Some Mornings You Just Don’t Know Whether To Laugh Or Just Slip The Restraints Back On

Obama has won the freaking Nobel Peace Prize??

On one hand, the prize itself has been badly devalued by some of it’s recent winners – El Baredi? Arafat the kleptocrat terrorist? Jimmy Carter the dupe, Al Gore, carbon profiteer?

And I have to say that this award – to Obama before he’s actually, you know, accomplished anything – devalues it further. It becomes one of those MTV awards bands with a hot single get before they develop substance abuse problems, enter rehab, go broke, and wind up working at Jamba Juice.

Chait and Kaus both agree that the savvy thing for Obama to do would be to turn it down. It becomes a twofer then – he’s won it and he’s shown some humility and a sense of proportion.

I actually think it’s going to be interesting this morning to see if he does.

13 thoughts on “Some Mornings You Just Don’t Know Whether To Laugh Or Just Slip The Restraints Back On”

  1. Turning it down _would_ be very smart politically. Hmmm…

    The Nobel idiots have just handed us a very valuable test. This is where we find out whether Obama is just a good politician with charisma, or dangerously narcissist.

  2. Am I correct in understanding that the deadline for nominations was about two weeks after he was inaugurated?

    On the plus side, no thinking person should ever take the Nobel Peace Prize seriously ever again.

  3. Its rumored he is going to accept it on behalf of the American people and their ideals. That could work out if done deftly, and in fact could erase some of the bad feelings his built up at home with all the apologizing etc.

    But it would have to be done in a very humble, self-effacing (not nation-self-effacing, Obama self-effacing) way. In other words the word “I” probably should appear exactly one time, as in “I cannot begin to accept this award for any individual achievement of my own…”

    That doesn’t seem to be something Obama is capable of. I’m guessing he will make matters worse by accepting the award on behalf of the American people and then explaining why he and his initiatives are the embodiment of it all. His humble recognition of American exceptionalism will undoubtedly turn into an ‘I and me’ fest more notable for the caveats, apologia, Obama biography.

  4. Just look how quickly this gets turned into a “test” of his character by those who have also been slamming everything he has done or is trying to do in the same time span, which is, all of a sudden, an improbably short period of time.

    “Dangerously narcissistic?” LMOA coming from an apparent republican who gave us a Bush 3 times!!!

  5. Yeah its not like Obama hasn’t basically kept in tact nearly all of the Bush-Hitler policies on rendition, gitmo, wiretaps, or any other host of boogieman issues that team lefty harped about for months on end.

    Lets of course ignore the admins horrid treatment of Honduras, and the cutting off of funds to IHRDC.

    Obama is the new Marisa Tomei.

  6. Steve Sailer is right: (link)

    The hilarious career of Barack Obama continues to demonstrate how much white people long to give money, fame, and power to a black guy who meets minimum standards of presentability, regardless of his lack of accomplishments.

    The news made me feel like Simon Tam, in an episode of Firefly:

    Jayne, the man they call Jayne…

    He robbed from the rich and he gave to the poor.
    Stood up to the man and gave him what for.
    Our love for him now ain’t hard to explain.
    The hero of Canton, the man they call Jayne.

    Simon: “This must be what it feels like to go insane.”

    I want a picture of Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama shaking hands with Nobel Peace Prize winner Kofi Annan, with Alma Thomas’s Watusi in the background.

  7. Does anybody have an official list of Barack Obama’s major foreign policy achievements from the 20th of January, 2009 to the 1st of February, 2009? You may have to define “major” flexibly, but let’s see it.

    At the whitehouse.gov website, I can see a “first 100 days” review for economics, but not for global peace. I’ve looked at 1st February. Nothing to note.

    So this list of all 357 items from January (on all topics, not just foreign policy) must be it (link). That’s not a very convenient way to review a Nobel Peace Prize winning performance.

    Which of these items might have been the winning achievement?

    * Message to the Senate Concerning the Annex VI of the Antarctic Treaty
    * A Wonderful Day (Update: Video) PRESIDENT: All right. Everybody please have a seat. Well, this is a wonderful day. (Applause.) First of all, it is fitting that the very first bill that I sign — the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act — (applause) — that it is upholding one of this nation’s founding principles: that we are all created equal, and each deserve a chance to pursue our own…
    * Press Briefing on the President’s Trip to Mexico and Trinidad and Tobago
    * Reset with Russia
    * Readout on the President’s Call to South Africa’s President Motlanthe
    * Remarks By President Obama And Russian President Medvedev After Meeting
    * Statement from Robert Gibbs on the Election of the New Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church
    * Obama On Iraqi Provincial Elections
    * Readout on the President’s Call to Prime Minister Aso of Japan
    * Statement from the President on his Meeting about the Situation in Iraq
    * National Day of Renewal and Reconciliation, 2009
    * Ensuring Lawful Interrogations
    * Closure Of Guantanamo Detention Facilities
    * Remarks by President Obama, German Chancellor Merkel, and Elie Wiesel at Buchenwald Concentration Camp, 6-5-09
    * Fighting for America’s Autoworkers: “I’m Skinny But I’m Tough” — (applause) — a new car that will get more than 40 miles per gallon. I just sat in the car. I asked for the keys, they wouldn’t give me the keys. (Laughter.) I was going — I was going to take it for a little spin. (Laughter.)
    * Remarks by The President at Beginning Of Trilateral Meeting With Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Abbas
    * Remarks by the President to the United Nations General Assembly – of the Test Ban Treaty, and work with others to bring the treaty into force so that nuclear testing is permanently prohibited. We will complete a Nuclear Posture Review that opens the door to deeper cuts and reduces the role of nuclear weapons. And we will call upon countries to begin negotiations in January on a treaty to end the production of fissile material for weapons. I will also host a summit next April that reaffirms each nation’s…
    * Remarks By The President At the UN Security Council Summit On Nuclear Non Proliferation And Nuclear Disarmament – And all nations must do their part to make this work. In America, I have promised that we will pursue a new agreement with Russia to substantially reduce our strategic warheads and launchers. We will move forward with the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and open the door to deeper cuts in our own arsenal. In January, we will call upon countries to begin negotiations on a treaty to end the production of fissile material…
    * Message from the President – Kimberly Diamond Certification process

    General Council had adopted a decision granting a waiver pursuant to Article IX of the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization concerning the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme for rough diamonds. The waiver applies to the United States and other WTO members that requested the waiver and to any WTO member that notifies the WTO of its desire to be covered by the waiver. The waiver was scheduled to have effect from January 1, 2003,…

    That includes everything that could possibly be Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize winning accomplishment, plus possibly an extra item or two that may have snuck in.

    Some people may think Barack Obama earned his Nobel Peace Prize for having closed Guantanamo Detention Facilities, or for having brought peace to Antarctica and / or to Trinidad and Tobago. But I think he got it for saying “Well, this is a wonderful day.” (Applause.) and being Black and the President of the United States of America when he said it.

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