This morning the president and his wife woke up to a Swedish surprise. It was not the 3:00 a.m. call that everyone dreaded rather a 6:00 a.m. call no one saw coming. Obama won the Peace Prize for 2009--who knew?
I rushed up to a colleague and told him if I did not have to be at work so early today I could have blogged Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize first. He looked at me stunned, I was unsure if he had not heard because he looked so puzzled. I must have assumed because he was black that he had voted for and/or was pro-Obama. I was wrong. He whispered: “For what? I didn’t vote for the guy!" I had no way of knowing if his reaction was from the right, center, left or uniformed wing. An hour later on the radio Sean Hannity sang out the same two words “for what?”
As for my own reaction I spoke aloud a single word. The same word I said when at the beginning of the school year we were told, in an imprompto meeting — that our beloved assistant principal was not sick, as we thought, but had died that morning: “What!?” The Swedish audience who got the news first also gasped in shock. I knew that the Right would have a s*(& fit when they got the news. But I did not think that liberals too would be surprised at this prize. The radio heads are talking it up as a prize for destroying the country and making it fit for communists and socialists around the world to inhabit. You can see where Sarah Palin gets her sense of humor. The Right response clears the low bar for conservatives, liberals, and Republicans alike.
Honestly, I think that we are all confused and shocked. But conservatives just don’t know when to cheer and when to cry. They cheered when Obama helped the country lose Chicago’s Olympic bid and now have cried “foul” when Obama without any effort except for showing up wins the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009. I don’t get it; it was clear as dry paint. He won it because he earned it, or will earn it. It was an obvious vote of confidence.
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Article comments
1 - Ruvy
Heloise,
Others from South Africa bitterly complained when the Norwegians awarded this prize to DeKlerk, as well as Mandela - though it did take the two of them to avoid a bloody race war in South Africa. And deKlerk did stick to his word, as did Mandela. There has been no race war in South Africa.
But the parliamentary committee from Olso dipped themselves in shit when they awarded this prize to Arabfart - a peaedofile, murderer and terrorist - who DID NOT avoid a terror war in Israel. Obama's award is actually a step upwards from the blindness and stupidity and Arab ass-kissing of the Oslo parliamentary committee fourteen and fifteen years ago. A baby step up, but a step up. Obama has not yet helped Iran destroy Israel, but his dithering daily helps more and more.
2 - Arch Conservative
Not to mention Al Gore. I guess perpetuating the global warming hoax really went over well in Oslo...or maybe it was for inventing the internet.
3 - Ruvy
Bing,
Al Gore was not a murderer, paedophile or terrorist. Maybe he is a fool or a very good scamster, but he is not the human trash Arabfart was.
4 - Jeanne Browne
Heloise -- The President's winning the Peace Prize also gave me pause and food for thought. I think it's ironic but true that while America likes to toot its own horn about "We're No.1; we're the Greatest Country in the World," at the same time we don't really understand the depth of our influence/impact on the rest of the world, especially the language, temperament, and behavior of our President. After eight years of Cowboy Bush, a man who couldn't articulate a simple declarative sentence, yet managed to bring the US and the world to the brink of total cultural warfare and economic collapse, the election of Obama must have been an extraordinary relief. And while he's made some serious mistakes and miscalculations in several major areas (from his mishandling of health care reform to very questionable foreign policy objectives), he has, without a doubt, virtually reversed the world's opinion of the US and its leadership in record time. It never occurred to me that the Nobel Peace Prize would be bestowed for meaningful political public relations, but then, I never thought it would be given to the terrorist likes of Yassar Arafat. Go figure. In any case, I'm very pleased and proud for our President. Now, if the Prize motivates him to get us out and keep us out of that sinkhole, Afghanistan, it will have shown that the Nobel Committee did something unusual, brave, and very useful.
5 - Arch Conservative
It is a relief though that a bunch of Norwegians feel warm and comfy enough about America again to award our president the nobel peace prize because when you get right down to it the only thing that really matters is how Europeans feel about us....right Jeane?
I mean who cares if Obama took a bad situation and made it worse....Does it really matter that he added over a trillion dollars to the deficit in less than a year's time......Double digit unemployment and a collapsing dollar?please I get the courage and motivation I need from merely listening to Obama give one of his great speeches. If everyone else would just realize that they too, by surrendering to the One and his every last whim for the government to call the shots, could experience the peace of mind and complete, absolute bliss that I have found in the hope and change that messiah has delivered....well then we'd all be holding hands, singing row row row your boat as we all skip down the yellow brick road together in world wide harmony.
But some people just don't get it like you and I do Jeanne and they never will. They're too hung up on scrutinizing Obama's actions and the reprecussions of those actions when they should be more concerned with the pretty pretty words the One imparts upon us with each new speech that he allows us mere mortals to listen in on.
Praise be Obama. The one has come!
6 - zingzing
while i was surprised as anyone about this award, i did hear that the nobel committee does like to give these things to people they think COULD help to bring about peace. now obama has to go out and earn that award. if it wasn't already in his head (and i think it was), now he really has to think about how he can make the world a more peaceful place. and that's a good thing. it may ring false now, but if he does earn it, then he'll earn it. and i hope he does.
those of you who want to bash obama for an award he had nothing to do with better hope that he earns it as well. like the situation in south africa (and like the situation with arafat), this is a stepping stone, a push from the international community, and let's all hope that nobel gets this one right.