Foreign Policy Blogs

Peggy Noonan on Obama's First Year

Hey, at least we're having fun.

At the anniversary of Obama’s first year as president, the press is predictably constructing narratives of a president who is blazing trails and one who is barely hanging on.

Chatting on GPS with Fareed Zakaria this Sunday, Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan says Obama’s first year went all wrong.  Here’s part of it:

“One of Obama’s biggest problems in his first year was that his preoccupations were in this direction and the preoccupations of the American people were in that direction.  They were not on the same page.  The American people are thinking economy, foreign affairs, national security.  He’s doing health care [and] cap-and-trade; stuff that [American] people thought was a little daffy to be concentrating on…Obama didn’t focus on the great issues of his moment.  This is the great problem with his first year.”

If there was a distraction in Obama’s first year, it certainly was not climate legislation, nor is it likely to become one any time soon.

I’d say health care stole the show (and the possibility of Democratic overreaching).

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Fareed has a fairly balanced Year One assessment in Newsweek, this week.  Check it out.

Photo Credit: The White House Flickr page