Things That Make The World Explode

Figuratively speaking.

In under 14 hours, both the American media and the international media have exploded over President Obama's receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Obama, at the Rose Garden, said in essence:

I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations and all peoples to confront the common challenges of the 21st century. These challenges won't all be met during my presidency, or even my lifetime. But I know these challenges can be met so long as it's recognized that they will not be met by one person or one nation alone.

NPR aired Rush Limbaugh's comment during their hourly news updates, in which Limbaugh said Obama's award was a bigger embarrassment than Chicago losing the Olympics bid.

But how much do we really know?

The Nobel Committee is a majority of liberal politicians, but international peace is kind of de facto liberalism to me anyways. The Norwegian government elects each member of the Nobel Committee, and, politically, it's about on par with the British Labour Party, not the American Democratic Party. If Obama were a British politician in the 1990s before Tony Blair, he never would have had a chance in hell.

Obama has lofty goals for his Presidency, and if he meets half of them, he deserved this award. The one that sticks out to me is his push for the elimination of nuclear weapons. That's on par with Woodrow Wilson's creation of the League of Nations. Times two.

This isn't about politics. It's about a vision for the world. A commentator on NPR's website said that Obama owes George Bush for this award because Bush screwed up America's image so much that it was a cakewalk for Mr. Obama to give a few speeches and suddenly be given a Nobel Prize.

Fox News, the bastion of intellect, put an op/ed on their website diminishing the Nobel Prize down to a laundry list of photo ops and speeches.

It's remarkable that Obama won for his vision for the world, and I'll be curious to see if a journalist ever gets ahold of the "portfolio" that the Committee referred to when making it's selection.

Obviously, they saw the same thing that a majority of Americans saw on November 8th.

I'm just sitting back and watching a sitting American President win one of the most prestigious things in existence for the first time in 90 years. If anything, reduce it to that, and you'll all feel better.

I wonder though, should Obama have declined the award??

No. He did the right thing  in using it as an impetus to continue his work. However, it remains to be seen what he will do with the large sum of money he gets along with the award. He should donate it to one of the foundations that helps families of fallen soldiers, or something similar.