I said Fridays will be devoted to faith (and this one still will) unless there is breaking news, and unfortunately, today there is breaking news that cannot be ignored:
U.S. President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for offering the world hope and striving for nuclear disarmament in a surprise award that drew both warm praise and sharp criticism.
The bestowal of one of the world’s top accolades on a president less than nine months in office, who has yet to score a major foreign policy success, was greeted with gasps of astonishment from journalists at the announcement in Oslo. The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised Obama for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. . . .Obama’s press secretary woke him with the news before dawn and the president felt “humbled” by the award, a senior administration official said.
Last night, completely unrelated to all of this, I twittered that I was beginning to feel like President Obama was Roy Schieder in All That Jazz, waking up every morning to look into his mirror and smile, “it’s Showtime!”
This, I guess, is his Oscar. Or his Golden Globe.
Or it is Norway’s attempt to soothe the Ego that last week left Denmark so wounded. Or it’s attempt to say, “we really do love you, Obama, please don’t throw us under the bus where you’ve thrown England, Israel, Poland, the Dalai Lama, France and the Pope, to whom you recently lied! We’re your friends, just like Castro, Chavez and Gaddafi! We’ll help you to define down terrorism!
My email box is loaded* with gloating gleeful idiocy from the left, all of it in the form of “nannynannybooboo, look what we have. A pretty box…” They’re not interested in whether the box has anything in it, but it sure is pretty. And all Obama had to do for it was say “hope” a bunch of times, take down a defense shield, do nothing but talk while Iran goes nuclear and treat Israel rather badly.
After Obama helps the world take the US dollar out of currency, there will be no further awards because none will be big enough. He’ll simply have to become the King of the World, which is pretty much what he’s been campaigning for, all along.
I want to know why Michelle Obama did not share the award with him. She has done every bit as much as President Obama in bringing that nebulous notion of “hope” to the world, and she strives as hard as he does for whatever it is he is striving for.
Barack and Michelle seem to have a strong marriage and a lovely family. Since Oslo is obviously giving this award to Obama based on nothing more than the fact that it feels like it, they should have at least tried to find something meaningful behind it. They actually could have done that -and found a way to save face and restore some value to this absurd prize- had they included Michelle (and hell, even Malia and Sasha, and Mrs. Robinson, for that matter) and bestowed the Nobel Peace Prize upon The Obama Family for being a shining example of healthy marriage, family values and intergenerational connectedness to a world that is watching the elderly become increasingly despised and undervalued, fatherless communities implode and destroy themselves, shack-ups take the place of real commitment and (at the other extreme) ideas of marriage that are (despite assurances from Obama’s own adviser) oppressive, exploitative and harmful to women and children.
The Nobel Committee, fools that they are, just threw their grand prize at a man who -outside of making a very excellent marriage- has done nothing; his own supporters admit that Obama has not earned it. Giving the prize to The Obama Family is something that actually could instruct the world and give it genuine “hope,” and something that everyone can strive for – commitment and depth of feeling!
But in all likelihood, in their cartoon world, that would have seemed so very bourgeois to sophisticated, worldly Oslo, who has chosen meaninglessness over substance. And for that, I suppose, this award is a perfect marriage, of sorts.
Meanwhile, you’d better not do anything but fall down in praise of this award, says Ed Morrissey:
Even in a political environment where the two major parties send out ridiculous ding-dong reactions to events, this takes the cake. [The DNC] argues (almost assuredly uncomprehendingly) for a fuehrerprinzip where the head of state must never be questioned or criticized, lest one become a traitor to the fatherhomeland.
So, shut up and give empty praise to this empty award given to emptiness, or you are worse than the Taliban, whom this president says are not really that bad.
In Oslo they’re saying, “heh, let’s see him send more troops to Afghanistan, now!”
Obama says…nothing and of course, accepts it. He accepts it on behalf of the world he wishes to create and rule. And in his remarks, he says he is charged to “end a war” against “ruthless enemies.” Not WIN the war…end it. Every word is slick, but as much as can be expected, too.
A smarter response would have been, “thank you, but please wait until I do something…”
We might as well laugh. And laugh.
*The early morning glee-notes tapered in light of the laughter.
Schippert on Twitter: Last week “The Ego has landed” this week We have liftoff
Kim Priestap: “He won for wanting to spread hope and peace around the world. If that’s all it takes to get the award, then every beauty pageant contestant should have received one, too.”
Roundup (check back for additions throughout the day) :
Start here: With Instapundit
Washington Examiner: Can Obama legally accept this award while in office?
Jonah Goldberg: Nails it
Althouse: Even the French don’t think he’s earned it
Reuters: America asks “why”
No, the American PRESS wants this: “Americans want to be loved…”
Even some in Press: realize this is stupid
The Corner: keep scrolling
James Pethokoukis: How Obama can earn it
Arafat: Something in common
Byron York: even pro-Obama press stunned
Malkin: “Rather than recognizing anything concrete…”
Allah: Am I awake?
Melanie Philips: Embarrassment for his supporters
Don Surber: Looks at Obama’s accomplishments
Kaus says: If Obama is smart he’ll turn it down. He won’t.
Times UK: A Mockery
Walesa: So soon? Yes, they’re in a great hurry.
Deacon Greg: Pax Obama
Sweetness & Light: History of Nobel Prize
Radio Patriot: Has more
Accurate title: The Don Draper Prize
Rubin: It makes perfect sense
Okie: Spewwww & a roundup
Brutally Honest: Ugh
Victor Davis Hanson: The Power of Payback
Maggie’s Farm: Likes it
Examiner: Help Obama win the Heisman!
You want a REAL man of hope?
Then consider the man who, on May 10, 1873, came ashore to that hell of despair on Molokai. More than anything else, more than material relief, he brought hope as he embraced with love those wretched people afflicted with leprosy.
Loss of babies = loss of hope for our future.
If you haven’t yet seen it, watch Children of Men and see a future world that has lost all hope because there are no more babies to be born.
“I can point to any number of references to Bush 43 as “evil”"
Probably. Although I think I personally stopped short of that most of the time. I know that the thing that impressed me the most favorably about him was the fact that he pulled himself out of a life of substance abuse. It takes character to do that.
But, frankly, I think Bush is one of the most difficult cases because his actions [each of which I'm largely sure were from what he personally thought was right at the time] are so wildly at variance with the political philosophy he espoused.
He can hardly be called the apostle of limited government and the free market. I’m not sure he fully understood how radical some of the things he did were, even if he thought they were right, and may not understand it yet.
Conservatives are finally starting to process this, at least on blogs, and I’m vitally interested that they do. As a people we have been getting more and more distorted into similar positions of dissonance between our actions and our words. I want my conservatives conservative, in the way I can still find them in Britain, so I can take them seriously even if I disagree with them. And I want my liberals to be consistently liberal rather than fall into some of the weirdly reactionary riffs you could find them falling into more and more as the Bush Administration lengthened into 8 years.
If they both were this again, most of us would see that Obama’s prize is just plain goofy, so goofy and out of left field, that it is almost totally irrelevant to what the man stands for and what his adversaries stand for. So goofy, in fact, that it really means nothing, not even anything particularly partisan.
Beyond the personal attacks on Obama, which I still think deplorable, we were all just starting to pull back into a sensible relation between our words and our actions with the health coverage issue. Why people do or do not want this issue addressed is pretty congruent with their nominal political philosophy. And there has been very little in the way of this for the past 8-10 years.
I make no apologies for my political philosophy, and I work very hard to make sure that my actions, and the actions I advocate are congruent with it. And I think it important that we all do so. Far more important in a democracy that whether we agree or disagree.
[Yeah, but you slip a little once in a while, too, Joseph, and you know it. We all do. We each of us bring our faulty and imperfect selves to all of our endeavors and to our religious practice. Growth is certainly possible, but each of us at different rates, and I for one am too aware of how poor a grasp I have on each landing and how frequently I lose ground only recently gained. I would love it if we could all grasp hands and sing in the sunshine (and "laugh everydaayayayayay" - there I'm dating myself), but I am still faulty enough to react to some of the stuff I see, read and have directed my way in a less than edifying fashion. I'm working on it. I think more people are working on it than you know -admin]
Now, if we can get him awarded the Heisman all will be complete!
Jospeh – I don’t think you will find many conservatives (vs Republicans) who would disagree with you in terms of Bush’s actions being at odds with his stated philosophy. It’s pretty sad.
[I've often thought that one of the reasons I liked W (although I deplored some of his spending, I also supported the senior prescrip plan and wld have supported his immigration plan too) is because deep down I am not comfortably a "conservative." Or, to be honest, I am not comfortable attaching any label to myself, which is why I am an Indy at this point. What can I say, I've always been a lone wolf, and not much of a joiner. I'm still very much a classical liberal - it's just that classical liberalism, as personified by the likes of JFK and Hubert Humphrey, is considered "conservative" today. Which means that real conservativism is VERY conservative! I will say that Obama has proved himself so very much a part of the left that he makes Bill Clinton look rather conservative, in hindsight!
-admin]
Joseph Marshall wrote this
“You might stop to consider this: How could the distorted, power-hungry, and shallow egomaniac of your dreams and your posts possibly have such a sane, sensible, marriage and such a lovely family?”
I am addressing this sentence ONLY.
Joseph, many people with successful, loving relationships have completely different “approaches”/ethics when it comes to politics, workplace behavior or any number of things. A wonderful family does not equate to doing wonderful things in the world. Just as failed relationships do not equate to doing harmful things.
Also: We can never look into the relationships of others. We really do not know what kind of marriage the Obamas have.
[I agree with this. There are plenty of very good, very sane, very level people who have not been lucky in marriage, and plenty of very odd, or power-hungry people whose marriages appear serene and untroubled on the surface. For all I know, the Obama's have a lousy marriage but portray it well, but I prefer to give them the benefit of a doubt and believe that they have a good marriage. By his measure, would Joe look at the marriage of George and Laura Bush and still see the "distorted, power-hungry, and shallow egomaniac" of his own 8 year nightmare? Suddenly doesn't work, does it? Cynical, there, Joseph!
-admin]
You are absolutely correct, Beethovenqueen – who knows what the ‘real’ family is like? We all (well, most of us) put our best face forward in public, and were I in the public eye as the Obamas are, you better KNOW my family would sparkle!
the strong body language between barack and michelle does not suggest a happy marriage.