At least not all of it. Or any of her recent columns. She's been anything but an enemy of Obama during this primary season and she's clearly no bomb thrower. To know this, of course, requires reading all the words in her columns over an extended period of time.

Anyone can cherry pick a few sentences out of the whole text and claim they have proof of the writer's hidden animous. All she's doing here is trying to get to the heart of the whole patriotism issue. I don't happen to think it should be an issue but I know that there are plenty of voters who still don't feel like they know Obama all that well yet. They may not be certain the candidate shares at least some portion of their worldview.

Is it possible to really get to know these people? No it isn't but it's how the process works. It's the mindset of Gate 14 she was describing. Noonan didn't write a column that puts her in the same boat as ABC News. Noah isn't being fair here. It's not some columnist's fault the Dems can't bring themselves to grow up and pick a candidate already and these two have no major policy differences. Silly stuff fills the void.

Not a right wing apologist.

Voted for Obama.

Bullshit.

Anyone who says dumb shit like "No one is questioning his patriotism, they're questioning its content, its fullness." is a right-wing apoligist, and a spectacularly stupid one at that.

Let me try it this way: a portion of the electorate is wondering about the fullness of his patriotism. It's silly and a lot of the people who are doing this aren't going to vote for him anyway. It's still happening though.

Noonan was only trying to point out that Obama is going to have to find a way to handle this because, even though it may strike many of us as insignificant, it could prove costly for him down the road. That's what she meant by Act II. If I remember correctly, Noonan was one of the architects of Reagan's Act II. A speechwriter at least, someone who knows what candidates have to do to avoid being labeled by their opponents.

Right now Obama is being labeled - unfairly I'll bet - by his opponents. Just saying they're stupid, like you did, isn't going to work.

...sounds to me like you've got it wrong, Obama voter or not. Noonan's taking the "silly stuff" and running with it, and that's frankly an embarassment to a normally fairly sane columnist.

I have not read any of Peggy Noonan's columns recently, but I've seen her on Meet the press a few times and she seems smart and somewhat reasonable. That said, I found this quote somewhat ironic given the Rev Wright controversy:

"Anyone can cherry pick a few sentences out of the whole text and claim they have proof of the writer's hidden animous."

Horus:

...sounds to me like you've got it wrong, Obama voter or not. Noonan's taking the "silly stuff" and running with it, and that's frankly an embarassment to a normally fairly sane columnist.

Noonan is running with the silly stuff? That's just not the case here. If any columnist, of any political stripe, were asked to explain the state of the campaign heading into May they would have to include Obama's stumble and all these side issues about patriotism. They would also have to include the very real problem he seems to have connecting with white middle income voters, the kind he couldn't quite win over in Pennsylvania.

Noah went searching for subtext saw what he wanted to see. A conservative columnist playing fair? Putting the Pennsylvania primary in context? Can't be. She must have an agenda. Thank goodness we have Noah here to ferret out the truth from this transparently evil non-Democrat.

This is the real problem of the left-right divide. Nobody can be considered an honest broker anymore. Problem is, what she and others are saying is right. The guy needs to get to the next part of the message. It ought to include showing some toughness. If he continues to let Rev. Wright trash him like he did yesterday, or let the contemptable Hillary Clinton define his candiacy, he's going to lose. That would be such a shame considering how much he's accomplished this year.