Peggy Noonan's "Obama Rises to the Challenge" (Declarations, Jan. 15) is a study in sloppy, intellectual sentimentality. The Tucson tragedy was not about the president, but he made it so. This was about a lone, apolitical killer and not about Sarah Palin, talk radio, Fox News or Rush Limbaugh, as the media painted it to be. Where was all that emotion over the deaths of the soldiers in the Fort Hood tragedy? We were admonished to not rush to judgment, while now the media, et al., have stampeded to judgment—not of the killer but of ordinary patriotic Americans.
Now Ms. Noonan wants us to believe that because the president was able to deliver a rousing campaign speech, "Maybe he is going to be formidable." As Charlie Brown says, "I can't stand it!"
Alexandra Mark
Newport, R.I.
The extravagant praise for the Tucson speech is impressive, until we remember that the pious lecture for respectful discourse comes from the same leader who just last month shook hands on a deal with the Republicans and then ran out and called them "hostage takers." And who, for his first two years, used the language of a schoolyard bully, insulting and taunting his weaker mates (". . . now they want the keys back. No! You can't drive," and "they can come along for the ride but they gotta sit in back," and "I won," etc.). Very elevated and respectful discourse.
The sudden discovery of the virtues of civility is suspect coming from a politician who was just reminded by an electoral drubbing that in the next two years he will need the other side that he has been thrashing.
George Newman
Montclair, N.J.
President Obama has demonized the rich, businessmen, tea party members, oil companies, fishermen, miners, doctors—almost everyone except the unions. Yet with one speech, according to Ms. Noonan, he has changed the tone of his presidency.
Lee Brown
Houston
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 