I don’t know if Barack Obama deserves the Nobel Peace Prize quite yet, and I’m actually serious when I say he won it in no small part for simply not being George W. Bush — for seeking to reengage with the world in the sort of way that decent, non-rogue countries do. That said, who cares? What’s fun is that this sets up the sort of massive, overwhelming, out-of-control right-wing freakout that money can’t buy. I mean, what’s the over/under on the first wingnut claiming that the selection of the sitting American president is proof that the Nobel committee hates America? Or the first one to claim that Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize proves he’s a communist? 7 AM? 6? They certainly won’t wait ’til 8, will they? Who will complain that Dubya should have won, for his success in invading foreign countries? Who will congratulate Kenya on their second winner in six years? And how will they tie this to ACORN?
It should be glorious. Even better than when Paul Krugman won the Economics Prize. Start popping the popcorn. Phone the neighbors, wake the kids. This is going to be a good day.
This is an appalling decision. We’re talking about a man who’s still running a war on two fronts, Iraq and Afghanistan, and has expanded the ‘war on terror’ in Pakistan in a way that Bush hadn’t yet done. Drone attacks in the northern regions of Pakistan have killed hundreds since he came into office. Disgusting.
Enjoy the day. This will be the final nail in his first, and last term.
Not even the Messiah can carry the absurd load of expectation and hype that President Nobel Peace Prize Winner Obama – which, by the way, is forever how he will be identified from now on – has taken on to himself.
In a month, *liberals* will be making fun of him. The absurdity of the award is the last heaping nugget of “WTF” that will bury this empty suit. Sorry, this empty Nobel Peace Prize-winning suit.
I mean, what’s the over/under on the first wingnut claiming that the selection of the sitting American president is proof that the Nobel committee hates America? Or the first one to claim that Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize proves he’s a communist? 7 AM? 6? They certainly won’t wait ’til 8, will they?
I’ll take 7:35 AM Eastern and give 3 points.
But seriously, folks – isn’t this a bit much? I also thought that “He’s not George Bush” was a factor when I heard it. It also struck me that perhaps it was an attempt to influence Obama not to send more troops to Afghanistan, but I don’t know how the voting process works and if they would be that well coordinated or organized.
The bottom line to me is that regardless of what you think of the President’s approach to foreign policy, etc., the effectiveness of his methods simply cannot yet be determined. And on that basis this seems to me to damage the significance of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Robert,
You’ve singlehandedly proven Jeff’s point; you just can’t help but personally insult the President of the United States.
I’ve been personally insulting him since he started running. He’s a novice and an empty suit, and had no business running.
I’m sure you said the same thing about George W Bush, right?
obama won the nobel! wtf?? I guess this helps his mojo a little after copanhagen, but with schoolchildren singing his praises like he’s the Great Leader or something he’s getting set up to be mocked mercilessly by not only republicans but level headed cynics, like SNL.
my man bam better get ahead of this thing with some self-depreciating humor and maybe say its not about him. this is creepy. the nobel commitee is acting like a bunch of teenage boys (and more than a few girls) around Carmen Electra.
but maybe they’re trying to stop him from announcing a surge in afghanistan. Brilliant!
This is pretty WTF.
I thought much of the right, like Mankaw and Tyler Cowen, were rather gracious here…reflecting the fact that the world’s most prominent leftist economist is actually part of the capitalistic neo-liberal consensus, something often obscured by his unhinged hyperpartisanship.
I agree with Flukycoda that this is ridiculous.
And Robert, as I recall, you predicted that McCain would win the election; and just a month ago, you were saying that health care reform was dead (you admitted that something called “health care reform” would pass but said it would be nothing at all like the things Obama and other Dems were proposing). So I don’t think your track record for making predictions is all that great.
The idea that winning the noble peace prize in 2009 will be the final nail in someone’s 2012 election chances is ridiculous. As Ben says, you’re proving Jeff’s point. (As the old joke says, if Obama walked on water, you’d
complain he can’t swimconfidently predict that his inability to swim had sunk his re-election chances.)Here’s my prediction: If in 2012 it feels to most people like the economy is improving, then Obama will win re-election; if not, then not. (For the same reason, I expect the Republicans to do well in 2010.)
@flukycoda: WORD.
@Ben: I’m not going to sweat too much if a conservative insults the President. I did my share when GWB was in office–I just urge all conservatives to remember the rhetoric coming from the right about how we should stand behind the President and not question him when we protested both Gulf Wars I & II. Odd how they forget that now. And if they suddenly embrace criticism and vitriol against the President, I’d advise them to STFU if/when another conservative sits in the Oval office and finds their war/policies/whatever the target of protests and criticism.
Several unrelated thoughts:
1. I completely support Robert’s right to insult Obama in any way he sees fit.
2. I don’t think that the man who is running two wars deserves a Nobel Prize but he’s a better choice than Kissinger. So far. I’m not sure that he’s not going to end up looking like Johnson in Afghanistan pretty soon. (The Viet Nam invasion being started by Kennedy but greatly expanded by LBJ.)
3. My prediction is that Obama wins re-election in 2012 and Clinton takes 2016. What the heck, it’s at least as likely as Robert’s prediction.
he’s a better choice than Kissinger.
Thanks, Dianne. I knew there had some pretty, um, non-peaceful choices before but I was too lazy/distracted to look it up.
Yo, Obama. I’m really happy for you; I’ll let you finish. But Gandhi had one of the most peaceful lives of all time! One of the most peaceful lives of all time!
Here’s my prediction: If in 2012 it feels to most people like the economy is improving, then Obama will win re-election; if not, then not. (For the same reason, I expect the Republicans to do well in 2010.)
I’ll buy a piece of that. Hell, if the economy hadn’t tanked a few months before the election we’d probably be talking about President McCain right now. And Tina Fey would be on SNL every weekend.
What’ll throw it open is if the economy is stagnant – neither growing nor contracting. Then secondary factors will have more influence.
Here’s a radical proposal:
“My fellow Americans and the Nobel Peace Prize committee; I was inaugurated on January 20th. Nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize were due February 1st. I don’t recall that I did anything particularly spectacular in those 12 days, nor do I recall that my efforts in the previous few years in the U.S. Senate and the Illinois Senate led to any great advancements in world peace. So I must respectfully decline this award. I would welcome reconsideration if it turns out that anything that I do in the next few years actually has an effect. Thank you.”
If he has the guts to do that I will praise him on Free Republic.
Considering that Afghanistan is the war that NATO was willing to show up for (and that our departing Coalition of the Willing in Iraq redirects troops toward), I don’t think the rest of the world is as troubled by it as the American left is. Afghanistan was already a failed state in the middle of a civil war, with the Taliban government recognized by almost no one, on 9/11. In contrast, on 9/11 Iraq was a relatively stable nation with no active conflicts either internally or externally and a long-recognized head of state, which just a few days earlier we’d been talking about changing to “smart sanctions” on.
A friend posted the Fox News story on his Facebook:
Snatched… I like it… some hard-working white man had earned that Prize and this black dude mugged him for it.
hey, he took my advice. made a joke and was self-depreciating. who knew he reads alas.
robert: he’s freaking crushing us. he’s no empty suit but rather the most formidable politician since Reagan (who he says he patterns himself after) if for no other reason than he’s the head of a movement, not just party, albeit one more nebulous in ideology than Reagan’s. if memory serves, the left thought Ronnie ill prepared and his followers morons too. look what he did to them.
Another great one from Facebook: “[Friend] thinks that the ORIGINAL plan in Oslo was to mail a Nobel to everyone in the world except George W. Bush. But then they realized they could make the same point, for lots cheaper.”
he’s no empty suit but rather the most formidable politician since Reagan
Reagan was an empty suit and by his second term an empty suit with Alzheimer’s.
And of course, the meme of the year:
Yo, Obama, I’m really happy for you and I’m gonna let you finish, but Mir Hossein Mousavi is the most peaceful man of ALL TIME.
The title of this post is presumably satirical, but I’ve already seen a friend of a friend saying, “So you can now get a Nobel for having a really cool To Do list. Nice. I mean, even Al Gore had to actually make a movie with a lot of fake statistics and stuff to get his. The decision was made BEFORE Obama had done ANYTHING…”
Dianne: you’re misunderestimating
I just totally swiped and tweeted that.
The thing is that we don’t yet KNOW whether President Obama’s policies will lead to greater peace or less peace. The left thinks it will. The right says it won’t. But quite simply put he hasn’t done enough and we haven’t had time to see the effects of what he’s done or what he’s going to do – or not do. For all we know, President Bush’s policies will have led to greater peace in the long run than anything that Obama has or will have done. We all have our opinions on what we think is likely, but time yet masks the final answers.
We all have our opinions on what we think is likely, but time yet masks the final answers.
Yet the Nobel Prizes are not posthumous awards.
Of course they’re not posthumous, as this award demonstrates, they’re quite humorous indeed.
See, I think it’s this kind of attitude that won the Nobel Prize for Obama in the first place.
Like, the right has been so dramatically, theatrically, flamboyantly wrong about every single issue of importance over the last 8 years, if they think Obama is the devil, it must mean that he deserves a Nobel Prize.
—Myca
PG: so what? So they’re not posthumous? All that means is that by the time we know the answer to a given situation, the person who might otherwise have gotten an award for it is not around. Seems to me that it’s more important to determine whether or not a problem was solved or a policy was effective before we give an award to someone for the putative solution or the policy.
Well, looks like I won’t be issuing any praise to the President over this one:
Got it in one. But ….
… just couldn’t resist the spotlight and the acclamation. So close. So, so close. He should have gone with his instincts instead of succumbing to self-aggrandizement. He could have taught people so much just then, but he missed it. Too bad.
Myca:
Which supports a great many people’s point; that Obama got this prize not because he’s actually done anything to deserve it, but because the Peace Prize committee decided to use the President of the United States to make a political statement. Which makes the award itself cheap and meaningless. Shame on President Obama for letting himself become the foil of a handful of leftists in Sweden.
We’ve really lowered the bar for self-aggrandizement, haven’t we?
RonF,
PG: so what? So they’re not posthumous? All that means is that by the time we know the answer to a given situation, the person who might otherwise have gotten an award for it is not around. Seems to me that it’s more important to determine whether or not a problem was solved or a policy was effective before we give an award to someone for the putative solution or the policy.
Important to whom? Nobel’s will stated that the Peace Prize should go “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”
Your criteria of “greater peace in the long run” ain’t in there. What has Bush done for “fraternity between nations, abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the holding and promotion of peace congresses”? Bush thought it was clever to end-run Congress to appoint John Bolton, a man who openly regards the entire United Nations with contempt, as America’s UN ambassador. You think this increased “fraternity between nations” or the “holding and promotion of peace congresses”?
Also, whom do you appoint to determine the effectiveness of policy? Shall RonF be the Decider?
In short, if you want an award to be based on your preferences, start your own Prize.
Which supports a great many people’s point; that Obama got this prize not because he’s actually done anything to deserve it, but because the Peace Prize committee decided to use the President of the United States to make a political statement. Which makes the award itself cheap and meaningless. Shame on President Obama for letting himself become the foil of a handful of leftists in Sweden.
A preference for “fraternity between nations” (what many rightwingers consider a dangerous step toward ZOMG ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT — even one of my law school classmates, a very intelligent and well-educated woman, has said “Obama has a new world order in mind and he sees himself as the head”) is inherently a political preference. A preference for reduced or abolished standing armies is inherently a political preference. And a preference for peace congresses is inherently a political preference, as made clear by the conservatives who have expressed dislike and scorn toward such.
Yup, it’s now self-aggrandizing to say,
See, I would have thought that was America-aggrandizing, but since RonF presumably is in favor of that kind of aggrandizement, he interprets differently.
more importantly, when is this 3-day weekend of which sasha and malia speak?
I love how Michael Steele didn’t even give him an obligatory “Of course I’d like to congratulate the president yadda yadda yadda”… he goes straight on the attack, calling it “unfortunate”.
How is it “self-aggrandizement” when he…
…?
Now if he’d said it was a call for all nations to follow HIM, you’d have a case. But he sounds more as if he’s acknowledging a responsibility, not a newfound power…
Columbus Day weekend. I guess their school recognizes it as a holiday, and of course the federal government does. My schools never did. I’ve never been at a workplace at this time of year that recognized it either.
And a more serious thought from Facebook: [Friend] thinks it’s sad that people are blaming the President for his prestigious honor when it was BESTOWED upon him by others… I’m inspired that the world is more hopeful than it used to be…”
PG:
I’m sorry – I wasn’t aware that George Bush was one of this year’s nominees. Because unless he was, the issue is not Barak Obama vs. George Bush but Barak Obama vs. the other 171 individuals and 33 organizations nominated, most of whom I’ll wager have been working in the field for a lot longer and have done a hell of a lot more work than Pres. Obama.
I would just LOVE to see their names made public. I bet I could put the list up and pick a more worthy candidate with a blindfold and a dart.
I’m sorry – I wasn’t aware that George Bush was one of this year’s nominees.
(1) He quite likely was. He certainly has been in the past. Very little is required to nominate someone for the Nobel Peace Prize:
(2) You’re being disingenuous. Your claim was, “For all we know, President Bush’s policies will have led to greater peace in the long run than anything that Obama has or will have done.” I pointed out that you seem to misconceive what the criteria for the Prize are, and elucidated them for you.
If you think that’s anything like what I said, your reading comprehension could use some work.
My point, which was made in jest, is that over the past 8 years, you’d be right more often then not by assuming that the opposite of whatever the right wing is saying is true.
They say that there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Assume that there are none, and you’ll be right.
They say that we must invade Iraq for our safety and security? Assume that the invasion will make us less safe and secure, and you’ll be right.
They say that we need abstinence-only education to eliminate teen pregnancy? Assume that it will increase teen pregnancy and STDs, and you’ll be right.
Thus, when they say that Obama is a Nazi bent on world domination, the opposite is probably true.
Now, clearly in this case, it didn’t work out for you guys, but I think the Nobel Committee is hardly to blame when you’ve spent nearly a decade setting up such compelling precedents.
—Myca
This from the remarkable Fafblog makes an important point, too.
Naomi Klein says Obama’s win cheapens the prize: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/9/as_us_continues_afghan_iraq_occupations
Greenwald has a good article on it too: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/10/09/obama/index.html
If they’re saying it’s cheapened based on Obama’s not having stopped all foreign wars immediately, can I just say: Kissinger.
Klein says it’s been cheapened even more.
They didn’t just give it to Kissinger – they gave it to Teddy Roosevelt. I think cheapening the Nobel peace prize is pretty hard.
I find it kind of distasteful to react to the award of a Nobel Peace Prize to a sitting president by talking about how awesome it is that the opposition are going to go off. Especially when people are actually dying as a result of Obama’s actual foreign policy.
Yes Maia, thank you.
He did work on the “standing armies” thing (with Medvedev). It was underreported in the U.S. because Americans don’t care about foreign policy.
I’m no better, of course; I only know that from a handful of friends-of-friends on Facebook.
Although they weren’t around in Nobel’s time, I think ol’ Alfred would agree that nuclear weapons caches — astronomically more destructive than the dynamite he was feeling so anxious about with regard to his legacy — constitute part of the “standing armies” of our time.
Incidentally, I think some of the leftier folks here would find one of the post-Nobel prizes that was not accepted as a Nobel Memorial Prize (as the economic award, established 70 years after Nobel’s death, was) rather interesting: (from Wikipedia)
@Maia–yeah. I mean, I think it’s ridiculous that he got it, but jeebus–they gave it to fucking Kissinger.
This lovely comment is in the same spirit:
“The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists – the Taliban and Hamas this morning – in criticizing the President for receiving the Nobel Peace prize,”
Manju, that comparison actually originated at Fox News. Rush Limbaugh pointed out his agreement with the Taliban as well.
Even a stopped clock is amusing once in a while:
In response to RNC chairman Michael Steele saying others were more deserving of the Prize, Pat Buchanan said, “Michael Steele had a Kanye West moment coming out there and saying Beyonce should have gotten the award. He shouldn’t have done that.”
Additionally, Rush Limbaugh has been bragging, loudly[*], that this is an issue that “we all agree with the Taliban and Iran about.” You cannot shout that from the rooftops and then get all butthurt when your opponents say, “Yes. Yes you do agree with the Taliban and Iran about this.”
—Myca
* Though, to be fair, everything he does, he does loudly.
PG and Myca: context matters. For example the NYorker portraying the Obama’s as terrorists is parody; national review doing it is something quite different.
i may compare myself to hitler in a sort of humorous self-depreciating way but if you were to hitlerize me it would be part of the dumbing down of the discourse of which Jeff observes on the right.
plus the dnc used the all too common doubting patriotism line of argument.
And actually, Manju, it wasn’t all that long ago that you were arguing in all seriousness that the left was to blame for Osama bin Laden, since their language on globalization was similar … I’m sure you’ll be arguing that the right is now enabling terrorism, right?
Oh, or are the rules ‘different’ when it’s your side?
—Myca
Manju,
So when Fox News made the comparison, it was actually a satire upon Democrats’ stated ideas about Republicans… even though the DNC statement came after the Fox News broadcast?
I guess Glenn Beck’s time machine is really working in overdrive.
If that’s not what you’re saying, what was the point of your comparison to the New Yorker cartoon of Obama? (Which, incidentally, both the Obama and McCain campaigns decried as offensive and inappropriate.)
Myca: My position on the issue is nuanced, reflecting the tension between the Goldhagen thesis and McCarthyism. Suffice to say, simply agreeing with terrorists isn’t enough to enable them, though if its a hotbutton known to motivate terrorists, i suppose it makes sense to watch what you say.
reflecting the tension between the Goldhagen thesis and McCarthyism
What the heck is this supposed to mean? McCarthyism was an episode of trying to root out from within the American population — particularly, at the highest levels of American society in entertainment, business, government and academia — an ideology that was deemed foreign and threatening. The Goldhagen thesis is that most Germans had a deep-seated hatred of Jews — of a racial group, not an ideological one — that made those Germans, in his book’s title, “Hitler’s Willing Executioners.”
it wasn’t satire as the NYorker cover (though that was itself problematic since many of those slurs emanated from the Hillary Clinton campaign and high level supporters) but if we can be generous to the NYorker for a moment and put that aside, the similarity between their cover and foxnews/rush pointing out the RNC’s postion is like the evildoers, is that its coming from an ally, removing the vitriol and hyperbole implicit when it comes from the other side.
(i don’t know if the fox reporter is actually a republican, they do have dems there, but his tone sounded respectful not vitrolic).
it means the goldhagen thesis, blaming a larger culture for hatred emerging from it, can become a form of McCarthyism loosely defined-(guilt by association) in the hands of partisans or demagogues.
Er, Manju, you are aware that some of the Republicans’ statements, as a matter of self-admitted fact, expressed sentiments similar to the Taliban’s and Hamas’s, while the reason the Obama and McCain campaigns both criticized the New Yorker cover is that it was factually incorrect? Or do you subscribe to the view that Obama is really a Muslim, his wife is secretly living her life as a blaxploitation film heroine and they both burn American flags?
That’s how Fox News could report on the similarity between Limbaugh and the Taliban without there being any vitriol in it — it’s just a matter of fact and Limbaugh seemed to find it funny himself. In contrast, the New Yorker cover was playing off something that its presumed audience finds ludicrously unbelievable and enjoys mocking other Americans for believing.
it means the goldhagen thesis, blaming a larger culture for hatred emerging from it, can become a form of McCarthyism loosely defined-(guilt by association) in the hands of partisans or demagogues.
I still don’t understand what you mean by this. Goldhagen said the longstanding anti-Semitism of Western Europe, and specifically of Germany, made Hitler’s rise and the Holocaust possible. It’s a controversial claim, but so far as I know, he doesn’t come close to saying that merely living in Germany was sufficient to imbue specific people with a willingness to see Jews exterminated. (The example of thoroughly German types like Oskar Schindler who could grasp that the Holocaust was A Bad Thing clearly indicates the contrary.)
Guilt-by-association, particularly as McCarthy practiced it, is pretty literally about saying “You know this guy, he subscribes to ideology X, so don’t you subscribe to it as well?” People who live in a culture are embedded and have to grapple with what the culture tells them at some point. In contrast, I can ignore many of my acquaintances’ beliefs about politics, religion, etc. forever.
Saying someone is likely to hold a belief because of the culture he lives in is at least empirically more plausible than saying someone is likely to hold a belief because he has an associate who holds it — a belief can’t remain embedded in a culture unless it is successfully transmitted to a critical mass of each generation.
Do you have an example of people actually stretching Goldhagen’s thesis into guilt-by-association?
True, it was clear that they were just reporting a funny coincidence. However, the DNC was not. They were doing something similar to the RNC criticizing anti-war activists for having a position similar to the terrorists in iraq. (I’m not sure if the RNC actually did this but lets just say for the sake of argument they did). Even though its factually true, its still vitrol….given the context.
The inclusion of a lack of patriotism charge should demonstrate to you their intent, in contrast to rush and fox, was not benign.
He doesn’t, but his thesis in the hands of a demagogue can devolve into that. For example, when does criticizing Muslim culture for the rise of radical islam become islamophobia…which can be described as a form of McCarthyism.