Peggy Noonan writes “the unbearable lightness of Obama’s administration.” In her Wall Street Journal opinion column, she opens with the following paragraph.

“He is willowy when people yearn for solid, reed-like where they hope for substantial, a bright older brother when they want Papa, cool where they probably prefer warmth. All of which, may or may not hurt Barack Obama in time. Lincoln was rawboned, prone to the blues and freakishly tall, with a new-grown beard that refused to become an assertion and remained, for four years, a mere and constant follicular attempt. And he did OK.”

One can’t help but begin to wonder if these observations are pretentious or principled, are they simply intellectual indulgences for the sake of a cute column, or just the mindless musings to satisfy a contractual obligation? There will always be nagging misgivings regarding the questionable judgment of anyone claiming to be a responsible thinker who boasted of voting for John McCain with Sarah Palin a heartbeat away from the top spot.

Ms. Noonan’s column goes on to presume to define the extent of the president’s priorities.” The fact is that Mr. Obama only has two jobs, but they’re huge. The first is to pull us out of an economic death spiral— Mr. Obama’s second job is America’s safety at home and in the world. All else—windmills, green technology, remaking health care—is secondary. The economy is the domestic issue now, and for the next three years at least.”

Fortunately, Ms. Noonan’s field of influence no longer extends to the inner quarters of the White house where at one time she was President Reagan’s special assistant and speechwriter. Her columns reflect a speechwriter’s preoccupation with flowery prose but wanting in logic and simple reasoning.  In contending that the President has two jobs the economy and America’s safety and then dismissing as irrelevant key components of the economy particularly health care--the single most economy draining item, is an example of a reasoning deficit.

Nevertheless, Noonan one upped herself in exposing a set of values even more suspect than her reasoning. Consider, “Dick Cheney this week warned again of future terrorism and said Mr. Obama’s actions have left us “less safe.” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs reacted with disdain. Mr. Cheney is part of a “Republican cabal.” “I guess Rush Limbaugh was busy.” “This was cheap.”

Cheap? Here’s the rub, Ms. Noonan does not criticize the Vice President, whose policies have been self-admitted war crimes. Nor did she take issue with the vice-president criticizing the existing President with the same transparent demagoguery that has actually made us less safe. And finally, rather than pointing out the bad form and unprecedented action of the vice-president interjecting himself into criticizing the new President less than sixty days in office, she chose to attack press secretary Robert Gibbs’ appropriate put down of the vice-presidents despicable and uncalled for behavior. Now that’s cheap.