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Obama Good at Becoming Prez, Not at Being Prez

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Aug 14, 2009 9:09 AM CDT

(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.”

When the House passed the stimulus with nary a single Republican vote, Democrats seemingly decided they could govern on their own. Obama went from center-left to plain old left. "This, of course, was politics as usual. But in 2008 people voted against politics as usual." And it presaged this disastrously divisive health care debate. Even if Obama wins, “it will be a victory not worth having. It will have cost too much. It has lessened the thing an admired president must have from the people, and that is trust.”

[Images (3)]

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In this Aug. 11, 2009 file photo, President Barack Obama speaks at town hall meeting about health care, at Portsmouth High School in Portsmouth, N.H. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, FILE)

President Barack Obama speaks at town hall meeting about health care, Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2009, at Portsmouth High School in Portsmouth, N.H. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Then Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama waves as he leaves the gym after talking to service members at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait. (AP Photo/U.S. Army, Jarod Perkioniemi, File)

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America used to have fringes, one over here and the other over there. The fringes are growing. The fringes have their own networks. All sorts of forces exist to divide us. Try always to unite. - Peggy Noonan

Who doubts the final bill will be something between a pig in a poke and three-card Monte? - Peggy Noonan

I think of a good president as reaching out with his long arms and holding on to the left, and holding on to the right, and trying mightily to hold it together. I wish we were seeing that. I don't think we are. - Peggy Noonan

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