Charles Pierce at Esquire tells us today that Wall Street Journal columnist and TV pundit, Peggy of the Noonans, thinks Obama was rude to Dubayew Thursday down at that library opening. She scolds:
He veered into current policy disputes, using Mr. Bush’s failed comprehensive immigration reform to buttress his own effort. That was manipulative, graceless and typical.
Here’s what the fake President said, what Noonan described as ‘graceless’:
Seven years ago, President Bush restarted an important conversation by speaking with the American people about our history as a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. And even though comprehensive immigration reform has taken a little longer than any of us expected, I am hopeful that this year, with the help of Speaker Boehner and some of the senators and members of Congress who are here today, that we bring it home – for our families, and our economy, and our security, and for this incredible country that we love. And if we do that, it will be in large part thanks to the hard work of President George W. Bush.
And there was this:
Back to the point. What was nice was that all of them-the Bush family, the Carters and Clintons-seemed like the old days. “The way we were.” They were full of endurance, stamina, effort. Also flaws, frailty, mess. But they weren’t . . . creepy.
PIERCE: Back when the Clintons actually were in the White House, Peggy Noonan called the First Lady at the time, among other things, “a highly credentialed rube,” a “person who never ponders what is right,” and “a squat and grasping woman.” But not creepy, not like the current First Family.
(Psst, Peg doesn’t like the Kenyan much. And as she’s speaking here in family plurals – FLOTUS and the daughters? Also creepy. )
You can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, or democracy. But you cannot have both.
Whatever Works 
Lol, I am beginning to think that modern conservatism is simply another word for ‘confirmation bias.’
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Hi Daniel: It’s an echo chamber. A narrative of some sort kicks off on Limbaugh or a blog and by nightfall every conservative with a public voice is repeating it. And the audience beleives it. And gets mad. And so it goes.
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I hereby christen her “Peggy Cellophane-skin Noonan” !
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I think she loses sleep whever she witnesses someone using a desert fork for the salad.
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But you know what? I muted the tv when Obama came on. There were such great vibes with Bill and Dubya (whom I like as a person) – and with Barry all you’ll get is arrogance and cold vibes.
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Hey mac: I’m still back and forth on the guy. And he presents so much better in an actual speech than in Q&A environs. Gets himself a bit tangled there.
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That’s true – and I suppose it’s just what you get with Obama, a mixed bag that keeps you going back and forth. But this latest “pack up and go home” and “not my job” presser – seems like he’s mentally dislodging already.
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Also, really like W as a person mac? He has a history of crooked business practices, of letting Daddy’s friends bail him out, of – basically – not doing his homework. And that showed when he let the neo-cons lead him around.
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Yeah “as a person” is a bit risky as a statement. I hate a lot of things he’s done, but he has some charm and is funny sometimes. Like his latest interview about painting and his going on about the colors of the tie of the interviewer.
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Okay, I’ll give you that. He does have a bit of charm, but my disdain for what he did makes it very very hard to see . . .
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Peggy? It’s way past time for you to retire.
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Honestly Elyse, that ‘role’ she plays of deeply thoughtful and concerned “I hate to be negative but” . . . enough!
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Yes. A good substitute for ipekak
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Pow!
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I don’t pay much attention to Noonan due to her being a bit too shrill and venal in my opinion for the venues she works in, but she has a point this time. It was manipulative, graceless and typical of Obama to turn a library opening into a “campaign event.”
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@ jonolan,
At first I thought you were way off the mark, jonolan, to call the president “graceless” for his remarks giving Dubya credit for initiating immigration reform, but you have caused me to revisit the issue. I submit that you got the adjective wrong, What it was was “disingenuous” because the Decider in Chief failed dismally to effect any change whatsoever on the matter within his political party. Everyone there knew that but they applauded anyway.
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I would say that it was both, Jim. I agree with you that it disingenuous in specific and for exactly the reasons you mentioned, not that I think that immigration reform is a good thing unless reform means curtailment. However, irrespective of the body of the comment, turning the library opening into a stump speech to further his own agenda showed an expected and sad lack of grace on Obama’s part.
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Nah, still can’t agree on the “lack of grace”. He was struggling to come up with something that sounded nice and let’s face it, there wasn’t much to work with. This was one of the few issues the two parties once had some agreement on and now even mentioning it gets Obama called graceless. That’s what’s sad.
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Just ask yourself how you’d feel if a future GOP POTUS did the same sort of thing at an event for Obama in his post-Presidential years, then make your objective call on the grace or lack thereof of making political hay out of such an event.
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Look, Bush actually tried to initiate immigration reform. Get that? He tried to do it. I can’t for the life of me see how mentioning that is ungraceful, particularly since the GOP has now begun to make new albeit feeble efforts in the same direction. Your hatred for Obama’s “otherness” is, I submit, blinding you to the reality here.
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I don’t really care what Pres. Bush tried to do, Jim. It was manipulative and graceless Obama to use it as a means of turning a library opening, something celebrating Pres. Bush, into a campaign stump speech for himself. It was also typical of Obama.
And I was wondering how long it take you, lacking any real argument, to try the race card. You do realize that neither I nor any other American care anymore about being called racists or being implied to be racists anymore, don’t you?
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John, ahem, if you will look carefully you will see that I didn’t say one word about race. Not one. 🙄
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The you’re the only one on your side who doesn’t use “otherness” in that fashion when speaking of Obama, Jim.
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Believe it or not, I try not to be ideological in these discussions. Admittedly, not always successful.
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Besides, everyone knows people born in Kenya are different.
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Although I don’t think President Obama should have referenced immigration reform in the way he did, I can’t agree with Peggy Nonnan’s take.
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Yup, she took it past credibility frank. Into Fox territory.
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