I haven't had the courage to watch the hand-wringing, whining and bitching I'd expect on cable TV and talk radio today in light of Barack Obama's Nobel Prize, but let me assure those who are surprised that they shouldn't be. There's plenty of precedent and very good rationale.Three recently elected Democratic presidents have won Nobel Peace Prizes: Obama, Al Gore and Jimmy Carter. (Bill Clinton should have one one for keeping the Repubs at bay for eight years. Almost as soon as he left office, we went to war and in the case of Iraq, optional war.) Seems to be a trend following Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt (a modern Democrat with an "R" after his name) being named early in the 20th Century.
Roosevelt was never officially a Democrat, but certainly was a liberal. He was thrown out of the Republican Party in 1912, forming the progressive (much more progressive than either mainstream party at the time) Bull Moose Party. That's when the Repubs took a hard right turn from which they have yet to recover.
My impression of Obama's prize (which he doesn't yet deserve, I'll agree, but will before his term is over) is that it's a middle finger extended to the Cro-Magnon international policies of the Bush Administration. Bush was so awful--so thoroughly out of touch with any kind of reality--that you could feel international relief with Obama's first utterance about multi-lateralism.
Can't tell if you were being facetious or not, but Al Gore wasn't president. But assuming you're making the argument he was -- and that Bush wasn't actually elected -- you're also forgetting Clinton, who certainly was a "recently elected Democratic president."
ReplyDelete