Friday, October 09, 2009

Nobel and politics

Pres. Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, and everyone is rightly flabbergasted. Surely he hasn't done as much as former president Clinton, for example. What is going on?

I think this award reflects how much the world wanted to move away from the Bush tone of self-reliance and bullying, my way or the highway. Obama is very upfront about working toward consensus, sometimes (I think) to the detriment of his policies. This is an award based on hope.

Obama himself captured much of this in his acceptance remarks, saying he didn't deserve it but that he accepts it on behave of everyone working for peace as a call to action. Just the right tone, I think.

The right wing will have a field day with this. But the international community, which counts more, will embrace this as a gesture of hope.

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