What are the chances that in today’s political smog anyone–I mean aside from the President–will be able to fill a lung with enough clean air to respond with nobility to the news of this year’s Nobel peace prize? (Mr. Obama did say–and I happen to agree–that he doesn’t deserve the award.) Already the answer appears to be “zero.”
One suspects that the Nobel committee was trying to make a reasonable statement: “we just want you ill-educated Play-Station American adolescents to know how glad we are that you had the good sense to elect this guy after being stupid enough to elect—twice—a war-mongering empire-building moron who doesn’t speak English as well as we do.”
A day later the NYT reports as much:
The Nobel committee’s embrace of Mr. Obama was viewed as a rejection of the unpopular tenure, in Europe especially, of his predecessor, George W. Bush.
But the committee, based in Norway, stressed that it made its decision based on Mr. Obama’s actual efforts toward nuclear disarmament as well as American engagement with the world relying more on diplomacy and dialogue.
“The question we have to ask is who has done the most in the previous year to enhance peace in the world,” the Nobel committee chairman, Thorbjorn Jagland, said in Oslo after the announcement. “And who has done more than Barack Obama?”
Okay, maybe Mr. Jagland’s scales aren’t legal for trade. And I’ll readily warrant the life-time pre-achievement angle that Ken McIntyre has brought to our attention in the comments here. But I still impute to the committee my suspicion stated above. For my money, in these sorry days of the Republic, this will answer.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, from the For What It’s Worth Department, said the award marked “America’s return to the hearts of the world’s peoples.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel called it an “incentive to the president and to us all” to do more for peace.
Given the farce of the last eight years, where’s the problem there?
I don’t suppose it does any good to credit the peace-loving Jimmy Carter, because as a democrat he is by definition a “Marxist” and a “socialist” and a “communist” and probably also a devil-worshiper and baby-snatcher, but the Times quotes him as saying that “the award to Mr. Obama [is] ‘a bold statement of international support for his vision and commitment.’”
Where’s the problem there?
Paul Krugman pointed out in last week’s Sunday NYT that the noise makers on the Right have decided that if something is good for the country but also good for Obama, then they will oppose it, the country be damned:
[T]he modern conservative movement, which dominates the modern Republican Party, has the emotional maturity of a bratty 13-year-old.
But more important, the episode [following Chicago’s failed bid for the Olympics, which induced Limbaugh gleefully to ejaculate, “Obama loses!”] illustrated an essential truth about the state of American politics: at this point, the guiding principle of one of our nation’s two great political parties is spite pure and simple. If Republicans think something might be good for the president, they’re against it — whether or not it’s good for America.
Credit Krugman. Nothing good will come of the ill-will Obama’s detractors harbor against him. Nothing will come of nothing. I personally wish the President would stop spending money he doesn’t have, but I’ll take him over any of the bellicose clowns the GOP has served up in recent memory.
If we are neither good enough nor smart enough to break out of our clan loyalties in this country, if we can’t avoid being petty about such gestures as we saw yesterday from the Nobel committee, we’re screwed and deserve it.
Related posts:
- Nobel Gestures The awarding of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize on a...
- Surprise! “Free Trade Agreements” Damage the American Economy Devon, PA.… Paul Craig Roberts reports at The American Conservative...
- Ideal Curriculum This term gets used too much. Whenever you are exiled...
- Sargent Shriver, RIP The last pro-life Democrat on a national ticket has died....
- Turn the Other Cheeks Rod Dreher says Pelosi is right to fret about political...
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
Farce, in all its convoluted perorations about the globe appears as steadfast a controlling agent as does gravity itself. Let us grant an International Peace Prize on the basis that someone is not the Spectacle of Petulant Dumbass that was the former President. Sure, why not? The Nobel Prize long ago forfeited its seriousness when it granted that burbling rogue Kissinger the prize. The entire bleary grabass is accorded notice simply because it follows the script and lavishes praise primarily upon those who are either rich or powerful but hopefully both. Once in a very great while, it throws a klinker in the mix just to maintain the illusion that the species actually does hope for peace and brotherhood.
After all, Alfred invented dynamite.
“we just want you ill-educated Play-Station American adolescents to know how glad we are that you had the good sense to elect this guy after being stupid enough to elect—twice—a war-mongering empire-building moron who doesn’t speak English as well as we do.”
If this is your idea of a “reasonable statement”, whether taken verbatim or just the sentiment, then yes, there is a problem, and it exist right THERE. A better example of “petty” “clannish loyalties” would be hard to find.
The problem with this reward is precisely that it confirms everything the right suspects about the president, and particularly that he is being rewarded for doing nothing in particular. He trying, to be sure, even if he isn’t trying the right things. But the Nobel prize ought to be more than a “A for effort.”
Jason, I’m glad you got that out. Say, I know some really good Anger Management courses available free on the net!
No, really, it’s a good thing to vent your spleen. I mean, dude, your man was and is really getting beat up; how about the one where he’s our first “undocumented” president, or the one about the second Kenyan to win the Nobel Prize… is this the kind of political discourse we need?
Look, dude, if I embraced the teachings of the Jewish carpenter and was a member of the Democrat Party I’d ‘feel’ the same anxiety, alienation, and guilt that may have just manifested itself in the above blog. I can sympathize with the spiritual turmoil that must result when a nice guy is trying his best to embrace the teachings of the Lord and the perverse, unnatural ideology of the Democratic Party, what with the baby killin’ thing and their morbid desire to implement euthanasia.
But, the fact is that was a delightful and entertaining post, one of your best. I love the honesty! We need more of the on the FPR!
How much good will can we stand?
Matt,
There is “good will” and then there is calculated sycophancy in service to the power politics of an global movement.
Covered in a sheen of good will and world peace, the entire thing reeks of cynicism.
I don’t mean to say Obama’s a genius (he isn’t), but he’s got at least one thing going for him — the dunces are all in confederacy against him.
Ross,
Maybe I ought to get my spectacles changed, but I seem to have noticed that there are quite a number of dunces in confederacy *for* Obama as well.
Ben,
I think that a more charitable reading of Ross’ comment is something like: “at least the criticisms of Obama are in confederacy in their stupidity.” Which seems true–at least insofar as Obama’s critics think that phrases like “He’s Kenyan!”, “You lie!”, and that little gem from the campaign “Kill him!” should serve as adequate responses to the arguments made for his policies. In explanation of the fact that such stupidities and the stupid who utter them–whether confederate or otherwise–have gained any degree of public credulity, one can hardly say anything–except, as Ross did, that it’s one thing Obama has going for him.
Aaron,
The idea that Obama is Kenyan is not a terrible plausible idea.
But, still, it’s at least a far more plausible idea than that Obama is the next George Washington, the next Abraham Lincoln, the next Franklin Roosevelt, or even the next Ronald Reagan.
And that’s to say nothing of the idea that he’s the next Jesus Christ or else the Second Coming of the first one.
The left-liberal establishment panjandrums presently so greatly concerned about unrealistic perceptions of Obama from the right, from Middle America, from the lower middle-class, from the working class, ought really to remove the motes from their own eyes.
A right-wing populist, lower middle-class Middle American with no public platform save for his or her mere voice is a threat to the republic for believing that Obama is a Kenyan — and he or she doesn’t even get paid for saying so.
But a left-liberal elitist, upper middle-class, bi-coastal, establishment panjandrum with a platform in the press, on tv, in movies, in music, in a lecture hall, or at a pulpit is an “intellectual” worthy or pay, worthy of tenure, of Pulitzer prizes and academy awards, for saying that Obama is Abraham Lincoln or Jesus Christ.
How so?
Except, that is, by the same double-standard that governs every other aspect of American life.
Patronizing gestures are good for the country?
Actually, Ben, given that it is already the case whether Obama was born in Kenya, and it’s not already the case whether he’ll be the next so-and-so, it seems more reasonable to think that Obama could become something improbable (say, the next Lincoln) than that he is something that he is not (born in Kenya). And if you’re not willing to grant that, then you’re at least making a category mistake in trying to assess the relative probabilities of a feature of the world as it is (Obama’s birthplace) and a feature of how the world will be (Obama’s legacy).
And on top of that, you’re really strawmanning the public liberal v. public conservative positions. I can’t say that I’ve noticed too many of the “left-wing elitists” you mention proclaiming Obama as “the next Abraham Lincoln,” and even if I’ve been tone deaf to those claims, very few people have said that Obama, in fact, deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. By way of contrast, the nefarious Republicanism you refer to is hardly limited to the quiet country populist (whomever that is), especially when the craziness espoused is largely circulated by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, the most listened-to voice on radio, and the most watched personages on cable “news”, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, and Glenn Beck.
Aaron,
It was impossible to visit a newsstand or a magazine rack, it was impossible to turn on the television or spin through the radio dial as far as NPR, back in January and February, without being exposed to Obama being compared to Lincoln, say, or Roosevelt. In fact, at one point, the public debate, at least as manifested in the media, seemed to consist of how to answer the question of which Obama was more like, Lincoln or Roosevelt. The opinion was honestly put forward that the most pressing question before Obama then was whether to be the new Lincoln or the new Roosevelt. I think Obama’s answer — in typically transcendent Obama fashion — was that we would be both, and also the new Jesus, the new Aristotle, the new Shakespeare, and the new Einstein besides. Maybe also the new Duke Ellington or perhaps Marvin Gaye. And the kicker is that the print in which this sort of tripe appeared isn’t even old enough to have turned yellow yet and folks like you are already trying to pretend that it never happened. Now, I can understand why you would want to pretend that it never did, embarrassing as it doubtless is to have take part in such puerile but also such frighteningly deluded kitsch. But that still doesn’t save one from having to man or woman up and admit that one was wrong — as opposed to trying to change the subject to Glenn Beck and his cranky but far-less cranky mental kinks and quirks.
As for Obama as a Kenyan, I don’t believe he is one. But I continue to find the notion that he could be one rather less implausible than the notion that he could be the new LIncoln, the new Roosevelt, the new Jesus, the new Marvin Gaye, et al.
Would it really be so shocking for a politician — gasp! — to lie, and especially about something that would scotch his electoral prosects? And would it really be so shocking for Barack Obama in particular to dissimulate about his past and his past associations? Wouldn’t that, instead, be entirely in keeping with his (sketchy and questionable) character?
And is not being able absolutely to rule out someone’s potential future transmogrification from who that person already is into being the new Lincoln, the new Roosevelt, the new Jesus, the new Marvin Gaye … is that really good grounds for assuming, as so many did and continue to do, that someone — in this case, Obama — actually *is* or *might as well be* (at least until further notice) the new Lincoln, the new Roosevelt, the new Jesus, the new Marvin Gaye?
I don’t think so, but, be that as it may, can I still ask to be treated *as if* I am, say, the new Elvis Presley until such hypothetical and no doubt distant time when I prove that I am not?
I don’t think he’s the new Marvin Gaye simply because he doesn’t appear to have rhythm.
Ben,
Yeah, I do remember the Lincoln/Roosevelt comparisons (somewhere I missed the Jesus Christ ones), but I also remember many of them as conditional rather than qualitative in nature. That is, Obama entered office during “the worst economic downturn/depression/recession since Roosevelt,” so the natural question was will he enact the same sorts of interventionist policies that Roosevelt enacted. I don’t think that anyone was saying that, before he had even done anything, his ideas would bring us out of the depression as Roosevelt’s (supposedly) did. And as to Lincoln, I guess I can’t really remember why the comparison was made, except that there’s (evidently) some kind of commonly held historical belief that Lincoln selected his political rivals to serve on his cabinet, and insofar as Obama selected Hillary Clinton to serve on his, and insofar as there were questions about whether he would select any of his other rivals, the comparison made some sense.
But that aside, if someone actually said that Obama’s legacy would be the legacy of Roosevelt’s or Lincoln’s before Obama even got the furniture moved in then I’m happy to admit that the person’s claim was premature. But I guess I just don’t remember that being the point of the comparisons.
As to the simmering pot of Pentecostally patriotic insanity that is Glenn Beck and his ilk, continuing to believe that it’s more likely that Obama could be Kenyan than that Obama could be a great President doesn’t change the fact that your belief is at least misguided. Suppose that “being a great President” means “being in the top 10% of Presidents;” this means that, rounding up, there have been five great presidents. If this sounds like a reasonable standard of greatness, what you’re saying is that you think it’s less likely that Obama will be one of the top five U.S. presidents than that he colluded with the Hawaiian government, significant numbers of its citizens who remember his birth, its newspapers, and its hospital officials to fake his birth certificate and forty-five year-old birth announcement, despite the facts (1) that we live in an age of near-constant and complete media coverage and (2) that the incentive for anyone who discovered Obama’s deceit would have been fame and fortune beyond reckoning at having discovered, at the last moment, an attempt by a godless foreigner to steal the most publicized election in the history of the world in of one of that world’s most civilized nations.
It’s shocking what people go around “continu[ing] to believe,” isn’t it?
Aaron,
Yes, I continue to think that while it is highly unlikely that Obama was born anywhere other than Hawaii, it is nonetheless more likely than that he will have a Presidency that will bear comparison at all to either Lincoln’s or Roosevelt’s.
As for the comparisons of Obama to Jesus Christ, they were and are if anything even more numerous than the comparisons of him … or, excuse me, Him … to Lincoln and to Roosevelt.
Has it never occurred to you at least to consider that this kind of simmering pot of Pentecostally partisan insanity [to paraphrase your own terms] might itself have just a little bit to do with the Tea Party phenomenon and the vogue for Glen Beck?
Is it really all that much of a stretch to imagine Obama as at the very least a kind of kinder, gentler American version of a Juan Peron style Latin American caudillo or strongman, what with women fainting at his rallies and grown-man tv political pundits like Chris Matthews describing him as “Biblical” and having orgasms — or “thrills” up their legs at least — on air while discussing him.
And isn’t it rather rational not to rule out entirely almost anything about Obama, given the many, many skeletons that have tumbled and continue to tumble out of perhaps the most over-stuffed political closet in recent memory — skeletons from Jeremiah Wright to William Ayers and Bernadine Dorhn to Rod Blagojevich and Roland Burris and Antoine Rezko to Van Jones and John Holdren and Kevin Jennings to Lord alone knows what sort of fruit-bat and/or scum-bag will turn up next?
If Obama being friends with a domestic terrorist and probable murderer is no big whoop, then why would his being born in Kenya come as any great surprise?
After all, what *could* Obama do or have done that would come as surprise — that would come as a shock — after having done *that* (and so very much else of a similarly scuzzy sort)?
Well, here’s a question: which kind of Messiah complex is worse, one where you believe you’re the Messiah or one where you believe the nation is? The latter might be more politically destructive, but more intellectually defensible. The former might be less destructive, but also have less evidence for the claim. I’m not sure. Generally I prefer Messiahs without the coercive authority of the state at their disposal. Give me a simple unshaven Messiah who’s ok with being poor and has no ambition for high office.
If memory serves Gorbachev won the Nobel peace prize a year before the USSR collapsed. The only thing he did was loose the cold war.
I wish Obama well.
Albert’s brevity wins the day.
{ 1 trackback }