Noonan: Obama turns out to be brilliant at becoming, not being, president

From 'Yes, We Can,' to 'No! Don't!'
AUGUST 13, 2009
Paeggy Noonan

Excerpt:
The president seemed like a man long celebrated as being very good at politics—the swift rise, the astute reading of a varied electorate—who is finding out day by day that he isn't actually all that good at it. In this sense he does seem reminiscent of Jimmy Carter, who was brilliant at becoming president but not being president. (Actually a lot of them are like that these days.)

Also, something odd. When Mr. Obama stays above the fray, above the nitty-gritty of specifics, when he confines his comments on health care to broad terms, he more and more seems . . . pretty slippery. In the town hall he seemed aware of this, and he tried to be very specific about the need for this aspect of a plan, and the history behind that proposal. And yet he seemed even more slippery. When he took refuge in the small pieces of his argument, he lost the major threads; when he addressed the major threads, he seemed almost to be conceding that the specifics don't hold.

When you seem slippery both in the abstract and the particular, you are in trouble. the rest

Obama's Senior Moment
Why the elderly are right to worry when the government rations medical care.

Obamacare: The More POTUS Says, The Less He Seems to Know