Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize

[scottdisco]

a lot of people and world opinion want the moon on a stick from the poor sod, it's not inconceivable that amongst those people are certain affluent Norwegian social-liberals i suppose...

 

[vimothy]

Too domestic? Has any US Pres spent as much of his first 9 months in office on foreign soil as this one?

Yeah sure, and IIRC diplomacy is what the Committee highlighted, but diplomacy leading to... the G2? The G20? Photo-ops. Flip-flopping on Af-Pak? It's not like people have stopped dying. His speech in Cairo? And other than that...

 

[crackerjack]

Yeah sure, and IIRC diplomacy is what the Committee highlighted, but diplomacy leading to... the G2? The G20? Photo-ops. Flip-flopping on Af-Pak? It's not like people have stopped dying. His speech in Cairo? And other than that...

Also, if the Nobel committe are the machiavellian players you're implying, they should realise it does Obama no favours domestically to be seen as a pres more concerned with the rest of the world than he is with America. if anything, this award will make him more isolationist rather than less.

 

[scottdisco]

It's not like people have stopped dying.

i know i said some people were looking for the moon on a stick from the bloke, but i think this is a pretty big ask to be fair

nah in seriousness of course w the concretes there's not much as Vim rightly says, but to an extent the Nobel peace has often been about the mood music, i'm afraid i feel it's as simple as that.

 

[vimothy]

I'm not saying they're Machiavellian--but the award is a diss. Now, it's either intended or not, and I think that the idea that this is an unintended diss is less plausible, TBH, but I could of course be wrong about that.

 

[vimothy]

Saying that, Al Gore got it for writing a film.

 

[scottdisco]

Saying that, Al Gore got it for writing a film.

this did actually make me laugh out loud

 

[IdleRich]

Perhaps because they think Obama has been too conservative and domestic focused and want to push him in a more liberal-internationalist direction... Maybe they want a quicker solution to I-P... Whatever the reason, I doubt that anyone on the committee could have failed to foresee this.

So it's a rebuke to force him to act in the way that they want him to (ie more St Obama) rather than an attempt to undermine him as a president?

 

[vimothy]

I think so.

 

[IdleRich]

"I think so."

OK, at first I thought you were saying it was a deliberate attempt to hamstring him and sabotage anything that he might be likely to achieve. Which seems a bit too cunning by half, not to say unlikely, for me.

 

[CHAOTROPIC]

Could he have refused it? Would that be classy ("Give me four more years, then give it to me, etc"), or confrontational?

I think, if I were Obama, I would have refused it. Great opportunity for a nobel speech to the Nobel committee.

EDIT: Everyone I've asked so far has said: you what? Followed by: wouldn't it be great it he refused it.

 

[scottdisco]

yeah and he should donate the money to oh i don't know Care for Foundations of Victims of Torture, given a Zimbabwean was the front-runner beforehand. (last i heard the charity or charities of choice hadn't been announced.)

the Zanu-PF elements of the Harare unity govt at this stage can go fuck themselves if they would feel aggrieved by such a course of action, i don't think it would make a difference to realities on the ground in Zim after all, he wouldn't have to explicitly say why they were getting the money but it could be quite apparent to people reading between the lines.

i realise this is unlikely but hey i've used the phrase 'moon on a stick' a few times so far so why not....

 

[IdleRich]

"Could he have refused it? Would that be classy ("Give me four more years, then give it to me, etc"), or confrontational?"

I think that would be a very difficult thing to do, certainly looks a bit precious and ungracious - has anyone ever refused it?

 

[scottdisco]

I think that would be a very difficult thing to do, certainly looks a bit precious and ungracious - has anyone ever refused it?

Sartre refused the lit didn't he. (and probably others for all i know.)

there again Sartre epitomised the term "precious"

{scottdisco airily summarises one of the greats of modern European letters in sour remark shockah}

i think if he refused it - cool as it sounds in principle - it might be seen as a bit of an insult to other nominees. the commt have already given a slap in the face to all the losing nominees so if Obama were to turn around and compound that, it'd be pretty bad form. there again if he made a really robust speech bigging up other nominees as the reason for a refusal, who knows? but there again, that said, then you're back into 'imperialist Americans sticking their oar in'-territory; all goes back to the can't win or lose impulse i identified earlier, if i say so myself..

 

[IdleRich]

"Sartre refused the lit didn't he."

Cheers - why did he do that?

"i think if he refused it - cool as it sounds in principle - it might be seen as a bit of an insult to other nominees. the commt have already given a slap in the face to all the losing nominees so if Obama were to turn around and compound that, it'd be pretty bad form."

Exactly, I bet he's not too pleased about this whole thing, it's just one more thing to deal with really. What about the hard right, I've missed any nuts responses they've made to the announcement, can anyone link me some?

 

[vimothy]

They're having a right bloody field day, as you can probably imagine. Start with Instapundit and NRO and go from there...

 

[crackerjack]

Cheers - why did he do that?

cos he's a stalinist twat (wild guess)

 

[IdleRich]

"cos he's a stalinist twat (wild guess)"

I'm guessing that's not precisely the reason he gave.

 

[scottdisco]

this is from the Wiki on the man, so idk but i'm taking it as fair

He said he did not wish to be "transformed" by such an award, and did not want to take sides in an East vs. West cultural struggle by accepting an award from a prominent Western cultural institution

sounds like a right load of pseudo-intellectual bollocks if you ask me, i mean it's great that Herta Müller won the lit this year, one in the eye to the Anglophone printing presses as someone said in the Guardian (beside her being a fine writer), but, Sartre could have given the money to literacy programmes in Bengal or something if he won, that would have been a really positive moment for the global south, a lot more than Sartre's preening windbaggery imo.

 

[crackerjack]

He said he did not wish to be "transformed" by such an award, and did not want to take sides in an East vs. West cultural struggle by accepting an award from a prominent Western cultural institution

so i was right