Peggy Noonan: Obama Has Been A Very Uncertain Trumpet
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Author Peggy Noonan discussed her new book, The Time of Our Lives on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT with Rich Zeoli and weighed in on a number of current political topics.
Noonan said that President Obama's reaction to the Paris terror attack is out of step with what Americans want from the Commander in Chief.
"It seems to me, Mr. Obama has been a very uncertain trumpet and his attitude towards us in the days since Paris, in news conferences and such, has been a bit defensive and peevish, sometimes a little condescending. That's a strange array of traits for a President to be displaying during a crisis when people just want to hear, C'mon, this is what we have to do, this is why we have to do it, and we can do it."
She looked back to Ronald Reagan, who, she believes, was the best example of the image a President should convey to Americans.
"Reagan wasn't optimistic. Reagan was confident. He was confident in himself, in the American people, and in the governmental arrangement we had built over 200 years to handle any amount of stress. Because you could look at him and see his confidence, it allowed you, members of the public, to feel optimistic. Somebody who can do the job is in charge."
When asked about the state of journalism today, Noonan said reporters should look to the former Host of Meet the Press as an example to follow.
"Tim Russert was a great journalist. He was fun. He made news fun. He was an equal opportunity griller and, at the same time, his whole background in politics was Democratic politics. He worked for Mario Cuomo. He'd been a political operative but that allowed him to understand the views and the case of those who didn't see it the way he saw it. He thought, when he became a journalist, his job, he thought, was, in part, to be fair to those people who didn't agree with him and fair towards those, and equally grilling, who did share his suppositions. So, if they would just think of that, just be fair."