By Lindsay Beyerstein
The president wins the Nobel Peace Prize and some Democrats are wondering if he should turn it down because it might upset the wingnuts. Marc Ambinder summarizes:
This tracks with one argument I’m hearing and reading from Democrats
and others who are skeptical of the prize: it will turn the volume and
enthusiasm level all the way to the extreme end of the dial for
conservatives — overmodulating at 110%; the resulting
hyperpolarization will hurt Obama’s agenda. (Representative of this
opinion: “I think it will feed not just conservative dislike
but the growing concern of independents and elites, that he is a man of
rhetoric, a work of imagination, but as of now an unaccomplished
statesman. The smartest thing he could do is turn it down. It will
backfire on him.‘”)
Sometimes I feel like I’m living in a parallel dimension where everything is inverted. Accepting the Nobel Prize makes you look bad? It’s narcissistic to accept prizes from other people?
I am gobsmacked that some Democrats want the president to turn down the prize for his own good. What message would that send to the rest of the world? Something along the lines of ‘Thanks, guys, but I’m really all about war’?
Of course the Republicans are going to freak out. Our guy wins a Nobel Peace Prize after 9 months in office, primarily for tinkering with the worst excesses of the wars their guy started. That’s humiliating. Humiliated Republicans lash out, news at eleven.
It’s a ridiculous decision, but then the NPP has been ridiculous at least since 1973, so whatevs.
The notion that Obama could pacify the wingnuts by turning down the prize is, of course, absurd. As we already know, there is nothing Obama could do short of resigning and then blowing his brains out on national TV that would pacify the wingnuts. (And even then they’d be calling him an attention whore.)
What message would that send to the rest of the world? Something along the lines of ‘Thanks, guys, but I’m really all about war’?
Well, as the supreme leader of Rome 2.0 (h/t Jim Henley), he pretty much is. Which brings us back to the absurdity of the prize to begin with.
This one is silly turtles all the way down. I’m going to sit back and enjoy the show.
Come on, he should turn it down just to demonstrate he has some sense of dignity and self-worth. This is the gold star pasted to your forehead for showing up in class, the ribbon handed out to you at the marathon for passing the first water station. It’s a freaking embarassment to get the Nobel peace prize at the beginning of your term.
Come on, he should turn it down just to demonstrate he has some sense of dignity and self-worth.
Yeah, I got another Nobel Peace Prize in my box of Wheaties this morning. Pisses me off, I think I chipped a tooth on it.
“I am gobsmacked that some Democrats want the president to turn down the prize for his own good. What message would that send to the rest of the world? Something along the lines of ‘Thanks, guys, but I’m really all about war’?”
Well, that depends on what reasons he gives, doesn’t it? Just about every analysis I’ve read thus far* says he should refuse on grounds his efforts haven’t borne fruit yet — which isn’t unprecedented**.
*Chait, Crowley, Ezra, Sewer, among others
**Lê Ðức Thọ
I am of mixed minds. The committee kind of showed what direction they were heading a while ago when they said they were looking for a person currently in the middle, not the end, of a process, hoping the award would generate some positive reactions to the recipient’s actions.
I am not sure Obama really deserves the award, yet. So a part of me thinks he should turn it down in a very respectful, honoring the award, kind of way. At the same time, the explosion on the right is fun to see. Other than that, Uncle K has it right about what it would take for Obama to do to avoid the screaming and ranting right.
” primarily for tinkering with the worst excesses of the wars their guy started. ”
No, he won the Nobel Peace prize for saying all of the things that Europeans want to hear about how America is bad and he is going to make it better. He should accept it, even his policies won’t be that popular in a few years internationally but he certainly has created an aura of American humility that is worth some recognition.
The bigger challenge will be when he actually has to put American well being ahead of international politics (I have no doubt he can and will) and loses the luster.
First, it’s not unusual for the Peace Prize Committee to reward heads of state for charting the right course.
Second, prizewinners aren’t responsible for second-guessing judges. Obama didn’t give himself the prize. Refusing the prize really would be narcissistic. Who is he to second-guess the Nobel Peace Prize Committee about who’s promoting peace? That’s like saying Taylor Swift should have preemptively declined the video music award because everybody knew that Beyonce had the best video.
Third, refusing the prize would undermine Obama’s credibility on peace-related issues. Refusing the prize would imply that he doesn’t think he’s on the right track for peace.
I have mixed feelings about this. My first instinct was to oppose this as it feels like a crude attempt to influence our domestic politics. I don’t think the Nobel Peace prize should be involved in partisan politics. So it seemed unseemly for Obama to accept the award.
But then I looked up the list of Nobel laureates, and both Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson received the prize while in office. So, given that precedent, I think Obama has to accept. To insist that Obama should be regarded differently from other sitting presidents awarded the prize, is itself a way of injecting partisan politics. I’m a Republican, I oppose Obama, but I’ve decided not to freak out about this.
Marty, when has Obama said America is bad. I thought that was the job of the Republicans lately.
I don’t think that Obama deserves this. He might at some point in the future, burt he doesn’t now.
On the other hand to turn it down to pacify Republicsn would be idiotic since nothing, as noted up thread, will pacify them. Even ritual suicide won’t do the job.
It is true that there will be those (Hi Brett!) who will turn the acceptance into an attack on Obama’s character. That’s to be expected: it is the more dignified and smarter version of the also to be expected rtigtwing hysteria. And like other forms of rightwing outrage over Obama’s Presidency, it’s going to get expressed regardless so isn’t worth worrying about. In fact there was some rightwing just a day or so that was trying to push a new meme about Obama being a narcissist. So the overtly crazing stuff is as ineveitable as the sun coming up as are the less overt and more subtle attacks on character.
“Refusing the prize really would be narcissistic. Who is he to second-guess the Nobel Peace Prize Committee about who’s promoting peace?”
Yeah, who does that guy in the oval office, with the PDFs, and the situation room, and the whatnot, think he is, to doubt the judgement of a committee of Swedes on geopolitics?
Classic.
So, by extension, Oy, you should defer completely to President Obama on all decisions of war and peace because he has a situation room and some PDFs.
Obama deserves it far more than did Teddy Roosevelt (*that* was weird). Teddy not only loved war, but said so! Oh well, I guess, like everybody else, the Nobels just don’t have the sense of humor they once did.
Of course Obama should accept it. I don’t know that I would quite substitute ‘Europeans’ for the Nobels, but of course Europeans are relieved Obama is president of this country – so is practically everyone else in the world, including a majority of Americans. The people who are unhappy about it are: al Queda, US Republicans…and probably Berlusconi…
he won the Nobel Peace prize for saying all of the things that Europeans want to hear about how America is bad and he is going to make it better.
Of course that’s not what he said, Marty.
PDF’s? I have PDF’s. Unless I’m mistaken, Obama gets PDB’s. Sometimes they deal with the PRC.
Obama deserves it far more than did Teddy Roosevelt (*that* was weird). Teddy not only loved war, but said so! Oh well, I guess, like everybody else, the Nobels just don’t have the sense of humor they once did.
I guess he negotiated an end to the Russo-Japanese war. But, per Alfred Nobel’s wishes, the award is supposed to go “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses.” So, yeah that’s pretty weird. Of course, Yasser Arafat doesn’t meet that standard either.
I’ll just bracket the question whether Obama deserves the prize for a second (I don’t care, one way or the other), to think about the politics.
The idea that it would be good politics to turn down the prize so that people would think that President Obama isn’t a narcissist is flawed because it assumes that people respond to evidence on these types of issues, i.e. it assumes that somebody who thinks that the President is a narcissist would see him decline the prize, take in that information, and change his or her view. I think that isn’t true. If you wanted to square the idea of the President’s narcissism with his refusal to accept the prize, the proper headline would be, “Obama Thinks He’s Too Good For the Nobel Peace Prize.” The facts wouldn’t matter–Obama could claim that he declined the prize because he doesn’t think he’s earned it yet, etc., but almost everybody who wants to dislike him will keep disliking him. On top of that, he will have snubbed the international community and given up an opportunity to portray the American people as peaceful to the world (which is an image that we could use).
I think that a better political move would be to do the following: (1) Accept the prize on behalf of the American people, who are eager to put their best foot forward in the post-Bush era. Express honor at being selected among all the other great candidates, but also express pride that the American people voted to become engaged citizens of the world, etc. (2) Go to accept it, and take a bipartisan smattering of useful politicos along for the ride. Make sure they sit in the front row, and get a little camera time. Share the spotlight with a few key players and maybe shore up some warm fuzzy support for later initiatives in foreign or domestic policy. (3) Maybe gild the lily a bit by donating the $1.4m to some bipartisan cause, like a Christian aid charity, or tsunami victims in American Samoa. Emphasize the importance of personal responsibility, individual action, and ties among people alongside international diplomacy.
Obviously people who dislike the President will still hate him, but he’ll have done all of us a favor on the world stage, he’ll have used a PR opportunity to maybe grease a few political wheels, and he’ll have given $1.4m to a good cause. Everybody wins, no?
So, by extension, Oy, you should defer completely to President Obama on all decisions of war and peace because he has a situation room and some PDFs.
More than the Nobel committee, yes. And I hate Obama.
Uncle K: “silly turtles all the way down”
— made my day. 🙂
Accepting the award won’t MAKE obama look like a narcissist. He’s been a narcissist his whole life. This is just Europe’s way of saying if you suck our dicks will give you a prize.
Marc Ambinder’s a democrat? I’ve been reading his blog for years but I never would have guessed that.
Walking around my federal office building this morning I can say everyone was pleased as punch. Of course some of that is assuming he abolished NSPS, but they’re happy about the Nobel, too. I figure everyone’ll stay pleased about it until CNN says they’re not supposed to be.
Are there still any posting rules around here?
Turning down the prize would almost certainly be a bad choice diplomatically, so Obama shouldn’t do that just because the wingnuts are saying/doing wingnutty things.
But awarding the prize to him at this point is just weird. He may or may not do really good things for peace in the future, but it seems way too early. I don’t even really understand what the judges were thinking. I would say that it highlights how crassly political the whole thing is, but I can’t even really understand it from the political point of view. It seems much more like a “we think you’re really swell, thanks for being around” award than anything else. Like when Time magazine put a mirror on the front and named “YOU” as the person of the year.
Are there still any posting rules around here?
Is “dick” against the posting rules. I don’t normally consider it a swear. Sorry if I offended anyone. My point was that this is clearly the result of sucking up to Europe. “Sucking up” is OK, right?
(Closing Italics)
In response to Swebastian: I agree on the weird. When I saw the headline that Obama got a Nobel my first reaction was that it was given in a fit of spite towards the America of the previous administration. Obama has, at least partly by virtue of the fact that he isn’t Bush. raised AMerica’s prestige abroad considerable asmby polling data.
Of course I’m just guessing about motivation here. I think that the Nobel committee reduces the prestige of their prize when they hand it out befrore the hoped-for accomplishment actually happen.
And The Award For Not Being George Bush Goes To
You heard it first last from the on the ball folks at PBH, Barack Obama just won the Nobel Peace Prize! Some of the highlights of his administration include:
* The continuation of occupation of Iraq
* The targeting of civilians in Afghanistan
* The unc…
another example of socialist european moral authority.
How ’bout, he should turn it down because he doesn’t deserve it? He’s behind schedule closing GITMO, behind schedule disengaging from Iraq, expanding our presence in Afghanistan, ignoring his promise to end the civil rights abuses of the Bush admin, fighting the release of innocent detainees, and claiming “sovereign immunity” for administrators guilty of violating the law. And he’s ended which armed conflicts, again?
Here’s another example of socialist european moral authority.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8296578.stm
Is Irrumator the troll who kept breaking the site with unclosed tags?
It’s ironic that the man who’s expanding Bagram Airbase and making plans for perpetual war in Afghanistan should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, but irony has been dead on that one since Henry Kissinger got it.
That Republicans will loathe knowing that the President of the United States is a man internationally respected and liked goes without saying: Republicans love their party more than they love their country.
I guess [TR] negotiated an end to the Russo-Japanese war.
Well…that’s kind of a simplistic way of describing what happened. The award of the Nobel to TR was far more ‘political’ than is the present one to Obama. The former *was* ass-kissing to a ridiculous degree. The war TR mediated a settlement to (after it was basically over) was about China, and imperialistic designs thereon – those of Russia, Japan, and the US. TR hardly regarded peace and brotherhood as abstract values unto themselves! Obama’s Peace Prize is actually about resolving or preventing conflict.
Judging from Irrumator’s comment, I can see that blustering sissydom didn’t die with TR.
I’m with JanieM. What’s amazing is that everytime I think rock bottom has been hit, some idiot pops in with a drilling machine.
Trying to close the italics.
The more I think about it, the more I wonder if it is a case of the European judges madly misjudging the political ramifications.
If there thought is something along the lines of “Obama seems like a good hope so we’ll support him” they probably failed to realize that giving him the Nobel Peace Prize at this point is much more likely to hurt or at best be neutral rather than help. It is tough to believe that you can’t productively help someone you like, but the prize judges really should have realized that this action wasn’t going to help.
Or I suppose they could have been going in an “in your face, Bush” direction, but you would hope that people awarding the most prestigous peace prize would understand how silly that kind of action would be.
So I’m thinking “doesn’t get it/cultural confusion issues”.
I think Josh Marshall has it about right:
To add my own take to that, I’d say it is a reflection of the still present reality of US hyperpower. Even a small adjustment in US policy and attitude towards diplomatic engagement vs war making looms large on the global stage and affects the lives of millions of people. That, and insofar as many of the serious challenges facing us are trans-national and require multilateral solutions, a re-emphasis on multilateral negotitation by the US and throwing our prestige behind that way of tackling problems is likely to be helpful across a broad spectrum of issues, rather than merely in one particular area. Thus the cumulative impact of the US turning back towards an emphasis on diplomacy is larger than it seems on first inspection.
Is Irrumator the troll who kept breaking the site with unclosed tags?
I’m the one who just fixed the italics? See my 11:31 post. It’s one thing to disagree with me on substance, but elevating a minor formating error to a personal attack is absurd.
Is Irrumator the troll who kept breaking the site with unclosed tags?
It’s ironic that the man who’s expanding Bagram Airbase and making plans for perpetual war in Afghanistan should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, but irony has been dead on that one since Henry Kissinger got it.
That Republicans will loathe knowing that the President of the United States is a man internationally respected and liked goes without saying: Republicans love their party more than they love their country.
I don’t even really understand what the judges were thinking.
Seriously? Or is that rhetorical?
It seems pretty obvious to me that this is more a thumb in the eye to Cheney/Bush, and to the neocon approach to the world in general, than any positive reflection on Obama.
Like I said, I find it pretty silly, given that Obama’s basically a centrist hawk on foreign policy. But as a repudiation of the last 8 years, it does make a certain amount of sense.
Obama should turn it down — I am sure there is some graceful way (the truth maybe?) such as “I am flattered but I have not accomplished anything worthy of a Nobel Prize.”
Obama does not need friends like the Nobel committee. There is something unseemly about their award plus it shows a tin-ear for American politics if they thought such an award would help Obama.
I guess he negotiated an end to the Russo-Japanese war.
He also sold out Korea to the Japanese with this peace treaty (and an incredibly nasty period of colonial occupation followed which we can blame for many of the problems on the Korean peninsula today), in exchange for assurances from Japan that they wouldn’t touch our colonial holdings in the South Pacific, most notably, the Philippines.
“Refusing the prize would imply that he doesn’t think he’s on the right track for peace.”
I think you are reaching. I don’t believe that many people would interpret it that way at all.
Turning down the prize in a graceful and appropriate way would show that Obama has not lost his common sense and modesty.
Jesurgislac, it’s pretty rich for you to call someone else a troll when you constantly spew all manner of hateful filth, including posting pictures of dead bodies. I guess it takes one to know one.
When von titled his post after a Camus novel, I found myself looking at Lottman’s bio of Camus. When he was awarded the prize, his leftist critics rejoiced, claiming that this represented the apex of his career and everything was downhill. Camus knew it as well and told his friends that winning the Nobel was a disaster. I also reflect on the fact that Camus died 2 years after getting the prize, just as he was finally overcoming his writer’s block.
I fully agree with the opinion that it is too early yet. I do not expect that Obama will deliberately go against what the price is for but I’d would have liked to see some real results first (even failed ones, if there was honest effort behind them).
What I think he should do is to make that a topic at his acceptance speech, saying that he has yet to actually earn it and that he will really try.
I think there will be a lot of opportunity for that in the next year (and 2010 might have been a much better date)
Maybe he should start by extraditing Kissinger to the ICC 😉
As far as the decision goes, I see it as just another kick in the groin of Chain-Eye/Bush&Accomplices (like the Carter decision).
So, when will one of the Clintons follow? 😉
President Barack Obama should receive two Nobel Peace Prizes, three Oscars, and one androgynous blow-up doll of shifty sexual persuasion.
One Peace Prize to return to the Nobel Committee on behalf of reasonable folks, like himself, of either domestic political party, who believe maybe it’s early yet.
One Peace Prize to donate to ACORN on behalf of the scum in the Republican Party and the cowards in the Democratic Party who cut their funding.
One Oscar, in which has been planted a nuclear warhead, to drop on external enemy Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
One Oscar, in which has been planted a nuclear warhead, to drop on internal enemy Taliban the next time they meet under the title of the RNC.
One Oscar, in black face, to shove up Erick Erickson’s fundament to celebrate the defeat of the Confederacy.
And one blow-up doll of indeterminate gender to give to Irrumator, whose substance-free birth was a minor formatting error, to distract him from commenting here.
John Thullen,
It’s just sad that your bizarre rants are what passes for leftist “humor” around here.
while it’s true that the GOP is going to scream like two year olds no matter what Obama does, or what people say about him, or which side of the river the sun rises on, this Prize is absurd.
he should decline it with a simple “this is a bit premature. if it’s all the same to you, i’d rather defer acceptance until these efforts have borne fruit. call again in 5 years.”
As someone said above, the prize is supposed to go”to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses.”
Obama has certainly done the 1st and 3rd on that list. The goodwill he’s worked for at the UN, the Cairo speech, the international townhalls all fit with the first. He’s actively trying to make peace on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and he’s started direct talks with Iran. He’s consistently ignored the war mongers, particularly in urging calm when North Korea was launching missles – and now it looks like North Korea might be coming back to the negotiating table. You could argue that his vision for a world without nuclear weapons, and the concrete steps he’s taken to start down that path (negotiating a new treaty with Russia and leading the security council session on nuclear disarmament). And he’s worked to defuse Cold War holdout tensions between the US and Russia, most recently by scraping missile defense projects in eastern Europe.
It’s all well and good to assert that Obama hasn’t done anything, but it’s not true. Iraq, Afganistan and Gitmo are all big problems, but they are clearly not the sum total of his presidency so far. It’s also clear that Iraq and Gitmo are slowly being unwound – I know not fast enough for most of us, but it is happening. Afganistan is harder, but it’s clear that Obama is trying to push towards a strategy that involves less bloodshed (restricting the use of air strikes, trying to buy off certain elements of the Taliban). Whether or not you think that’s possible or desirable is up in the air, but the sum total of what he’s done so far and what he plans to do in the future is well in line with the stated purpose of the prize.
I love it when a guy named “irrumator” goes all reasonable on people.
The Washington Post argues that the prize is not intended to honor Obama, but to influence him:
“An aspirational Nobel is designed to promote a cause, and sometimes it backfires spectacularly. One example is the 1994 prize given to, among others, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat for promoting Middle East peace. Few today would question the conclusion that the prize was awarded prematurely […]”
(The WaPo also worries whether a Nobel Peace Prize winner will have the guts to declare war on Iran. I don’t think it (the prize) slowed Kissinger down any, though…)
I think Obama handled the situation as well as could be expected. The decent thing would have been to turn the prize (which, as seen above, is basically a bribe from a group of lobbyists) down, but no politician in history has been quite that humble. Obama did say, in his acceptance speech, that “throughout history, the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it’s also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes. And that is why I will accept this award as a call to action…” So at least he’s not claiming to have earned the prize 🙂
(Also, I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that trolling has become this prevalent now that Hilzoy’s retired. Come back, Hilzoy! We need you!)
(Also, I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that trolling has become this prevalent now that Hilzoy’s retired. Come back, Hilzoy! We need you!)
I heartily second that!
I love it when a guy named “irrumator” goes all reasonable on people.
irrumator!
reminds of that Kathy Griffin line: screw you! i don’t go to where you work and knock the d!cks out of your mouth!
I should also point out that the deadline for 2009 Nobel Peace Prize nominations (also the cutoff date; no peaceable achievements taking place after that date are to be considered when deciding on the final winner) was February 1, 2009, 11 days after Obama’s inauguration. Given that, any claims that this prize is for anything Obama has actually done doesn’t hold water. All he managed to do in his first 11 days was not be George Bush.
(although, tbh, not being George Bush ought to be worth something)
It certainly looks like he has lucked into a golden opportunity!
I really hope that, by the end of his Presidency, he has accomplished something that would warrant this award. But today it is, to put it mildly, premature. So, just suppose for a minute that he chose to decline (on the grounds that it is not yet deserved). What happens?
Internationally, his stock rises even higher. Which can perhaps be put to good use in achieving various goals — some of them even related to this prize.
As for domestic politics, it leaves the far right still enraged. But even more of the center sees that as reason to write them off as hopeless. So, a significant political gain for him at home.
It would take a lot for someone to decline. But the opportunity is surely there for him.
irrumator!
Hey…based on my research, it basically just means someone who enjoys performing fellatio. You’ll excuse me if I fail to see what the big deal is.
(Latin nerd)
Actually, an ‘irrumator’ is not someone who performs fellatio, but someone who (implication: forcibly) compels another to perform fellatio on him. A more literal translation of ‘irrumator’ would be, perhaps, ‘face-f***er’.
See the first lines of this unintentionally hilarious translation of Catullus’ poem 16.
(/Latin nerd)
Hey…based on my research, it basically just means someone who enjoys performing fellatio.
You’ve got the pitcher and the catcher backwards, so to speak, but you’re in the ballpark. You see the word in Catullus. It’s a pretty disgusting handle to use. Highbrow disgusting, maybe, but disgusting none the less.
(I hope this closes the Italics)
What Mad the Swine said.
ITALICS OFF!
I think Obama is a great human being and may be a great President. And I think one of his greatest traits is that he realizes that, as Churchill put it, Jaw, Jaw is better than War, War – that talking to people, even to awful people, costs us nothing and can strengthen our diplomatic hand elsewhere if they refuse to moderate their awfulness; and that we can’t bomb the whole world into submission. And while I’m not as overwrought as some, I have my disappointments in Obama’s Presidency thus far (he has moved little or not at all on important issues including Habeas, DADT, global warming, and war generally); even so, I still have hopes that he’s doing about as well as any President can in the context of our current country. In particular, on these issues Obama is still saying, and some of his appointees seem to genuinely believe in, the right things. There’s a lot of inertia driving our country in the wrong direction on all of those issues, and a course change will take time. So, on balance, I am an unreformed Obamaphile.
But my main response is that however dramatic the change from Bush, however sharp Obama’s intellect, however great his potential, however grand his intentions, however sterling his character, he hasn’t really earned the prize. Not yet, at least. I agree with everything the committee said about him, and I value those things about him – but so far it’s still mostly intentions.
I don’t know if Cleek’s response is remotely feasible – I don’t think an honoree gets the option of deferring the prize – but Cleek’s sentiment is right. When Obama accepts the prize – and on balance I think he will, and probably should, accept the prize – he should (and, I think, will) make it clear that he accepts it on behalf of an American people moving towards progress, and that he hopes one day to have earned the honor the committee has bestowed upon him.
beyerstein: “So, by extension, Oy, you should defer completely to President Obama on all decisions of war and peace because he has a situation room and some PDFs.”
I guess irony escapes you.
“Who is he to second-guess the Nobel Peace Prize Committee about who’s promoting peace? That’s like saying Taylor Swift should have preemptively declined the video music award because everybody knew that Beyonce had the best video.”
So can we expect Glen Beck to leap onto the podium when Obama’s getting the award and swipe the plaque from his fingers and announce to the world everybody knows John McCain was the one who deserved it?
And let’s start a pool to guess what Obama does with the prize money: keep it or donate it, and if donate, to which charity?
I’m guessing he’ll be forced to donate it.
My pick for a charity: Chicago’s Let’s Talk, Let’s Test Foundation, which can use the money right about now.
What I think he should do is [say] that he …will really try…Maybe he should start by extraditing Kissinger to the ICC 😉
Hartmut wins the thread!! (so far)
Oh well…I was using definition 2 from here, but it seems that yours is the more accepted definition.
Uncle Kvetch,
May I humbly suggest that urban dictionary is probably not the best source for Latin.
Marty: “he won the Nobel Peace prize for saying all of the things that Europeans want to hear about how America is bad and he is going to make it better.”
Oh no, he didn’t. In this humble European’s opinion, Obama should never have won the prize, because although he promotes peace and may do more of it in the future, he not only accepts, but praises and promotes gross human rights abuses.
“Refusing the prize really would be narcissistic. Who is he to second-guess the Nobel Peace Prize Committee about who’s promoting peace?”
Narcissists probably don’t turn down awards they don’t deserve. Maybe humble narcissists do. And anyone is free to second-guess the Nobel committee on who is promoting peace.
This award is ridiculous. I didn’t know that they have given awards in the past for aspirations–if so, probably some of the past awards have been ridiculous too. There’s a chance Obama might do something to deserve a Nobel Peace Prize someday–maybe he’ll bring peace to the Israelis and Palestinians (though he’s been going about it in a seemingly inept way lately) or maybe he’ll do a Kissinger, wreck a country and call it peace. But why not wait a bit and see what happens?
If they wanted to slap George Bush, as some suggest was the real motive, the thing to do is invent an Ignoble Prize or a war prize or gold medal in the torture olympics. It’s sort of confusing when you give a peace prize to one guy in order to slap down someone else.
Thullen says: “One Oscar, in which has been planted a nuclear warhead, to drop on external enemy Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.”
Now you’re on the right track, finally. But won’t that be two or more warheads, geographically dispersed? And will we have to pay the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for those Oscars, or do you think they’ll donate them as a gesture of patriotism?
Warren Terra says: “And I think one of his greatest traits is that he realizes that, as Churchill put it, Jaw, Jaw is better than War, War – “
That jaw jaw certainly did Churchill and England a lot of good good, when the German bombs bombs started falling on their heads heads…
This is great news. I am very happy that he won. He deserves it.
I have to admit that I am having a lot of fun reading the reactions of people on these blogs. Too funny.
Win the Nobel Peace Prize? Yes we can!
On extending an Olive Branch to our adversaries, President Obama has been awarded one of the most Prestigious Awards in the World — The Nobel Peace Award. For his efforts and courage on a world stage to engage with the enemy, to sit at the table and break bread, to engage in peaceful dialouge with respect, and to extend to our “alleged” enemies an Olive Branch and not a Stick, the GOP jealousy ask — But, what has he done?
What he has done, in the face of much criticism, as stated above, is to extend an Olive Branch to our adversaries, because only peace can bring peace. He has fostered and ignited the will to good, which in turn, will increase goodwill around the world. In the face of ridicule, President Obama has set the tone and direction toward unity, cooperation and oneness, recognizing our interconnectedness with all nations around the world — that we are all brothers/sisters and souls of the one Great Life from which we have all originated from. This is a very big deal Indeed because it is a Consciousness change which will change the actions of men on earth.
First of the exchange between the Roman degenerate (Irragator), John Thullen & cleek is priceless.
And Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize, while managing one of the most lethal militaries on earth certainly appears to be ironic.
That jaw jaw certainly did Churchill and England a lot of good good, when the German bombs bombs started falling on their heads heads…
Which, of course, disproves Churchill’s point and, thus, war war is better than jaw jaw. You see.
Right. If someone gives you an award, it’s not your responsibility to second-guess the judges. You accept graciously and thank them for the honor they have bestowed upon you. It’s presumptuous for the winner to tell the judges who they should have picked.
It’s their award and the onus is on them to award it wisely. If they choose badly, it reflects on them, not on the recipient.
You may not think you’re the most worthy candidate, but who cares? We don’t tune in to the awards ceremonies to find out who the contestants think deserved to win. We want to know what the judges think.
Oh god, Irrumator and Jay Jerome in the same thread, and Pericles turns up to hiss his usual foul breath in my direction.
Donald: This award is ridiculous. I didn’t know that they have given awards in the past for aspirations–if so, probably some of the past awards have been ridiculous too. There’s a chance Obama might do something to deserve a Nobel Peace Prize someday–maybe he’ll bring peace to the Israelis and Palestinians (though he’s been going about it in a seemingly inept way lately) or maybe he’ll do a Kissinger, wreck a country and call it peace. But why not wait a bit and see what happens?
What goes through the minds of the Nobel Peace Prize committee? Who knows. Maybe they just wanted to give him a free trip to Sweden. I agree with you, but the thread’s gone silly.
I see this line everyplace today, and I realize I’m micturating into the proverbial windstorm to even point this out, but: This. Is. Sheerest. Nonsense.
From your friendly neighborhood wikipedia:
For those of you playing at home, that means that all 535 members of congress plus heaven knows how many professors were empowered to offer a nomination – and that’s just in this country. I wouldn’t be surprised if the total number of people so capable were in the tens of thousands worldwide.
The obvious and inevitable result is that everyone of any prominence on the world stage is at least nominally a nominee for the Nobel prize (including especially the world’s monsters, as it’s a rare globally significant monster who doesn’t have at least one rabid fan elected to some national legislature or serving as the right sort of professor someplace; you can be almost certain that Mugabe, Kim Jong Il, whoever heads the SLORC, and Qaddafi are nominated every year).
So if you have some idea of when the nominees were winnowed, that might be interesting. But pointing to the deadline for nominations is just ignorant.
Uncle Kvetch,
May I humbly suggest that urban dictionary is probably not the best source for Latin.
Yes, you may. Duly noted. 8^)
Some Democrats?
Certainly we’ve learned not to fall for the “some people say” line by now.
Before you find yourself gobsmacked you might ask conservative columnist Marc Armbinder who these Democrats are.
The only people he mentions are John Dickerson (writer for the contrarian loving Slate magazine) and non-Democrat Mickey Kaus who writes columns titled “Obama’s First Debacle” and “Obama Embarrassed”.
And Dickerson only brings up Obama turning down the award in reference to Kaus.
“he hasn’t really earned the prize.”
Both wrong and beside the point. The change in America’s posture in the world is a dramatic improvement and a necessary if not sufficient condition for peace. Obama’s approach has moved the world more in the direction of peace than anything else this year.
But the award is aspirational. Like that to Desmond Tutu in 1984 spurred the movement to end apartheid in South Africa, so the award to Obama is intended to help Obama in his declared moves towards peace in the world.
I don’t think the rest of the world cares much about the domestic side of US politics (no one can believe US doesn’t have universal health care) but do care very much that Obama is encouraged and supported in rectifying damage done to the rest of the world during Bush era, tackling the problem of nuclear proliferation, and trying to advance Israel-Palestinan peace process.
It amazes me that those on the right don’t at least scratch their heads and say, well i don’t think he’s doing anything right but if the rest of the world thinks he is and thinks more highly about the US because of him, that is a good thing.
“Right. If someone gives you an award, it’s not your responsibility to second-guess the judges. You accept graciously and thank them for the honor they have bestowed upon you. It’s presumptuous for the winner to tell the judges who they should have picked. ”
If he could judge it purely as a private individual, without considering political ramifications, he ought to turn it down. (In my somewhat anarchical way I think he should do that anyway, but obviously there are political ramifications.) There’s no rule I’ve ever heard that says one has to agree with a committee of people that decides to honor you. They might give it to me for my sterling qualities as a mediocre writer of comments in blog threads–I would probably turn it down as it seems unlikely to me that my comments have contributed significantly to world peace. Though I could use the money.
“I agree with you, but the thread’s gone silly.”
To Jes–yes it has, and maybe I’m contributing a bit to the silliness now. But I blame the Nobel Committee, ultimately.
May I humbly suggest that urban dictionary is probably not the best source for Latin.
Maybe we can make an exception for Catullus. He was pretty, um, urban.
Jesurgislac, it’s pretty rich for you to call someone else a troll when you constantly spew all manner of hateful filth, including posting pictures of dead bodies. I guess it takes one to know one.
Posted by: Pericles | October 09, 2009 at 11:55 AM
LOL, someone got their feelings hurt.
Anyway, what’s up with all these right-wingers naming themselves after Greek and Roman androphiles?
Something strange is happening to right-wing masculinity.
Warren Terra, I think people are pointing to the deadline to illustrate that Obama had only been president for 10 days when he was inaugurated. I think critics are conflating nomination and winning; I agree that it would be weird for Obama to win the NPP 10 days after being sworn in, but he was not. His win must be chiefly based on the stuff he’s said/done/not done since the nomination. That doesn’t mean it isn’t too early, but it’s not just 10 days. I might be missing something crucial.
Jinchi, you’re wise to take this early generalization with a grain of salt. I wouldn’t just take Marc Ambinder’s word for it, either. But I’m hearing similar nonsense from liberal journalist colleagues and operatives. I couldn’t believe the early chatter. The POTUS wins the Nobel Prize and everyone’s fretting over what the town hall/talk radio opposition is going to say.
Expect a raft of “think” pieces agonizing over whether Obama should accept the prize from people who are nominally committed to the idea that Obama’s doing a great job on the whole peace thing.
You’ve got the pitcher and the catcher backwards
Yes, I had understood that an Irrumator is someone who forces someone else to fellatiate him.
I think we should call our commenter an adherent of the Irrumator School of foreign policy, which is based on a very simple idea: everything in world affairs can be reduced to whether you are the Irrumator or the Fellator, and there is no other choice.
Awesome… Obama just pwned the Obama “defenders.”
It may not be your “responsibility” to second guess the judges, but it shows a hell of a lot of class to do so, especially when the facts are so embarrassingly obvious.
Left/liberals are critiquing this award for more than simply political reasons, i.e. “it will piss off the Right and make things worse for him.” They might simply have intellectual reservations, that no matter how crappy the prize has been awarded in the past, we can hope to raise its standard in the present, and at present, Obama doesn’t deserve to win.
The best thing about all this scolding of critics is that Obama basically agrees with the fundamental critique: “To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize, men and women who’ve inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.”
While I doubt this will lead him to decline the award, he certainly is “second-guessing” the judges and is now, according to Beyerstein, guilty of crass narcissism.
How dare you Obama? At long last! Have you no sense of decency???
Come on, he should turn it down just to demonstrate he has some sense of dignity and self-worth.
Agreed. He should never have accepted the presidency based on that travesty of a Supreme Court decision.
Craven, this whole blog is a text-based format, so I assume you can read. Still, you’d think you might notice that, so far as I can tell, pretty much every single person advising Obama to accept the award, including those doing so within this thread, have advised him to do so while expressing some sense of humility. Despite your overblown assertions about how Obama has “pwned” us to the contrary.
Obama will accept.
oh well. i expect he’ll phrase his acceptance in terms of aspirations, and not of accomplishment.
For some perspective I found this at George Stephanopolous blog:
Best Obama Nobel jokes(some funnier than others):
Courtesy of conservative activist Keith Appell:
Barack Obama’s Teleprompter: Big Guy says Bill Clinton called and was gracious in defeat; offered to fly Kanye West over 4 the Nobel awards ceremony.
Erick Erickson: Obama is becoming Jimmy Carter faster than Jimmy Carter became Jimmy Carter.
Ana Marie Cox: Apparently Nobel prizes now being awarded to anyone who is not George Bush.
Headline over AP analysis by White House correspondent Jennifer Loven: He Won, But For What?
Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review: I want to buy the world a coke.
Ezra Klein: Obama also awarded Nobel prize in chemistry. “He’s just got great chemistry,” says Nobel Committee.
Adam Bromberg, CRC: Nobel Prize Committee must be staffed by out of work comedy writers.
Kristina Hernandez, CRC: It was the Beer Summit that put Obama over the edge.
– George Stephanopoulos
“Peace” is a dirty word in America; or, rather, the belief is that peace can most effectively be achieved through war. War on Iraq and Iran to keep them from possessing nuclear weapons; war on Afghanistan to revenge ourselves on the regime that harbored bin Laden; war here, war there, all in the name of peace.
Well, if the people who think that way don’t like this: good. They need to learn what peace means to the rest of the world. Peace means: not war.
My first reaction to this was, “Well, that’s silly.” But the one person in the world with the greatest power to promote peace is the President of the United States. And if, every day of his Presidency, he feels some obligation to live up to the expectation to promote peace, well, then it will have been worth it.
I think we should call our commenter an adherent of the Irrumator School of foreign policy, which is based on a very simple idea: everything in world affairs can be reduced to whether you are the Irrumator or the Fellator, and there is no other choice.
I basically agree with that. It would be honor.
Obama Nobel: But what will the wingnuts think?
They’ll think it’s further proof that he’s a cheese-eating appeasenik, if not the anti-Christ steering us down the path to a cruel and godless one-world government.
Cue Armageddon.
I’m a Republican, I oppose Obama, but I’ve decided not to freak out about this.
Good call.
irony has been dead on that one since Henry Kissinger got it.
True dat.
There is something unseemly about their award plus it shows a tin-ear for American politics if they thought such an award would help Obama.
My guess is that the Nobel committee’s impression of domestic American politics is kinda like your or my impression of the insane drunken couple down the block who resolve their marital spats by trying to run each other over in the driveway.
To the degree that our internal disputes entered into their decision, it probably took the form of trying to give the keys to whoever seemed less drunkenly insane.
Anyway, what’s up with all these right-wingers naming themselves after Greek and Roman androphiles?
Dude, you missed RedState in the glory days! It was like reading a script for a remake of Ben Hur.
Something strange is happening to right-wing masculinity.
You got the tense wrong.
Kristina Hernandez, CRC: It was the Beer Summit that put Obama over the edge.
That was pretty funny!
The essayist Phil Nugent has an excellent post on the theme of this prize being a signal from the world to the US celebrating our finally rejecting Bush and Bushism.
Some excerpts:
Congratulations to President Obama!
Could a front-pager please remove the spam comment at 2:30?
(and, if you do, this one while you’re at it).
From the Phil Nugent piece Warren T cites:
If you have to give someone an major international humanitarian award every year, then, given the state of the world, you’re going to spend a lot of time making symbolic gestures.
Truer words never.
This classy statement from John McCain is worth noting. I take back some of the nasty things I’ve said about the Senator. He isn’t all ego and opposition all the time, there are times when he seems to feel the broader context and rises above the shouting of the day. Good for him.
Regardless of whether or not this prized is deserved (my initial reaction is that it seems a bit premature), one of the memes coming from Republicans sounds as if it were an Onion headline:
Republicans outraged American leadership is globally respected: “This is a national catastrophe…” party leaders say.
Yeah, yeah, I’m not saying American is adored overseas, but you get my point…
“The Bush years should be–will be–remembered as the country’s moral low point since the end of slavery[.]”
Hyperbolize much?
I suppose the belief that the enemies of one’s own time are the greatest enemies humanity has ever faced is not confined to the right. Bush, for all his incompetence, did far less harm than LBJ and Nixon in terms of sheer warmongery, and the latter could give him a good run for his money in terms of corruption, etc.
What a ridiculuous award. Obama hasn’t done anything yet to warrant such an award. I don’t think that he should turn it down, but, boy, it sure looks silly.
p.s. I don’t understand your points regarding the Iraq war.
At first this seemed ridiculous to me, but on reflection the Nobel committee may be cannier than we think.
First off, given that the deadline to be a candidate was, I think, 1st February, I think Obama’s inclusion on the list reflected the fact that he was the first non-white person in the past half-millennium or more who could credibly claim to be the most powerful person in the world, and the leader of the most affluent society in the world. One of the Nobel foundation’s gravest sins was its slowness in recognising the moral authority and achievements of anti-colonial and civil rights leaders in the twentieth century (Ghandi being the most notorious omission). By a certain historical narrative, Obama could be seen as the culmination (or at least a powerful symbolic waypoint) of a very long process of battling a racial order in world politics.
That is to say, I don’t think the Nobel people were engaged in anything so churlish as giving Bush the finger, nor even anything so parochial as acknowledging Obama’s importance with respect to US history — I think a more sweeping point was being made in a chronological and global sense.
Now, that might not have been enough for him to win the prize. I think they gave him the prize in the end not because they are ignorant of the cut-and-thrust of American politics, but because they are trying to encourage Obama to rise above the cut-and-thrust. Partly as a political tactic, partly because he is aware of the debt he owes to people like MLK and Ghandi, Obama does try to project an aspirational and inspirational message. Almost paradoxically, however, he is an extremely pragmatic politician, and he holds very uncontroversial centrist views (if you eliminate the wacky American right-wing fringe from the spectrum, who are way out of touch with the rest of the industrialised world).
I think therefore they are giving him the prize to put the issue of legacy front and center in his mind, to remind him to look beyond the political expediencies of the present, so that his inspirational vision isn’t steadily erased by a multitude of daily concessions.
This might not work, but I think there is something more insightful going on than saying “Bush suckzz!”.
Or else maybe he was the compromise candidate, and everybody got tired of arguing late into the night, and all agreed on Obama so that they could go home at last and get some dinner.
Rush Limbaugh admits to being Taliban.
I’m calling in an airstrike.
Donald Johnson,
“If they wanted to slap George Bush, as some suggest was the real motive, the thing to do is invent an Ignoble Prize or a war prize or gold medal in the torture olympics.”
already done, though no member of the Bush Administration seems to have won one. Some of the actual winners are hoots, though.
Maybe they wanted to give Obama the award before the Morlock’s got him?
Could any other choice have made more people sit up and pay attention, and maybe even remember that the concept of “peace” exists, and debate what it means and how to get there, &c. &c.?
In addition to byrningman’s excellent points, I wonder if part of the award was also directed at the American people whom, by voting for Obama given his campaign promises, chose (at least in theory, if not yet in practice) chose to reject many of the tenets guiding our foreign policy since the end of the Cold War and attempt to move in a newer, more cooperative and peaceful direction.
In short, I wonder if it’s partially international affirmation for the American people. I’m not saying IT IS, I’m just thinking aloud.
I am sure that if Obama had turned down the Prize or if the Nobel Committee never awarded it to him in the first place, then the Republicans would not be so angry at Obama. If we just look hard enough, I am sure we can find some course of action and statements that Obama can make that will cause the Republicans to like him. Once the Democrats realize that there is a specific set of actions and compromises they can make with Republicans that will placate the right, I am sure that they will stop getting so riled up.
Right?
I think Obama’s inclusion on the list reflected the fact that he was the first non-white person in the past half-millennium or more who could credibly claim to be the most powerful person in the world
So they gave it to him because he’s half-black? And you agree with this? There’s a guy in an alley near me sucking on a 40, maybe he should get a Nobel prize.
If we just look hard enough, I am sure we can find some course of action and statements that Obama can make that will cause the Republicans to like him.
Let’s see…he could nuke Teheran, abolish taxes (let’s see what that Laffer Curve can really do!), then resign from office and declare Dick Cheney Generalissimo-for-Life.
Short of that? Nope, nada.
Irrumator, I’m not sure I agree with the sentiment you quote from byrningman, but surely you must realize that the racial stereotype you are propagating is disgusting and completely unnecessary – not to mention that it’s a terrible, nonsensical response to byrningman’s proposition.
I must say it is amusing to see right wing speakers decrying how Obama hasn’t earned this award while working to lobby against precisely those outcomes which he would need to achieve in order to more fully deserve it.
Warren Terra,
It wasn’t a stereotype in that I wasn’t suggesting the guy in the alley with the 40 typified all black people. But there really is a guy in an alley near me sucking on a 40 and he happens to be black. Byrningman’s comment suggested that this man’s skin color should serve as at least a partial justification for receiving the Nobel Prize. Obviously the creep in the alley urinating himself and mumbling gutteral nonsense does not deserve a Nobel prize. Therefore, this man’s lowly existence itself is sufficient to rebut byrningman’s point, which was facile plea for affirmative action in Nobel prizes.
DNFTT. Please.
My apologies.
“The Nobel does have one very real purpose, and that is that, by giving it to the right person once in a while–a Dalai Lama, a Lech Wałęsa, a Desmond Tutu, an Al Gore–you can really piss off some people who richly deserve to be pissed off.”
The Dalai Lama — didn’t Obama just snub him? Guess being part of the Nobel Brotherhood doesn’t transcend expediency.
So, how many extra troops is the Peace Prize Prez going to send to Afghanistan?
toady’s troll sounds suspiciously like every other day’s troll.
There you go again with this phony “troll” business. Some guy writes a post saying that Obama deserved the Nobel prize for being black. Is he a troll? All I did was point out that’s not a good selection criterion. And the leftist start crying heresy, heresy.
The Dalai Lama — didn’t Obama just snub him?
This dishonest Chinese government talking point has been brought to you by the Republican Party. Because we know who our friends are.
I agree that McCain’s statement was dignified, and stands in stark contrast to all those self-absorbed provincial loons who think that everything that happens in the world — German elections, selection of Olympic host cities, Nobel prizes — is somehow a function of their own particularly narrow and partisan understanding of domestic US politics.
“Erick Erickson: Obama is becoming Jimmy Carter faster than Jimmy Carter became Jimmy Carter.”
Best summation I’ve heard so far.
My first reaction was that turning down a Nobel Peace Prize would be the height of ungraciousness.
But seeing how we are engaged in two wars, Iraq and Afghanistan, with no real roadmap as how to procede in Afghanistan, it might look foolish for President Obama to accept a Nobel Peace Prize.
Helluva way to celebrate the just-passed
eight-year anniversary of the war in Afghanistan.
And in an interview to air on CNN on Sunday, McCain said, “I think part of their decision-making was expectations. And I’m sure the president understands that he now has even more to live up to.
The more I think about it, the cleverer the Nobel decision looks. It establishes a very compelling binary narrative for Obama’s presidency: will he be the president who earns his Nobel Peace Prize, or the president who makes a mockery of it? It has the potential to be the succinct anecdote by which the world remembers his presidency; it’s tempting to think that the Nobel Prize will always be in the back of his mind as he weighs up decisions about, for example, escalating the war in Afghanistan.
The world loves Obama, we knew that for sure.
His olive branch offers are fine overtures.
But doing the nasty,
They shouldn’t go fastly.
The Peace Prize awarded him comes premature.
I must say it is amusing to see right wing speakers decrying how Obama hasn’t earned this award while working to lobby against precisely those outcomes which he would need to achieve in order to more fully deserve it.
You mean like this jewel from Michael Steele:
“It is unfortunate that the president’s star power has outshined tireless advocates who have made real achievements working towards peace and human rights.”
Because you know how much praise the Repubtards give to these advocates. Yeesh. I’d be surprised his head didn’t explode from the hypocrasy if I wasn’t so (unfortunately) used to it by now.
Irrumator: “Obviously the creep in the alley urinating himself and mumbling gutteral nonsense does not deserve a Nobel prize.”
I agree. Instead of a Nobel prize, it sounds like he’d be a natural for a slot on FOX, an intro to the Glen Beck show…a urinating guy mumbling nonsense would be a good lead-in to the Castrato-shrieking angst and crocodile tears the pudgy-meister spews day to day.
“Some guy writes a post saying that Obama deserved the Nobel prize for being black. Is he a troll? All I did was point out that’s not a good selection criterion.”
I agree with that too, race is not a good selection criterion; but I do think intention alone is sufficient for receiving the award. That’s why I believe Bush-2 was short-changed by the Nobel Committee: his intention was clear when he ducked out of combat duty by joining the National Guard during Viet Nam: so he didn’t have to drop bombs or strafe innocents in that country; and for the humanitarian restraint he showed at Guantanamo, only approving water-boarding, but not electric shocks to genitals or stretching prisoners from racks — his humanitarian intention obvious: to prevent unnecessary stress to prisoner vocal chords, easily damaged by loud painful screams: water filled throats not as sensitive to rough-throat syndrome. Maybe they’ll award him a Nobel retroactively — and if so, we will all take pride in that as Americans, no matter our party affiliations.
“the Irrumator School of foreign policy, which is based on a very simple idea: everything in world affairs can be reduced to whether you are the Irrumator or the Fellator”
‘Irrumator’: I basically agree with that. It would be honor.
Yes, I know you do. It wasn’t satire.
Well, here’s another Johnny Canuck. This one just about totally ‘lost it’ in disbelief at low humour.
Giving the head of the greatest arms dealer and warmaker on the face of the planet a prize for ‘peace’ beggars belief. Others have added their voice to mine…so here it is
http://opitslinkfest.blogspot.com/2009/10/anniversary-afghanistan-peace-prize.html
“then the Republicans would not be so angry at Obama.”
Angry? Who’s angry? This is too, too stupid for anger. It’s nothing but a huge joke, and you’ll never get it.
Do you have any candidates for people who have killed more people than Obama in the last 9 months?
As long as oral rapist is posting here, I’m out. JJ had me right at the line, but I’m gone now.
Shame. It was a good place.
I’m right at the line of following chmood out of here.
What makes me hesitate is that I can’t tell if the Authors (to use the blog’s own term) don’t have time to keep after it, or they’ve decided to let the standards change. Some of this has been going on for weeks now, so I have to suspect it’s the latter. Too bad.
Some advice on moderating: http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/006036.html
“There can be no ongoing discourse without some degree of moderation, if only to kill off the hardcore trolls. It takes rather more moderation than that to create a complex, nuanced, civil discourse. If you want that to happen, you have to give of yourself. Providing the space but not tending the conversation is like expecting that your front yard will automatically turn itself into a garden.”
Yup, the scum in the comment threads here is vile, and I can’t come back here until vermin like oral-rapist get cleaned out of the system.
“This is just Europe’s way of saying if you suck our dicks will give you a prize.”
I’ve been struggling over how to parse this, but after ingesting several substances intended for topical use only, it’s clear to me that there’s supposed to be a comma after “suck”. Although that does suggest a very strange award ceremony, as the organs in questions have neither hands nor arms nor grasping appendages of any kind. I can only assume they sort of . . . bounce it down the line. Which strikes me as not only sexist but also unhygienic.
(we can haz moderation, pls?)
I think Yglesias basically gets in right in saying that the Right has done those of us on the left something of a service by freaking out in a predictable and unpleasant way so that we don’t really have to confront the dubious merits of the award.
Dan S. at 10:29PM
BINGO!
The United States spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined. The United States sells more weapons of war to 2nd and 3rd world countries than the rest of the world combined. The nuclear arsenal of this country is larger than that of the rest of the world combined. The United States is currently engaged in two armed conflicts, and influential members of opposition party in the US would like to at least double that number.
Some have criticized the Nobel Committee’s award for trying to influence American policy, for trying to “Europeanize” this cowboy culture. I’d say it’s about time.
Before he accepts the Nobel Peace Surprise, I’d like to see President Obama put an end to rendition, which, to my mind, means this country continues to sanction torture.
What makes me hesitate is that I can’t tell if the Authors (to use the blog’s own term) don’t have time to keep after it, or they’ve decided to let the standards change. Some of this has been going on for weeks now, so I have to suspect it’s the latter. Too bad.
It’s been going a lot longer than “a few weeks.” That CWC a**hole has been here for months. I can only conclude that the Authors tolerate it because they find it amusing on some level. Nevertheless, this is still a good blog with a lot of high quality comments.
Jacob Davies,
That’s an excellent link. I think this needs quoting in full:
10. Another important rule: You can let one jeering, unpleasant jerk hang around for a while, but the minute you get two or more of them egging each other on, they both have to go, and all their recent messages with them. There are others like them prowling the net, looking for just that kind of situation. More of them will turn up, and they’ll encourage each other to behave more and more outrageously. Kill them quickly and have no regrets.
That pretty much describes the dynamic between Jay Jerome and Jesurgislac. This place is becoming troll bait and more are on their way.
I don’t see what I did to get chmood’s panties in a bunch. Chmood, what have I done to you? All I did was present a center-right point of view.
I don’t go to left wing hate sites like DailyKos. If the owners of this blog want to make Obsidian Wings a hate site that’s their prerogative. But they advertise it as “the voice of moderation,” and, rhetorically at least, advertise it as a place where different viewpoints are welcome. But as soon as I deviate from the party line, the insults come flying.
Jay Jerome is right. W deserves the Nobel more than Obama. They’re both involved in the same number of wars. At least W. tried to promote democracy and human rights. In a sane world, overthrowing Saddam would win you the Nobel Peace Prize. But instead Obama gets it. For what? Byrningman thinks he deserved it for being black. Others think he deserved it for “good intentions.” But no one has explained why he deserved in terms of actual accomplishments.
That pretty much describes the dynamic between Jay Jerome and Jesurgislac.
Given that my response to Jay Jerome has consistently been to refuse to respond to his comments and to publicly identify him as a troll in the hope that others will also refuse to respond, I don’t see how you can describe that as a “dynamic between” us: a dynamic requires give and take.
The Nobel Prize Committee set a new standard for groups like the Motion Picture Academy, in that an Oscar no longer requires the winner to give a great performance, but intend to give one. The Nobel Prize was once given to people who do something great; while today just saying one wants to do something great is enough to win. The Nobel Prize Committee is trying to shape future reality by recognizing intent to do something they admire, such as equalizing America with the third world. The Oscars could be awarded to actors who never perform, but tell others they would like to. Obama, then, should also be given an Oscar too. Check THE CHANGING FACE OF DEMOCRATS on Amazon as well as http://www.claysamerica.com for more.
I used to go to Balloon Juice for the very funny, pun-laden, knock down drag out fights – and here for the serious conversation, only occasionally interrupted by trolls. In both spots, unfortunately, there were troll regulars who could and did threadjack.
Now, BJ has gotten more assertive in banning trolls, and its commentariat better at ignoring them. ObWi, paradoxically, has gotten worse at both: threads here are either routinely threadjacked by outright trolls, or devolve into feces-flinging fights by troll manque regulars.
It’s a pity. I still come to ObWi for the quality of the host-posters, which remains very high, but the commentary’s getting so bad I routinely skim past most of it.
FWIW, i agree with previous comments about the troll situation.
luckily for me, there are ways of dealing with those people.
Trolls are the cancer that’s killing ObiWi.
this is,of course, good news for McCain@
The Nobel Prize Committee set a new standard for groups like the Motion Picture Academy, in that an Oscar no longer requires the winner to give a great performance, but intend to give one. The Nobel Prize was once given to people who do something great; while today just saying one wants to do something great is enough to win. The Nobel Prize Committee is trying to shape future reality by recognizing intent to do something they admire, such as equalizing America with the third world. The Oscars could be awarded to actors who never perform, but tell others they would like to. Obama, then, should also be given an Oscar too. Check THE CHANGING FACE OF DEMOCRATS on Amazon as well as http://www.claysamerica.com for more.
Exactly, Clay. I’m thinking about remaking Citizen Kane so just give me the Oscar now.
“I used to go to Balloon Juice for the very funny, pun-laden, knock down drag out fights – and here for the serious conversation, only occasionally interrupted by trolls. In both spots, unfortunately, there were troll regulars who could and did threadjack.”
Ditto that. I used to think of the difference in tone between BJ and ObWings as being like the food fight in the school cafeteria vs. the debate club in the library. But since hilzoy departed this place has turned into the food fight in the library.
“this is,of course, good news for McCain”
Actually it is good [non-snarky] news for McCain, for a change. IMHO his statement was by far the classiest of any commentary on the award by any major public figure in the US other than Obama himself. Both of them reacted by framing the award as an affirmation of work still to be done, a ratcheting upwards of expectations regarding that work, and at the same time a point of pride for the US as a whole. You really couldn’t ask anything more from a leading figure of the domestic political opposition to the President than that, and McCain’s comments were leaps and bounds better than anything I can remember coming from leading figures in the GOP when Gore was awarded his prize.
FOOD FIGHT!!!
McCain is a sellout. He gives “classy” speeches to suck up to the MSM. His only qualification is getting shut down and having bamboo stuck under his finger nails. Here’s to J.D. Hayworth kicking the crap out of him in the primary.
McCain is a sellout. He gives “classy” speeches to suck up to the MSM. His only qualification is getting shut down and having bamboo stuck under his finger nails. Here’s to J.D. Hayworth kicking the crap out of him in the primary.
Jacob posts: “There can be no ongoing discourse without some degree of moderation, if only to kill off the hardcore trolls. It takes rather more moderation than that to create a complex, nuanced, civil discourse. If you want that to happen, you have to give of yourself. Providing the space but not tending the conversation is like expecting that your front yard will automatically turn itself into a garden.”
The question is when does ‘moderation’ turn into censorship? Not only of ideas, but of attitude and expression?
Internet political discussion is not a garden to be tended, nuanced or otherwise. That wasn’t the intention of those of us who developed it – back before blogs existed, in the Usenet days, and on various newsgroup bulletin boards. Although technical forums (like computer programming, or archeology, etc) limited discussion to keep members on point, the political and atheist and other open forums were pugnaciously contentious, ideologically and conversationally, and moderators seldom censored any of the discussions, or banned members because of the tone of their language or the abrasiveness of the comments.
The view that it takes moderation “to create a complex, nuanced, civil discourse” in as diverse a cultural matrix as we live in now, both here in the US and elsewhere, is cultural bias as rationalization for censorship. It’s the same kind of euphemistic rationalizations made at restrictive ‘gentile’ country clubs in the near past, to keep out ‘those people who do not think like us, talk like us, pray like us, dress like us, and vote like us.’
If you limit the tone and language of political or religious or other controversial topics you generally end up with a lot of the same kind of people regurgitating the same mind-set of opinions. And anyone who doesn’t fit the blog profile is labeled a ‘troll’ — a term that’s been perverted from its original web meaning, to a catch-all to silence dissenting opinion.
-I think Obama’s a talker, not a doer. I’m a troll.
-I think he’s a hypocrite for denouncing passage of the Military Commissions Act when he was a Senator, and signing an almost identical extension of the same Act as President. I’m a troll.
-I think the Baucus hearings showed the health care bill if passed will be financed by the slow-bleeding of services to seniors, causing more of them to die earlier than those from lack of coverage die now. I’m a troll.
-I think fat ass Alan Grayson is as much a scum-bag for saying Republicans want the uninsured to die quickly as fat ass Sarah Palin is for blasting Obama death squads. Therefore I’m a troll, both here, and on the conservative blog I posted virtually the same accusation. And vile scum for using the words ‘fat ass.’
And this post should be expunged. And I should be banned for my views, forever and ever. So you can stick with your own kind, and walk alike, and talk alike. Like this Troll Link musically describes.
“Jay Jerome is right. W deserves the Nobel more than Obama.”
You know I was being facetious about Bush-2 deserving a Nobel,right?
But he probably does deserve the Bankrupting America award. And the President Who Started The Stupidest War award.
I could go on, but he wouldn’t have enough room on his mantle to stack them all.
And anyone who doesn’t fit the blog profile is labeled a ‘troll’ — a term that’s been perverted from its original web meaning, to a catch-all to silence dissenting opinion.
Yes. Exactly. Jay Jerome is right. Without singling anyone out, this explains why the inflammatory left-wing commenters aren’t labelled “trolls.”
Don’t click the XWC link. Sigh.
Oh, who ever would?
Except newcomers, I mean. I assume matttbastard did, from his level of digust.
Nope. I didn’t. Am not a noob, Slart (if that is your real name… 😉 )
Trolls can be a benefit,…I think it’s opposite: a thread that becomes a circle jerk…. isn’t all that pretty, either.
Longtime lurker here…
Why is the choice all of a sudden one between dicks in mouths with
CinaedusIrrumator and someotherdude’s specter of dicks in hands?Whatever happened to zipping your trousers up and letting the brain have the blood supply? There’s a middle ground between letting every slavering troll have free rein in the conversation to prove your tolerance and squelching every dissenting opinion.
Sure, applying that kind of community standard requires judgment and intelligence, but this is a group that values those traits. I’ve certainly seen them plenty of times among the long-time regulars.
“But he probably does deserve the Bankrupting America award.”
I’d have said he did, if it had been awarded last year, but now? You’d be cheating Obama of an award he actually IS making an effort to earn.
So am I right in saying the reason the comments are no longer readable is because the only current poster who ever pays any attention to them is on his honeymoon?
Can someone please give Slart access again?
“Why is the choice all of a sudden one between dicks in mouths with Cinaedus Irrumator and someotherdude’s specter of dicks in hands?”
Now that’s funny.
“Why is the choice…”
It’s the difference between 2nd base and 3rd base. But some people don’t have enough sense to see the difference…
Agreed. The standards here have slipped badly if this thread is typical. Sad.
Does this thread constitute oral sex?
Some of these trolls really need a day job, although they are probably unemployable. Unfortunately, the site’s authors DO have day jobs.
A couple of brief comments.
A troll is someone whose intent in posting is to be disruptive. You can actually have valid things to say and still be a troll. All you need to do is be consistently and intentionally disruptive.
There are thousands of blogs around. ObWi has been somewhat unique in that it’s actually a pretty functional community. That’s actually pretty rare, in any context.
Irrumator, I’d appreciate it if you’d go somewhere else, because all you’re doing here is f**king it up for everyone else. I rather suspect that’s what you enjoy about being here, but I just thought I’d make the request anyway. If you can’t be a mensch and get lost like a good irrumator, hopefully somebody will kick your sorry @ss out pronto.
Jay, you actually have intelligent points to make, but you seem incapable of presenting them without being an insufferable smartass, and you can’t accept criticism of any kind without copping an attitude of put-upon victimhood.
People don’t accuse you of being a troll because of your opinions. There are people here with opinions far, far further from the mainstream than yours. People accuse you of being a troll because you quite often appear to have no goal other than to stir up the sh*t.
You know, kinda like a troll.
In any case, if someone with the means to do so doesn’t step up and knock some heads pretty damned soon, this place is going down the tubes.
It’s taken years of effort in good faith on the part of a lot of people to make this place what it is. It would be a god damned freaking shame to piss it away, but it wouldn’t be the first time thing like that has happened. It happens every day.
You don’t miss the water until the well runs dry, y’all.
You can almost always remove the word actually from a sentence with affecting the meaning.
I say this as a frequent offender.
As for the trolls, there’s no one paying attention here so the site is going to hell. If we want a site like this used to be, we’ll have to create it.
I’m game and I know who my votes for front page posters would be.
Sorry Lindsay, I disagree with you.
This time, in the right space, I repeat that Barry Obama got the so called Nobel peace prize for nothing better tham mere words and “effects.” And nominated only ELEVEN days after taking office? The absurdiy is OBVIOUS. At least President Theodore Roosevelt had brokered a peace treaty betweem a warring Russia and Japan.
I have nothing but contempt for the Nobel peace prize. Not when scoundrels and charlatans like Le Duc Tho, Arafat, and Al Gore can get it. If that narcissistic fraud, Obama, had had any sense, he would have turned it down.
Sincerely,
You can almost always remove the word actually from a sentence with affecting the meaning.
Thanks for the tip.
Re: the difference between someone participating in a discussion and someone merely being offensive for offensiveness’s sake–well, look at Sean’s comment.
1. His basic point is defensible and his initial expression of disagreement with Lindasy is polite.
2.But then he goes downhill into a knee-jerk rightwing meme (narcissistic), calls Obama an fraud and calls Al Gore a charlatan.
Is that being a troll? It certainly is over the top language combined with an autopilot rightwingism of the day: not the sort of message that is likely to provoke a thoughtful, indepth civil response. And all that rudeness was unnecessary since his point was made in his first paragraph.
I don’t know if that sort of comment should provoke a ban but I do think some disemvowelling is in order, not just for Sean’s specific commnet, for any number of comments and commenters until the rhetoric gets a better tone.
A couple of mine probably should get disemvowelled, too.
Wonkie,
If you think I’m angry and disgusted with Obama, you are correct. But I deny I was “over the top.” I said NOTHING obscene or vulgar. I’ll take correction from the blog owners, but not from you.
Btw, plenty of others, left and right, think it was narcissistic of Obama to accept the Nobel prize. I stand by my comment.
Sincerely,
“Narcissistic fraud” = “uppity N***er.”
Well I think that your language was over the top as well as unnecessary and an impediment to communicating your point. You are quite right that correction–in the form of disemvowelment or banning — is a matter for the Overlords of the site, but criticism of each other’s comments is what people do on comment threads. So if you aren’t prepared for that…well consider refraining from saying the sorts of things which are calculated to provoke criticism! After all if you had stayed away from words like fraud, narcissitic, charlatan etc, there would have been no criticism of your comment from me and we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
And no, the narcissism meme came from rightwing blogs prior to the prize announcement and jumped to the MSM via Ambinder. I can’t remember who started it but I do remember when it started. It might have been Sullivan who started it. It was only a week or so ago and immediately there was discussion on the leftie blogs I read about how long it would take before it got to the Villagers. As for the word being used on the left to describe Obama’s acceptence of the prize, well, please list some examples.
Actually I did a quick google on the narcisism meme. It appears to have originated in May with a guy who claims to have a Phd. but dones’t say from where and has written several books on narcissism (ironically self published). He wrote what he presents as a scholarly analysis of Obama’s personality resulting the diagnosis of narcissitic personality disorder. The bulk of the google search results are rightwing blog references to the article. Apparaently there has also been one of those email campaigns pushing the article as well. I was mistaken about Sullivan. he only criticized something George Will wrote which was, as Will tends to be, prickish and congested, full of hints veiled behind sophistries. Anyhoo the meme was being flogged from the right before the prize was given.
russell: “People accuse you of being a troll because you quite often appear to have no goal other than to stir up the sh*t.”
My goal is to challenge ideas and assumptions that don’t ring true. And if I ‘stir up the sh*t’ as you put it, it’s because ‘vanila’ postings are ignored. Example: I’ve commented three or four times the past week that the health care bills coming out of congress will be detrimental to seniors, and strip them of care, and I provided samples of the language in the Baucus bill as proof, and nobody responded, pro or con to that assertion. The health care of the entire elderly population is in jeopardy, and not one twitch of outrage or denial. But if I refer to Obama with the same snideness that Hilzoy regularly applied to Bush-2, anyone a micrometer to the left of center begins finger wagging and shouting troll warnings with the same fervor as McCarthyites redbaiting commies in the halls of congress.
But, the hell with it. The World Series is a-coming. Pro Basketball season starts soon. And there’s a new season of Dexter to view — So I’ll leave you to your hand-wringing, and concentrate on more pleasant pursuits for a while.
The US secure middle class and up practices a politics of serene aesthetics. Their/our Whitmanesque individualism and self-destiny is entirely at odds with state-imposed, state-liscenced, externality-absorbing and -generating, patented-protected, financially-coordintated wall-of-entry beaurocracies for every sort of purchase and sale. So there is this stark conflict b/t image and reality.
This may not be the experience of the reader, but if the reader is curious and therefore learned, it would know that this is the experience of the adverage American. Of all sexes, we are (those $unded with enough Dou$h) making choices in a market place that is unified by system of government, law, culture, history. , we are quite aware of the paradoxical sense in which choices are over-determined, focused and narrowed, self-reinforcing, culturally proscibed, etc…
So a politics of aesthetic rugged indivualism is a large though temporally- shallow communal purchase. The purchase is a thought-mold. What is spent is everything from militarism to junk mail. What is gained is a belief that “you” (a quickly processed datum in the marketplace of buyers and sellers) are currently “choosing your own doctor”.
We are already culturally-determined borgs. We are also miraculous. Nothing keeps our insect-lke devotion to our sensory habits from also obviating the possibility of creative language and ideation. Just as weather is dynamic yet climate predictable, we have dual social natures. And these are unresolved, and contested. Randomly b/t family, organized b/t politics,…
Whoa…chardonay and red tail, night yall.
A secure upper/middle class US citizen can purchase these fantasies of self and believe them to be objective realities, when they are merely semi-personal experiences.
You know, I deleted a section of that comment I posted. I reproduce it here:
What I would love to see would be the account of how the kitty appeared to russell in a dream and proclaimed,
In short, I think that there are people already on this board who could solve this, if the kitty were minded to make it possible. You’d need some kind of community consensus of what constituted fair play, but there are certainly fair players here.
JJ: My goal is to challenge ideas and assumptions that don’t ring true. And if I ‘stir up the sh*t’ as you put it, it’s because ‘vanila’ postings are ignored.
From an outsider’s perspective, I see that the ObWi comment threads are an arms race for attention. Your comment is symptomatic of that.
I just wanted to add to the chorus in saying that I’m deeply saddened by what is happening to Obsidian Wings. This place used to be truly special, and it’s being overrun by trolls, and the lack of goodwill from the trolls is seeping through and infiltrating the whole debate, so that people who I think have sincere dissenting points to make and an interest in engaging with and potentially convincing people not ideologically aligned with them instead wind up alleging ill faith and tossing off insults, insinuations, and ad hominems – because that is what this place is becoming.
I don’t comment here as much as I once did (back, basically, before Hilzoy left), but there was a time when I was one of a number of people who basically defined their blogging identities by their being regular commenters at ObWi. Being a part of this community was a point of pride. I think that day is disappearing into memory, and if the trend is not altered the loss will be a sad one.
P.S. This is mostly a criticism of the toleration (or lack of a rapid removal) of the variously named versions of the entity calling itself “Christian Weston Chandler”, whom I cannot describe in polite company, and of the vulgarisms of “Irrumator” – but just to balance things out a bit and criticize a commenter on the left, I’ve long felt, and occasionally compained in the comments, that Jesurgislac – many of whose viewpoints I share, if little of her vehemence – is also guilty of habitually failing to credit her interlocutors with possessing sincerity or goodwill, an attitude that prevents any further constructive conversation.
Wonkie, I disagree that Sean M. Brooks comment is a troll or that Sean himself is a troll.
This is all highly subjective, I admit, but on the scales of trolldom, Russell’s outlined well why Jay Jerome is a troll, though Irrumator is a worse troll and the plague of anonymice who post taking other people’s names are worse still. We need a couple of active moderators to block trolls.
Several people have said that what constitutes acceptable rhetoric here has been going downhill, and Sean M. Brooks comments (and indeed some of mine) may cross that line – and for that the kitten needs claws: there used to be a practice of 24-hour blocking when a commenter said something one of the mods found unacceptable, and that was a good rule (even if it was used against me, ah, once or twice). I self-blocked myself a couple of times when I was aware I was getting too immoderate.
I posted a longish comment that seems to have been eaten, but to reiterate I am also deeply saddened by what has been happening to the tone of the comments here. ObWi used to be a terrific commenting community, one whose tone its regular commenters took pride in. Its loss would be a true shame.
Or, in other words, What Russell Said.
P.S. As someone who has sometimes criticized and frequently been upset by the tone of Jes’s comments, I appreciate the tone of her 6:18AM – though I don’t think that Jay Jerome is consistently a troll, any more than Jes is consistently a troll.
I don’t think Sean is a troll either, which is why I asked the question. It was a genuine question, not an answer in questioo form.
I think that this site needs a period of more frequent and serious and substantive posts. The initial posts to some extent set the tone of the comments. More frequent posts would help keepthe coment threads from degenertinng into argument for argument’s sake. And, yes, it would help if one of the managers was involved in the conversation.
but that requires an awful lot of time input from busy people who have otgher things going on so I undertand why it isn’t happening.
THe closest simile I can construct for awarding “thePrez” the Peace Prize, for the reasons stated, is that is is like awarding the Best Picture Oscar on the basis of a ‘treatment’ and a ‘pitch.’
Hi, Jesurgislac:
Thanks for saying I’m not a “troll.” Apparetnly, the use of “narcissism” has touched off a firestorm of sorts. Which frankly surprises me. After all, my belief is that the dictionary definition of that word does fit Obama’s pattern of behavior. Which is why I believe it to be neither “over the top” or obscene/vulgar.
I seldom comment here. Esp. now that Hilzoy has left. After all, I once had a very slight personal acquaintance with her. Which was partly why I sometimes drop by here.
Sincerely,
You know, if I was on the Nobel committee, I’d argue for giving the prize to someone like Nhat Hanh, or Gregg Mortenson. Maybe Miriam Simos. Maybe some deserving Quaker or Catholic Peace Movement worker.
There’s a woman in my town whose husband was killed on 9/11. He was on his way to a conference, and he was killed. Incinerated, torn to shreds, crushed in the impact of the crash, who knows. Who knows if they ever found a scrap of his remains, or if his ashes just settled down on a roof somewhere in Manhattan, or washed down the Hudson and out to sea.
Gone. Gone forever, torn from his own life and from hers. She responded by donating his medical library to a hospital in Kabul.
I’d give it to her in a heartbeat.
War’s easy. Disgustingly so. Not so, peace. Peace is f**ing hard.
But I’m not on the Nobel committee.
It occurs to me that perhaps, by giving the award to Obama, the Nobel Committee sought to set him a high bar. Perhaps they sought to place a moral burden on him to live up to his own rhetoric.
Those Norwegians are sly bastards.
In any case, some truly wonderful and deserving people have won the award, and some astoundingly undeserving SOBs have won it. Time will tell which camp Obama belongs in, and the outcome is not completely up to him.
The man’s wading in deep water. We should all wish him luck.
russell … Miriam Simos? Aren’t you afraid of making some people’s heads explode? 😉
It would be a great choice. Sad to say, it’s hard to imagine living in a world where that was even a remote possibility.
Aren’t you afraid of making some people’s heads explode? 😉
That would be the fun part.
IMVHO, and FWIW, Simos is the real deal. I have huge respect for her and for her work.
To get back to the original topic of the conversation I’d like to say something in support of Obama getting the peace prize. The morning of the award I was listening to NPR as I drove to work and they were asking people around the world their reaction. A Suni politian in Iraq came up with words that well summarized my thoughts. Forgive me for not having the exact quote, but I’m doing this from memory. He said, Of course Obama deserves it, he got the most powerful country in the world out of the business of exporting evil.
Sean, the reason that narcissism may have kicked up a fuss is not only that everyone is on edge from dealing with faux posters imitating people’s nicks, but that the term has the ring of a diagnosis, which can imply that Obama is suffering from some condition.
Any number of people have suggested that you’d have to be crazy to want to be president, and every election cycle, this seems to be borne out. But when one gives a diagnosis like this, you are actually crossing a subtle line. Did Obama lobby to get the Nobel? Did he make a mention of thinking that he had a shot? I don’t know how the nomination list is created, and I don’t know who knows it, but I find it hard to believe that Obama knew this was coming. So you are calling Obama narcissistic because of something that happened that is completely external to him.
This is a small thing, but given the way race continues to play out in the US, there is (and I am not accusing you of this, just pointing it out) a pretty straight line from narcissistic to ‘uppity’, and when it is based on things entirely outside of the person’s control, it might be easy to see why some people react to it without actually identifying why they get so upset. It may not be coincidental that the NRCC said that Pelosi should be ‘put in her place’ by McChrystal. While it seems that some are reacting to the term you used, the reason that the reaction is so strong is that the term has some hidden roots and it is those roots that people are reacting to.
I think the Nobel Prize is an honor for the President, he was very gracious about accepting it.