Reminder: President Obama Didn’t Give Himself the Prize
I find it funny that so many people have been upset by President Obama having been given the Nobel Peace Prize. Somehow, everyone (myself included) seem to miss one vital point: he didn’t ask for it. There he was, simply sleeping the night away (probably with nightmares because of all the trials he’s undergoing) and it was handed to him. Regardless of whether or not we think he deserved it (as I have talked about before), we have to remember that he wasn’t campaigning for it and has simply been doing his job.
Michael Moore (yes that one), wrote an excellent article on the subject on why he deserves it.: Get Off Obama’s Back: Second Thoughts From Michael Moore. An important paragraph (if you don’t want to read the whole thing):
Because on that day the murderous actions of the Bush/Cheney years were totally and thoroughly rebuked. One man — a man who opposed the War in Iraq from the beginning — offered to end the insanity. The world has stood by in utter horror for the past eight years as they watched the descendants of Washington, Lincoln and Jefferson light the fuse of our own self-destruction. We flipped off the nations on this planet by abandoning Kyoto and then proceeded to melt eight more years worth of the polar ice caps. We invaded two nations that didn’t attack us, failed to find the real terrorists and, in effect, ignited our own wave of terror. People all over the world wondered if we had gone mad.
And if all that wasn’t enough, the outgoing Joker presided over the worst global financial collapse since the Great Depression.
And my favorite single sentence from it:
That’s exactly what I was trying to refer to in my previous post. Imagine how difficult it would be to turn the world’s general attitude from a very negative and pessimistic one to a positive attitude full of hope and nearly-world-wide belief that a common good might just be achievable Now imagine trying to do that in the time span of an election. I’m not sure this has EVER happened so quickly before.
Don’t get me wrong, his work is far from over. It’s certainly not time to start slacking. But he’s already achieved a task you couldn’t possibly wish on anyone. Somehow I don’t think he’s the type of person to start just kicking back and enjoying the ride.