"Obama Awarded 2009 Nobel Peace Prize" read the headline; it's not The Onion, but CNN.
Alternatively, "Prize Committee to Obama: Thanks for not being George W. Bush."
Obama is reportedly "humbled" by the award. Well yeah I should hope so, given that he doesn't have any actual accomplishments in his scant months as POTUS to make him deserving of such an award. I would like to think that Obama is embarrassed by the extent to which he has become a messianic figure.
Meanwhile, The Onion is on top of other important developments, such as this newly created bird species, though as a birder and a marketing person, I felt that the story was rather weak.
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5 comments:
The Nobel prize news was the first thing I heard when I woke up to my clock radio this morning. I'm probably as 'rah rah Obama' as any sane person can be at this point (i.e., considering he has not done anything), but was fairly gobsmacked considering that he has made absolutely no contributions to peace that I can think of. Well, like, maybe a speech that made some people feel good or something.
The Rush Limbaughs of the world must be celebrating this as a huge gift, given that even Obama supporters are finding it silly / awkward / shocking.
Seriously, how does Obama live up to this?
He gave a pretty good speech about it (basically saying he doesn't deserve it). It's hard to know how it will play, overall.
Wacky Europeans.
I can't get past this feeling that Obama being singled out in such a dramatic way for talking about peace (which is something that American presidents typically do) is like giving him a Nobel Peace Prize for being "an articulate black man."
I feel a bit sorry for Obama personally that unlike Wilson, Carter, and Gore, he will not now have the opportunity to actually earn the Prize later in life based on real achievements.
And despite his administration spinning this as best they can to make it palatable to the American public (it's not about me, it's a win for America and a hope for a brighter future, etc.), no president wants to have such a bright spotlight placed on his lack of achievement to date. An undeserved award sparks people to start thinking and talking about all the reasons he is unworthy, and it matters little that nobody (or at least very few sane people) would expect him to have earned a Peace Prize in less than a year as POTUS.
From an attitude change perspective: when people spend effort thinking about a weak message in favor of something - e.g. that Obama deserves the Peace Prize for being inspirational and talking peace - they often 'boomerang': change their attitude in the direction opposite the message due to the creation of counterarguments, e.g. that Obama hasn't accomplished much of anything. Thus, weak messages can be more detrimental than no message at all when people are likely to think. When people don't think about the message, and may be inclined to use peripheral cues such as the source of the message ... well, I'm not sure that the opinion of 5 far-left Scandinavians is really going to impress the American public as being very credible.
If this isn't politically disastrous domestically, it seems to me that's only to the extent that people (including his supporters) are already dissatisfied with him and additional attention being brought to his lack of progress on Guantanamo and Iraq/Afghanistan can't hurt him that much.
(Note: Wilson did not get the Peace Prize "later in life" as my previous comment suggested, but it was for a real, if ephemeral, achievement.)
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