Althouse: "It's a prize for weakening America."

October 9, 2009

"It's a prize for weakening America."

Says rhhardin.

31 comments:

Fred4Pres said...: J-Pod says it well:

The Michael Moore of Oslo
John Podhoretz - 10.09.2009 - 10:06 AM
I can’t agree with my colleagues here on CONTENTIONS that a) Barack Obama should reject the Nobel Peace Prize or b) be embarrassed by it. The Nobel Committee chose him wisely because he does, in fact, represent the organization’s highest ideals.

He is an American president queasy about the projection of American power. He is an American president who rejects the notion of American exceptionalism. He is an American president eagerly in pursuit of legitimacy to be granted him not by those who voted for him but by those who do not cast a vote and who chafe at American leadership. It is his devout wish that America become one of many nations, influencing the world indirectly or not influencing it at all, rather than “the indispensable nation,” as Madeleine Albright characterized it. He is the encapsulation, the representative, the wish fulfillment, the very embodiment, of the multilateralist impulse. He is, almost literally, a dream come true for the sorts of people who treasure and value the Nobel Peace Prize.

It’s the most obvious choice, once you think about it, since Michael Moore won an Oscar for Fahrenheit 9/11.; 10/9/09, 9:42 AM
themightypuck said...: Gorbachev got it for taking down the USSR.; 10/9/09, 9:45 AM
MadisonMan said...: Eight posts in a row on one topic. That must be a record.; 10/9/09, 9:47 AM
ricpic said...: Actually it's a prize for weakening Israel -- that shitty nation.; 10/9/09, 9:52 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I’ve been Thinking further – (always a dangerous thing ;)

My theory - ‘you know his going to get it – why don’t we give it to him now? makes sense in light of all the talk about Obama getting – you know – JFK at Dealey Plaza.

Maybe these people really believe that stuff about us.

Remember Gore Vidal repeating it just a few days ago there in London?; 10/9/09, 9:54 AM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: Yes it is. The object is to make America weak.

Now, with the Peace Prize hanging around his neck, Obama has to consider 'Whirled Peas' in every aspect of policy regarding Afganisatan or the Taliban, he will veer even more to the weaking of America to justify this obscene award.

Instead of acting as the President of the United States and advancing OUR interests, he will ever more be acting as the Annointed International Peace Prize Grand Poobah.

We are sooo sooooo f#cking screwed.; 10/9/09, 9:54 AM
Jason (the commenter) said...: It just goes to show how easy we have it. There aren't any problems to solve any more (other than how to spend our money) so they give out prizes to whomever they want.; 10/9/09, 9:55 AM
lucid said...: Obama for President of Norway!!
Mmmmmmm!
Mmmmmmm!
Mmmmmmm!; 10/9/09, 9:56 AM
PJ said...: By debasing its own currency, the Committee is showing its approval of Obama's similar project.

Plus, awarding it to someone else would have been racist.; 10/9/09, 10:02 AM
Peter Hoh said...: If the prize is for weakening America, then it ought to be shared with George W. Bush.

Remember, no Bush, no Obama.; 10/9/09, 10:05 AM
Dust Bunny Queen said...: From the UK Timesonline

The spectacle of Mr Obama mounting the podium in Oslo to accept a prize that once went to Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi and Mother Theresa would be all the more absurd if it follows a White House decision to send up to 40,000 more US troops to Afghanistan. However just such a war may be deemed in Western eyes, Muslims would not be the only group to complain that peace is hardly compatible with an escalation in hostilities.

They get it.; 10/9/09, 10:07 AM
TWM said...: "Remember, no Bush, no Obama."

That may be true, but he's here now and at some point must take responsibility for his own actions or inaction as seems to be his way.

Blaming Bush and crying racism are the only things the left has and in this obviously post-racial world the latter doesn't work anymore and the former is quickly reaching it's expiration date.; 10/9/09, 10:10 AM
Peter Hoh said...: TRO, yes, when he came into office, Obama had to deal with messes that Bush left him, but they are his messes now.

That does not erase the fact that Bush is responsible for creating the conditions that lead to Obama's election. That won't ever change.; 10/9/09, 10:22 AM
Anonymous said...: Does this mean Barack Obama will stop firing off Hellfire missiles from robot drones into Pakistan?

By the way, when the fuck did Barack Obama get Congressional authorization to conduct a third war in Pakistan?; 10/9/09, 10:22 AM
LouisAntoine said...: "It's a prize for weakening America"

I hear this in the voice of fourth grader who has just had his lunch money stolen.

What a beautiful morning!; 10/9/09, 10:25 AM
TWM said...: "That does not erase the fact that Bush is responsible for creating the conditions that lead to Obama's election. That won't ever change."

I disagree - it was much more than that - but assuming that is so, what does that have to do with the here and now. The blame-Bush excuse grows more lame every day.; 10/9/09, 10:29 AM
I'm Full of Soup said...: Las Vegas oddsmakers have also made Obama the favorite to win the World Series, the Super Bowl and next year's Kentucky Derby.; 10/9/09, 10:40 AM
Automatic_Wing said...: That does not erase the fact that Bush is responsible for creating the conditions that lead to Obama's election. That won't ever change.

I think you're taking the "Great Man" theory of history to ridiculous extremes here. Surely George W. Bush (as awesome as he was) isn't singlehandedly responsible for the condition of the world today or for all of our country's problems/challenges.

You might try injecting a little nuance and some shades of grey into your understanding of current events.; 10/9/09, 10:45 AM
Peter Hoh said...: TRO, I'll make you a deal. I'll stop blaming Bush when conservatives stop blaming Carter.; 10/9/09, 10:48 AM
Peter Hoh said...: Okay, Maguro, you tell me how someone with so few qualifications managed to become elected president.

I believe that the desire for a "change" election was set up by Bush.; 10/9/09, 10:54 AM
daubiere said...: hes definitely going to win the thalberg award at the next oscars for his lifetime achievement in acting... all his great roles, playing community activist, professor, state senator, US senator and now president.

he delivers just the kind of cornball faux earnestness and lofty-sounding vapidity that hollywood loves to throw awards at.

wv: oodyls. oodyls of accolades pour in from obamas poodyls.; 10/9/09, 10:55 AM
daubiere said...: "Okay, Maguro, you tell me how someone with so few qualifications managed to become elected president."

people like you voted for him.

wv: botivang. a hindu deity angered by obama winning the prize that gandhi apparently wasnt worthy of; 10/9/09, 10:58 AM
Freeman Hunt said...: I'll stop blaming Bush when conservatives stop blaming Carter.

Which Carter? This one or the old one?

I kid, I kid.

Thank you, rhardin. That was the wording I was looking for in a real life conversation earlier today.; 10/9/09, 11:08 AM
Andrea said...: Blaming Bush for Obama -- claiming that Bush "creat[ed] the conditions that lead to Obama's election" -- just means "we never liked Bush, and it's his fault for not doing anything to make us like him, and we punished him by voting for as much of an opposite as we could find." It had very little to do with "hope and change" and a lot to do with petty payback. It's all part of the high school mentality that has taken over American public life.; 10/9/09, 11:11 AM
Peter Hoh said...: Andrea, this has nothing to do with the people who never liked Bush. Obama won because he got votes from people who had, in 2004, voted for Bush.

Obama, like Reagan, swung the electorate. That claim can't be made for Clinton, by the way, as he got elected without the majority of voters.; 10/9/09, 11:18 AM
Automatic_Wing said...: Okay, Maguro, you tell me how someone with so few qualifications managed to become elected president.

I believe that the desire for a "change" election was set up by Bush.

You're right, it was a "change" election and that helped Obama greatly during the general election. People were tired of Republican stupidity and arrogance and wanted somthing different. A different kind of stupidity band arrogance, I guess. So we can agree on that.

But let's not forget that unknown Democrats winning "change" elections for this very reason has happened twice before, with Carter and Clinton. Now that it's happened 3 times, every 16 years, we can fairly view it as a cyclical phenomenon.

Democratic primary voters like fresh faces, so it's not at all implausible to suggest that Obama might have been the nominee and won the presidency even if he had followed a different, more competent Republican president.

More generally, I think the role of GWB in causing all of our problems is vastly overstated. The choices that, say, President Gore might have made following 9/11 would probably not have been all that different from Bush's. VP Gore had shown very little reluctance to employ extra-legal methods and outright violence in support of our counter-terrorism efforts in the 90's, and there's no reason to believe he would have been particularly dovish after the WTC attack.

The differences we have with entities like Russia, China and "the Muslim world" are structural and based on a thousand or more years of history. Bush deserves his share of the blame (and credit) for what his administration did, but let's not kid ourselves that everything would be peachy if Gore had been president instead. The world just doesn't work that way.; 10/9/09, 11:34 AM
Peter Hoh said...: I've never argued that GWB is responsible for all our problems. He is responsible for his administration.

I think you'll agree that replacing Rumsfeld made a huge difference. I wish that Bush had replaced Rumsfeld much earlier.; 10/9/09, 12:00 PM
Robert Cook said...: "By the way, when the fuck did Barack Obama get Congressional authorization to conduct a third war in Pakistan?"

I suppose that came about through the Bush Administration's insistence that the Authorization of Military Force granted by Congress allows the President to pursue our terror war wherever they deemed it necessary to fight the "enemy," (i.e., anyone we say is our enemy).

See what happens when you allow one war criminal motherfucker to do as he fucking pleases? The war criminal motherfuckers who succeed him assume,rightly, that they have the same liberty to do as they fucking please, however lawless. You can't assign one President the "00" designation--the licence to kill--without it being automatically designated to all Presidents who follow. If you allow the guy you like to break the rules, the guys you don't like will break them just as well, and it's your fault.

David Swanson writes:
"Since 1973 presidents who have launched wars without the authorization of Congress have done so, not just in violation of the Constitution, but also in violation of the War Powers Act, a law written in reaction to President Richard Nixon's abuses of power and passed over his veto. The law allows a president to send armed forces into action abroad only with the authorization of Congress, unless the United States is actually under attack or serious threat. The president is required to notify Congress within 48 hours if he commits armed forces to action abroad, and forces cannot be kept in action for more than sixty days without an authorization from Congress. This law is actually weaker than the constitutional requirement and should be strengthened, but it is a law that Bush (and Congress) violated.

One way in which Bush Jr. outdid his predecessors in martial criminality was by persuading Congress to issue a vague and general authorization to "use force" at any point in the future when the president believed certain conditions had been met. By so doing the Congress, as well as the president, violated the Constitution and the War Powers Act. The Iraq War was not launched with any specific and timely authorization from Congress. That is the first of many reasons the war is widely considered illegal. Congress's authorization allowing the president to determine whether to go to war was an unconstitutional delegation of the power to declare war."

See the entire useful article here:

https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=6329595&postID=1413812908515949505; 10/9/09, 1:59 PM
Robert Cook said...: Actually, here is the URL for David Swanson's very excellent article, "WHO HAS THE POWER OF WAR":

http://www.votersforpeace.us/
press/index.php?itemid=2782; 10/9/09, 2:02 PM
miller said...: It's a prize for being a fabulous speaker.; 10/9/09, 2:57 PM
Peter Hoh said...: Elsewhere in symbolism: Chinese group buys Hummer.

Six years ago, Hummer was a perfect metaphor for America: Gleefully belligerent muscle passing for greatness. Now, alas, the Chinese own it. Hey, it's still a perfect metaphor for America!; 10/9/09, 3:26 PM