Obama, Nobel Laureate

[cpeakesqr]

What a surprise... I wake up, not even knowing that today they would announce the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner, and find out the winner was the President.

I don't think he deserves it, and I believe that's what he said in his press briefing. The Nobel folks shouldn't play these political games, but honor people who have achieved significant progress towards peace. The President has begun to set the groundwork for what he hopes to accomplish. That's all he's had time for. Still, he's done more for peace in 8 months than He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named did in 8 years. But that isn't Nobel worthy, not yet.

Congratulations nonetheless.

[Charlotteman]

I don't think he deserves it, and I believe that's what he said in his press briefing. The Nobel folks shouldn't play these political games, but honor people who have achieved significant progress towards peace. The President has begun to set the groundwork for what he hopes to accomplish. That's all he's had time for. Still, he's done more for peace in 8 months than He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named did in 8 years. But that isn't Nobel worthy, not yet.

[cpeakesqr]

What a bunch of hogwash!

The man deserves it. He has engendered the spirit of hope and peace throughout the world. He has single handedly taken America from an ugly world image to a much brighter one.

I can just imagine the bashing he'll receive from Rush and Beck and all the other loonies.

[HopHead]

Sorry, but the man was in office for 11 days when the nominations went in... To me that's a joke. If he were to win it next year or the year after, sure I see no problem with it.

[Spartan]

This is the biggest embarrassment to the Nobel Prize since its inception. Why should anyone get an award for something they haven't done? On that note, I think I should get a grammy to encourage me to start playing music again.

[krazeeboi]

While I understand that there are several persons who received the award on an "aspirational" basis (e.g., Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who received the award in 1984 for his vocal opposition to apartheid in South Africa--which didn't actually end for another decade), I still think it was a little too much, too soon. With big foreign policy decisions looming on the horizon for Obama (Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, etc.), I hope this award doesn't become an albatross around his neck or even worse, we see a repeat of what happened when Arafat received the award and afterwards.

The big takeaway for me here is that the world still sees the U.S. as a paramount symbol of freedom and our president as the leader of the free world, and just the change in tone they hear coming from Obama as compared with Bush is very, very significant.

[Gard]

What a surprise... I wake up, not even knowing that today they would announce the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner, and find out the winner was the President.

I don't think he deserves it, and I believe that's what he said in his press briefing. The Nobel folks shouldn't play these political games, but honor people who have achieved significant progress towards peace. The President has begun to set the groundwork for what he hopes to accomplish. That's all he's had time for. Still, he's done more for peace in 8 months than He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named did in 8 years. But that isn't Nobel worthy, not yet.

Congratulations nonetheless.

[krazeeboi]

Someone on another message board put it like this:

"I take the award as a symbol of the world's thanks to the American voter for not electing the next Bush (McCain)... They can't give the award to 'the American voter' though, so they gave it to the guy the voters elected."

I think that's pretty accurate.

[peaceloveunderstanding]

This is very odd, and counter productive.

No-one in the Administration could have possibly wanted this; it's likely this will be a millstone around his neck and affect his next 3 years very negatively. It's potentially a political disaster.

That Obama is more adored in Europe than even by progressive America does nothing to help his agenda; instead it provides easy kindling for the firebrands.

[Gusterfell]

^I agree, but I've never understood why anything associated with the Europeans, generally our closest allies, is viewed negatively in this country. We're kind of like the person who calls you a friend but belittles and attacks everything you do. If this is the way we treat even our allies, is it any wonder the world thinks of us as arrogant?

As for the Nobel, the bottom line is that the committee is free to give the award to anyone they want, for any reason they want. They have stated their rationale for awarding it to Obama, and frankly it doesn't seem like a stretch to give it to someone who has so dramatically changed the tone of international diplomacy. Sure, the nomination went in just after Obama's presidency, but the decision was made over nine months later. If Obama hadn't made such great diplomatic strides in that time, he wouldn't have won.

I have to wonder how many of the people who are out there blasting the American president's receiving an international honor are the same people who last week cheered America's losing the 2016 Olympics. How many of them spent the last eight years calling critics of the war anti-American? Wasn't their slogan in the last election "country first?"

[Gard]

My guess in regards to European things being viewed negatively in the US is because it was groomed that way over many, many years. It, of course, started to some extent with King George treating the colonies bad, which led to the Revolution. It then built up some more with other conflicts, such as the war of 1812 and the Spanish-American war. The US government then further painted Europe in a negative light with the creation of the Monroe Doctrine, which warned European governments not to interfere in the in the affairs of the Americas or the US. Two world wars starting in Europe certainly didn't help anyone's perceptions either. That being said, it think that it became ingrained in our culture to bash the Europeans unfortunately.

I think the Olympics are a completely separate issue. The majority of Chicago citizens didn't even want the Olympics there. I know I was cheering for Rio to get them, both because they would become the first in South America AND because I don't want to foot the bill for them as a taxpayer when we can't really afford them without borrowing more money. If we got them, we might as well have just called them "Chicago-Beijing 2016." The Olympics notoriously always run over budget and their income, under budget. They are worth nothing more than prestige and right now, we have fix our financial system first if we are to get any prestige back. The spotlight is on us right now to get the financial house in order. To some it up, I think there was plenty of criticism from both sides in regards to the Olympics, especially on Obama's $11 million-dollar trip to see the committee. That $11 million could have helped some families in desperate need of it here at home.

[zman9810]

Someone on another message board put it like this:

"I take the award as a symbol of the world's thanks to the American voter for not electing the next Bush (McCain)... They can't give the award to 'the American voter' though, so they gave it to the guy the voters elected."

I think that's pretty accurate.

[FromCityToRural]

Yeah, I don't get this decision.

[krazeeboi]

The Olympics notoriously always run over budget and their income, under budget. They are worth nothing more than prestige

[Gard]

The '84 games in LA actually posted a profit, so it can be done. And it would be nice to have the jobs that the games (and that starts in the short-term, not in 2016 as Michael Steele seems to think) create here in the U.S.

[krazeeboi]

^You could also look at the '96 Games in Atlanta. While they weren't the best executed, by relying on a lot of corporate sponsorship, there was no racking up of debt and the city of Atlanta benefited greatly from the Games.

[Gard]

^

And they also had enough corporate sponsors to cover the costs of construction for the games, which if they started today would not be the case with the majority of major companies cutting out contributions to anything beyond their business. Taxpayers were largely off the hook with the Atlanta games, making them a moot point.

[krazeeboi]

And they also had enough corporate sponsors to cover the costs of construction for the games, which if they started today would not be the case with the majority of major companies cutting out contributions to anything beyond their business.

[Gard]

^

Until I see a list of willing corporate sponsors, I'm not buying it.

[krazeeboi]

The fact of the matter is that we have a history in the U.S. of not going into debt over summer Olympic games. Chicago's bid had a revenue goal of $1.8 billion

[Gard]

^

Then you add in security checkpoints that are manned by the TSA and need extra staffing and more personnel from the FAA and security detail for dignitaries (which is provided by the Secret Service), any national guard that are used and on and on and you wind up in debt. Those things are not counted the Chicago budget because they are provided by the Federal Government. I stand by my case is there isn't anything that can be said to change my mind on it. Besides that, most Chicagoans didn't even want the Olympics there, so I am happy they got their wish. We had enough of forcing us into things from the Bush administration.

[Gusterfell]

^Actually, even the most pessimistic polls showed that Chicagoans were about evenly divided on their support of the bid, with a slight majority favoring hosting the Olympics. Many polls showed something like two-to-one support. The notion that "most Chicagoans were against the games" comes from media coverage of a few small, very vocal organizations, most of whom opposed the bid primarily for partisan reasons due to Obama's involvement.

[dpbaker]

This about sums up the Nobel committee for me:

It's just another group pushing a liberal agenda, no longer with credibility IMHO.