My first reaction to the news this morning aligns almost exactly with Matt Welch’s…
| My wife woke me with the ridiculous news that Barack Obama, who has been in office for eight months and achieved no notable peace, won the Nobel Peace Prize. |
| “Seriously, what has he done?” I asked. |
The short answer is: speak. We didn’t pay much attention on this side of the pond, but Barack Obama’s speeches in Cairo and Berlin were smash hits. The guy is a star. He gives the world hope that the U.S. isn’t fucking nuts after all. This is not a small thing. But there is a huge difference between promise and delivery. Gas alone is not transportation. You gotta drive.
Obama ran (and voted) against the wars in Iran Iraq and Afghanistan. Both continue under his command. He backed off on missle installations in Poland and got warm reciprocal sounds out of the Kremlin, which is … something, I guess. He has led efforts toward peace between Israel and its neighbors, but every U.S. president since the founding of Israel has done that. Or tried. Results so far–on any of this? Nada.
I’m all for giving the guy a chance, but why hang a garland on him when the race has hardly begun?
The generous take is Andrew Sullivan’s: “I seem to be one of the few who sees this as a downpayment on a potential transformative period in world history. History alone can judge that, and history hasn’t happened yet.”
Add one more burden to those the president carries already: proving that the Nobel committe hasn’t jumped the shark. Peace of cake.
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