Okay...I like Obama. I like him just as much as the next guy...in fact, if the next guy is the moron in the pickup truck with the "Obama Sucks" Bumpersticker-- then I like him a heck of a lot MORE than the next guy.
I knocked on doors for him in 2008 and am highly likely to do so again in 2009....and I think that, given the state in which he found our country, the economy, and the world, he's doing one hell of a good job moving it back on track.
....but the NOBEL PEACE PRIZE????
Look, the guy has been in office for less than a year. We haven't figured out how to extract ourselves from the Iraqi quagmire, and we are just beginning to tackle the War in Afghanistan, a war which has festered due to 7 years of neglect by the previous administration. Last time I checked, the Isreallies and the Palestinians were still at each others throats...and...c'mon.
NPR quotes presidential historian Robert Dalleck pointing out that this is REALLY an award about George W. Bush....the committee's way of saying "F- you" to our former Yahoo-In-Chief, George W. Bush
But Time Magazine points out that this award could actually hurt the President, and I agree. The major right wing criticism, (aside from the wingnut "Granny Killers" and the "Birthers") is that Obama is All Hat and No Cattle...the Anointed One, The ObamaMessiah.
Intelligent people in the country, and around the world, have become STARVED for meaningful political rhetoric...and the inanity of the Bush Years took a dry spell and turned it into a drought.
We were all ready to hear some complete sentences...soaring rhetoric was an unexpected and blissfully welcome bonus to tired ears...
But Obama is now In Office....he's working...and now is the time to focus on the President's actions as well as his words.
Middle America loves to hate a poser-- and IF the right-wing can make the image stick then the President will be in a lot of trouble, and will begin to find himself so hampered and mired that forward motion will become impossible. That would be bad news for the President, our Party, and the nation.
The sad fact is that, by trying to enlarge Obama's platform by giving him an award he does not yet deserve, the Nobel Prize Committee may have, like their founder, provided his enemies with dynomite.
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4 comments:
It has been interesting to me to hear the uproar of people saying he hasn't "done" anything. To quote an AP article I read the other day -
"Myth: The prize is awarded to recognize efforts for peace, human rights and democracy only after they have proven successful.
Truth: More often, the prize is awarded to encourage those who receive it to see the effort through, sometimes at critical moments."
Of course, the average public is not going to see it that way. The people who will use this against him would have found something else if this hadn't come up. I hope it doesn't hurt him unnecessarily.
Heather,
I don't disagree. I think there are a lot of legitimate reasons that Obama got the award. I think the very first reason to take into account is that he got it simply by winning the election. For the last 8 years, the United States, as seen by many abroad, and certainly in Europe, has looked more and more frightening. And for the last two election cycles, much of the rest of the world watched an aggressive, and stupid, man win the most powerful office in the world...Bush's victories bewildered us at home, but even more so overseas...to see the United States turn away from the path of aggression, and rejoin the family of nations, must have been profoundly relieving to the committee.
You are also correct about the historic uses to which the prize has been put.
However, as you say, the average person is not going to look at it with that kind of subtlety...subtitle is not part of our national character. If you have a Superbowl ring, it's because you won the Superbowl...no other explanation is valid to us. In and of itself, this will not bring down the president, however, the problems he is facing are massive (problems brought on mostly by the right, but exacerbated by those in his own party who would use the chaos to further their own, more narrow agendas.) It will take the President a long time to begin to solve these problems, and in the mean time, those who oppose him are going to continue to repeat that he is "All Talk"...each thing that reinforces this message is harmful to him.
I really think the people have no more say so in whats going on in our government anymore I see so much protesting when Bush was in office I did not see anyone making any changes and he was a notorious gangster. Its was sort of like everyone sat down because they knew it was the ending of the Bushes now we have Barack The Mackman Daddy. and he is just going along with what Bush was doing but in a different way!
Dmobile-
I know it's frustrating, but I can't quite agree with you about being helpless. I think that large problem is that change takes a LONG time...but the actions we take today do add tiny bits of weight on the scales of history...eventually, they tip toward justice.
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