Obama Needs Shorter To-Do List: Noonan

At home, Obama's plans are grandiose, Noonan says

(NEWSER) - Part of President Obama’s power has always been his cool mystique, writes Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal. Difficult to classify, “he seemed something refreshing: a mystery.” But nothing clarifies like actions and decisions, “and he’s been quite the decider.” Though the consummate moderate abroad, Obama has been downright grandiose at home. “He thinks big! His plans are all-encompassing!” More»

And nobody loves him

(NEWSER) - As this debt crisis unfurls, Peggy Noonan has realized something surprising: “Nobody loves Obama,” she writes in the Wall Street Journal . “This is amazing because every president has people who love him,” even Bill Clinton and George W. Bush on their worst days. But not Barack Obama. “His support is grim support,” because unlike Clinton and Bush, he never seems the least bit genuine. More»

Shifting president must be worried about independents

(NEWSER) - President Obama must be worried about independents and moderates, because he’s made a dramatic shift to the center in recent days. In an economics speech Tuesday, Obama lavished praise on small businesses, promising tax cuts as incentives to grow. “This is how Republicans, moderates and centrists think, and talk,” writes Peggy Noonan for the Wall Street Journal . “It was as if he were waving his arms and saying, ‘Hey taxpayer, I’m not your enemy!’” More»

(NEWSER) - Barack Obama doesn’t look like a unifying centrist anymore. At his suspiciously adoring health care town hall meeting, Obama “seemed like a man long celebrated as being very good at politics, who is finding out day by day that he isn’t,” writes Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal. “He does seem reminiscent of Jimmy Carter, who was brilliant at becoming president, but not being president.” More»

Words 'health' and 'economy' dominate president's vocabulary

(NEWSER) - To listen to Barack Obama speak, you might think he was a peacetime president, rather than one with more than 100,000 troops in the field, write Zachary Abrahamson and Eamon Javers for Politico. They pored over nearly every one of the half-million-plus words Obama has said publicly as president, and discovered that he’s uttered the words “health” and “economy” more times each than he’s said “Iraq,” “Iran,” “Afghanistan” and “terrorism” combined. More»