Back when the campaign was ramping up, I thought him the most likable of all the candidates of eather party. I thought him personable and friendly. He was the one iId most want to go out and have a beer with.

Now I see that he’s vain, narcissistic, elitist, and arrogant. Worse, he doesn’t liove his country, and like his wife is only proud of it now that he’s in charge. He has allowed a cult of personality to develop that is at best creepy and at worst sinister.

The man is detestable.

I especially appreciate what you said about Obama that “many of his qualities which might be put to good use elsewhere are inimical to fulfilling his present job.” He’s not a very good executive, but he would make one hell of a motivational speaker!

I don’t have a distate for Mr. Obama. I just think he lacks the necessary qualities to govern the United States. In fact, many of his qualities which might be put to good use elsewhere are inimical to fulfilling his present job.

we do need recognize that he did create a genuine political movement last year. It may have been a movement about amorphous concepts like change and hope, but it was a movement nonetheless.

Which doesn’t contradict anything I said. Although I disagree with one facet of your above quote: I don’t think that he created this genuine political movement. I think he is the embodiment of this movement which was created by the people around him. In other words, without him, they could not have created it, and without them, he could not have embodied it.

But, Amy, much as I share your distaste for Mr. Obama, we do need recognize that he did create a genuine political movement last year. It may have been a movement about amorphous concepts like change and hope, but it was a movement nonetheless.

And it was a movement akin to a celebrity fan club (albeit with political ideology pasted on to that celebrity) based on personality and not a unifying set of ideas. It’s why, I doubt, it will have the staying power of the movement whose first crest Ronald Reagan rode to the White House.

I agree 100% with Amy K. Not only was Noonan an elitist snob when it came to Palin, she belived the pomp and circumstance of Obama. Now we all have to pay the price.

More specifically, his appeal to her in particular. To answer your last paragraph, she spent so much time rationalizing the reasons people (she) were attracted to Obama because he appealed to her intellectual elitism which is not always a bad thing but it somehow managed to blind her to his many negatives and lack of other positive presidential qualities.

She didn’t show the same appreciation toward Palin because she has the intellectual elites’ bone deep aversion to what is perceived as a hick. Whereas Obama’s “intellectualism” blinded her to his major faults, Palin’s “hickness” blinded her to many of her strengths.

Whether Palin is good presidential material or not, perhaps recognizing the shallowness of Obama’s intellect will push Ms. Noonan to reevaluate her opinion of the depth of Palin’s down-home common sense.