Noonan: when the Left stop supporting Obama

In a backwards stance, it seems the planet is falling down all about our ears:

• Hoodie-wearing gunmen kill 1, wound 5 in Chicago; all were black;
• Al Sharpton cries ESCALATE, in direct contravention of Martin Luther King;
• Conservatism linked to "low brainpower";
• Climate change skepticism is a "sickness that must be treated";
• UK held in thrall of "petroleum emergency";

That said, when Peggy Noonan in a WSJ Editorial calls Mr Obama "creepy," and writes that "Obama increasingly comes across as devious and dishonest," the paradigm and the narrative and the meme has somehow changed:

What is happening is that the president is coming across more and more as a trimmer, as an operator who's not operating in good faith. This is hardening positions and leading to increased political bitterness. And it's his fault, too. As an increase in polarization is a bad thing, it's a big fault.

Events of just the past 10 days have contributed to the shift. There was the open-mic conversation with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in which Mr. Obama pleaded for "space" and said he will have "more flexibility" in his negotiations once the election is over and those pesky voters have done their thing. On tape it looked so bush-league, so faux-sophisticated. When he knew he'd been caught, the president tried to laugh it off by comically covering a mic in a following meeting. It was all so . . . creepy.

If you jumped into a time machine to the day after the election, in November, 2012, and saw a headline saying "Obama Loses," do you imagine that would be followed by widespread sadness, pain and a rending of garments? You do not. Even his own supporters will not be that sad. It's hard to imagine people running around in 2014 saying, "If only Obama were president!" Including Mr. Obama, who is said by all who know him to be deeply competitive, but who doesn't seem to like his job that much. As a former president he'd be quiet, detached, aloof. He'd make speeches and write a memoir laced with a certain high-toned bitterness. It was the Republicans' fault. They didn't want to work with him.

This is a, truly, devastating piece. And yet an honest piece. Noonan was an early ObamaCon from the start and then, now, with her newest editorial, she writes from a position that indicates a visceral disagreement.

Not good for Mr Obama.

BZ