, like those cosseted yuppies, the Clintons?

[Robbin]

This is the best article I've ever seen Noonan write, Well worth reading the whole thing! GREAT READ!

[stockstrader]

Peggy really nailed this one. Obama and his wife are card-carrying members of the snooty ‘liberal elite’—exactly the types that have absolutely no clue about the real world.

[AngelesCrestHighway]

Products of the liberal cocoon....that fits very well!

[Greg F]

Barack Obama's biggest draw is not his eloquence. When you watch an Obama speech, you lean forward and listen and think, That's good. He's compelling, I like the way he speaks. And afterward all the commentators call him "impossibly eloquent" and say "he gave me thrills and chills." But, in fact, when you go on the Internet and get a transcript of the speech and print it out and read it--that is, when you remove Mr. Obama from the words and take them on their own--you see the speech wasn't all that interesting, and was in fact high-class boilerplate

This is true! There was a 1950's comedian/variety show guy that used to give deadpan readings of rock-and-roll lyrics. It was hilarious. Could be funny Doug to get someone with good deadpan humor to flatly read an Obama speech on youtube.

[bicyclerepair]

I thought it was pure fluff.

[Enchante]

Are the Obamas, at bottom, snobs?

YES

Do they understand America? Are they of it?

NO and NO

Did anyone at their Ivy League universities school them in why one should love America?

WHAT, ARE YOU JOKING PEGGY?? DO YOU THINK THAT’S ANY PART OF AN “ELITE” EDUCATION NOWADAYS???? BE SERIOUS.....

Do they confuse patriotism with nationalism, or nativism?

YES OF COURSE THEY DO - IN THEIR EYES IT’S ALL BAD — JUST LIKE THE MILITARY MEN AND WOMEN THEY DEEPLY DESPISE, NO MATTER WHAT THEIR PUBLIC PRETENCE

Are they more inspired by abstractions like “international justice” than by old visions of America as the city on a hill, which is how John Winthrop saw it, and Ronald Reagan and JFK spoke of it?

YES OF COURSE, AND THEIR NOTION OF “INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE” IS MASSIVE FORCIBLE RE-DISTRIBUTION FROM THE “HAVES” OF THE USA TO 3RD WORLD HELLHOLES, WHICH REALLY MEANS ENRICHING THE “HAVES” OF CORRUPT 3RD WORLD HELLHOLES.

Have they been, throughout their adulthood, so pampered and praised—so raised in the liberal cocoon—that they are essentially unaware of what and how normal Americans think?

YES, OBVIOUSLY, DO WE EVEN NEED TO ANSWER THE QUESTION?

And are they, in this, like those cosseted yuppies, the Clintons?

YES, THE OBAMA HUSSEINS AND THE CLINTONISTAS ARE SPOILED ARROGANT ANTI-AMERICAN ELITIST SNOBS. THANK YOU.

[Atlas Sneezed]

“I wonder if she (Michelle Obama) knows that some people look at her and think ‘Man, she got it all.’ Intelligent, strong, tall, beautiful, Princeton, Harvard, black at a time when America was trying to make up for its sins and be helpful, and from a working-class family with two functioning parents who made sure she got to school.”

[Nervous Tick]

>> This is the best article I’ve ever seen Noonan write

I don’t know about “best”, but it IS darn good.

“If America’s leaders don’t love America tenderly, who will?”

That might become my new tag line after the TX primary...

[gleeaikin]

That’s the great divide in modern America, whether or not you had a functioning family,”

While the article speaks of the Obamas as privileged, and the Clinton’s as cosseted liberals, if I recall correctly, both Bill and Barack were absent a father quite a bit, with their working mothers the primary influence in their lives. Whether or not you agree with their politics, they did have both struggle and heartland in their background.

[y6162]

The Obambi’s are worse than the products of the liberal cocoon. They are products of the Affirmative Action Entitlement Syndrome.

[freespirited]

Michelle Obama seems keenly aware of her struggles, of what it took to rise so high as a black woman in a white country.

Was her adult life truly filled with struggles? Or was it more like one door after another opening before her eyes? Whatever the answer, Michelle seems convinced that her struggles were so much greater than that of other people, when the evidence for this is entirely unconvincing.

[x]

You raise an interesting point. I don’t think it’s so much the “two tribes” or “us against them” conflict that’s important. It’s more whether electing one of these people would be good for the US. It wouldn’t.

[Greg F]

Had someone point out that the comedian was Steve Allen.

[Obadiah]

Noonan nailed every word of this one, every word.

[Kimmers]

Agreed......maybe everytime I saw the Obama’s in the media one word always came to mind, haughty.......

[BackInBlack]

What evidence, direct or indirect, do you have that Obama rose the ranks due to affirmative action? He is a liberal, and for that reason he is to be opposed, but he is by all accounts an intellectually brilliant one.

[y6162]

Ohhh please....want evidence? Michelle claims that people told her that she didn’t have the grades to attend Ivy league schools yet she was admitted to Princeton and Harvard. What mechanism made that happen?

Obambi apparently was abandoned by both his father and mother, raised by his white grandparents. How did he afford an Ivy league education? Hmmm?

[pierrem15]

That's the great divide in modern America, whether or not you had a functioning family, and she apparently came from the privileged part of that divide. A lot of white working-class Americans didn't come up with those things. Some of them were raised by a TV and a microwave and love our country anyway, every day.

And, I would add, go on to serve their country with distinction, work crappy and poorly paying jobs, yet raise their families without whining or asking for a handout.

[Argus]

There was a 1950's comedian/variety show guy that used to give deadpan readings of rock-and-roll lyrics.

Steve Allen. He had another hilarious bit where he'd read angry letters to the NY Daily News while whipping himself into a frenzy, chewing on his hat, etc.

[Cicero]

Yes, a good article, but like most of what Noonan writes it’s too fluffy and soft.

She doesn’t really even BEGIN to indicate what kind of problems these two people represent for our country if they are elected. Yes, not many have mentioned it, but if Obama is elected we’ll get another “two for the price of one.”

Yes, Peggy sort of hints at the problem with this America-haters, but she certainly doesn’t nail it. Why not? Because attacking a black couple as they deserve is a pretty thankless job. She’s afraid to really hit home, because she might be punished for speaking the truth.