Noonan: Obama is at the “point where the American people stop listening

Last week, President Obama expounded upon his latest version of an ultra-recycled, been-there-done-that economic pivot — and it took him well over an hour to do so. Peggy Noonan had some rather pointed thoughts about that on ABC on Sunday, at the 2:05 mark:

When the White House calls it a “pivot” — somebody counted up and said it’s probably the tenth pivot to the economy that the president has done since he came in. I noticed that one of the speeches, it went over an hour, there was a heck of a lot jammed in. That told me something. It said, we’re not sure exactly what to say, so we’re going to say everything — but a speech about everything is a speech about nothing. Beyond that, I think every president, in the intense media environment we have now, certainly ever two-term president, gets to a point where the American people stop listening, stop leaning forward hungrily for information. I think this president got there earlier than most presidents, and I think he’s in that time now.

Ouch. All of President Obama’s grandiose economic pivots have pathetically little to show themselves; as George Will chimed in, our economy has continued to lose jobs during this ongoing “recovery” we’re supposedly in, and our labor force participation rate still hovering around a generational low of 63.5 percent.

Even Obama is cottoning on to the fact that all of the grandiloquence in the world isn’t going to do much to boost the popularity of crowning legislative achievement — but what he has up his sleeve besides more Keynesian-ish initiatives and “Republican obstructionism!”-sideshows is anyone’s guess. They’re still hoping that the law will speak for itself once it’s finally implemented, but the ol’ implementation process hasn’t been going too well so far:

Polls show the healthcare law is unpopular, and its approval ratings are falling. Disapproval topped 50 percent in a CBS News poll last week.

Obama said in an interview with The New York Times that the law will gain popularity once key provisions take effect next year and people are able to more easily purchase insurance.

“But until then, when we’re getting outspent four to one and people are just uncertain about what all this means for them, we’re going to continue to have some polls like that,” Obama said. “And me just making more speeches explaining it in and of itself won’t do it. The test of this is going to be is it working. And if it works, it will be pretty darn popular.”

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/07/29/noonan-obama-is-at-the-point-where-the-american-people-stop-listening/