Wow:
U.S. President Barack Obama says he is “deeply humbled” after winning the Nobel Peace Prize Friday
Just… wow. Absolutely incredulous. I don’t dislike Obama as much as some people do, but at no point should an American president ever receive the Nobel Peace prize. Period. Any of them. Ever.
Thought: President Obama is the only person on the planet who can end two wars with executive orders at any moment. Yet for nine months he has not done so. Peace, by definition, is the opposite of war. So I would think he would be, whatever the positive characteristics you feel he has, or the wars we’re waging, the last person on the planet to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
Thought 2: The only thing that puts the choice of Obama in a good light is that previous US Presidents who have won the prize include Woodrow “We’ll Never Get Involved In WW1″ Wilson and Theodore “The Only Good Indian Is a Dead One” Roosevelt. So I guess I have to admit he’s not the worst choice out of the pantheon of presidents.
Thought 3: This sounds like it was written for a ninth grade civics class:
Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.
Wait, “lead the world?” Did I miss something? I thought he was the president of a country that only contained a tiny fraction of the world’s population? And really: “Must share the values and attitudes of the majority?” Note to a certain Scandivanian committee: most of the world does not share your values, or Obama’s, or mine. Most of the world, by definition, must include China, India, Africa and the Middle East. For better or worse, they share very different values and attitudes than Obama or most Europeans, which is why they react so poorly when Americans and Europeans show up and try to impose our values or attitudes upon them.
I certainly like the values I grew up with, and they’re probably pretty similar to the ones they espouse (but also probably rather different), but if I had grown up in one of those countries I might take a very dim view of statements like that, in reference to those who are to “lead the world.”
Thought 4: I like how in physics, you win your Nobel prize 30 years after your discovery. In politics, apparently you get one for what the committee hopes you will do.
