Peggy Noonan on My Last Nerve: Peggy Noonan Bret Baier: Noonan's High Praise of Bret Baier

Noonan has a piece in the Wall Street Journal today. The first line had me thinking, "okay, you go Peggy," then 5 lines down, she sizes-up the Obama administration as no better than the Bush administration - a comparison at-its-heart that is rude, rude, rude. Noonan is on my last nerve.

Really, President Bush does not deserve this comment when Noonan is talking about the global-reaching embarrassment of Obama canceling his trip to Australia and Indonesia:

How bush league, how undisciplined, how kid's stuff

Right now, I'm praying that Obama could bear any single trait of George W. Bush, especially his discipline and courage, which never failed, and just an ounce of Bush's core decency would serve this current president well.

However, Noonan did have high-praise for Bret Baier's interview with Obama, which was the point of the article - right after the rude and unfounded comparison to G.W. Bush:

Throughout, Mr. Baier pressed the president. Some thought this bordered on impertinence. I did not. Mr. Obama now routinely filibusters in interviews. He has his message, and he presses it forward smoothly, adroitly. He buries you in words. Are you worried what failure of the bill will do to you? I'm worried about what the status quo will do to the families that are uninsured...

Mr. Baier forced him off his well-worn grooves. He did it by stopping long answers with short questions, by cutting off and redirecting. In this he was like a low-speed bumper car. In the end the interview seemed to me a public service because everyone in America right now wants to see the president forced off his grooves and into candor on an issue that involves 17% of the economy. Again, the stakes are high. So Mr. Baier's style seemed -- this is admittedly subjective -- not rude but within the bounds, and not driven by the antic spirit that sometimes overtakes reporters. He seemed to be trying to get new information. He seemed to be attempting to better inform the public.

Linked by Memeorandum - Now for the Slaughter