For what it’s worth, it seems to me that, while Obama surely went looking for a father figure, such is not a conscious process, and there are a host of reasons that the dominant, aggressive Wright would appeal to a man whose central identity is blurry. BUT — and this is my real point — you cannot adopt the radical views he has espoused, which are inherently destructive of much of the status quo of American culture — without having a fairly negative underlying view of that culture. (We could debate the sources of his feelings. It’s clear he had cause to feel somewhat marginalized growing up, but you are better off talking to a shrink about that.)
Noonan can best define her own reasons for not thinking that Obama’s positions are radical. But I assume that it has something to do with her frequently stated, vehement antipathy to George Bush, and her more recent pronouncements about the death of the Republican party.