Is Hoping Obama Fails Hoping America Fails? Reaction to the Nobel Peace Prize
By now you know that our 44th President was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. To say it as nicely as possible, I was surprised. To be more candid: WTF?
I mean this truly: when I heard it on the news around 7:00 a.m. Friday morning at the gym, I thought someone was covering an Onion parody. In retrospect, I actually laughed at the thought. Then, I realized it was serious.
A great deal of pundits — on the Left and Right — agreed with my assessment. The Rag (My affectionate moniker for the New York Times) ran — on their website– an op-ed actually calling the award absurd. Even leftists on a PBS show said outright that the president didn’t deserve the award. The reaction ranged from absolute disbelief and incredulity on the right to simple embarrassed surprise on the Left.
Granted, this is a tough one for a leftist. How do you go about defending your president getting this award when the nominating period closed just ELEVEN days after he was inaugurated? Not even the best spinmeisters on the planet (by that I mean me of course) could make a case for a Nobel freaking Peace Prize on 11 days of work.
In any event, to report every side, I should also mention that some absolutely committed Obama-worshipers actually wrote in defense of him winning. One said he won on his words alone — and that his words were enough. Several liberals I know on Facebook and Twitter argued to me that he deserved the award “for inspiring hope” — whatever that is — “in people around the world.” Allow me to very quickly give you my response to that nonsensical prattle.
I guess it’s different in Europe — a place where manhood and a free spirit died long ago. But in America, we don’t award potential. You don’t get prizes or trophies — or at least you shouldn’t — for meaning to, or hoping to, accomplish something. You get the gold when you get the win. You get the reward when the work is done. And I will say it unequivocally: this president HAS NOT DONE THE WORK. Period.
Making the case that this president deserves this award right now would prove impossible for an intellectually honest person. Seriously, the president deserved this award just as much as he deserves this year’s Heisman, Cy Young, MVP of the yet-to-be-played World Series, Best in Show at Westminster, Most Improved on your kid’s little league team, and salesperson of the year for Avon. And that amount: zero.
SIDE THOUGHT
Our dear leader’s next book title should be: How To Win a Nobel Prize in Twelve Days or Less: Being Awarded for Platitudes and Potentialby Barack H. Obama
That being said, while I was surprised, I shouldn’t have been. The Nobel Peace Prize has made a mockery of itself before. Consider that Yassir Arafat won the thing in 1994. Al Gore won it in 2007 for kicking up dust and… wait for this revolutionary achievement… forming a committee to “educate us” on “climate change.” And the largest spot of tarnish on the award: Jimmy Carter won it in 2002.
All of that brings me to something very specific in the reaction to the president being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. For all of the surprise the Left admitted at the award, the libs certainly weren’t happy with folks like me making fun of Obama for having accomplished nothing but still being given an award.
The Democrat National Committee even said directly that Republicans who criticized the president getting the prize were “throw[ing] in [their] lot with the terrorists.” Barbara Boxer, on never-watched MSNBC, compared Michael Steele to the Taliban.
And then, finally, The Screamer (My affectionate name for Ed Schultz on MSNBC), came back to the old liberal line (I also had this line echoed to me by a lib on Facebook):
Conservatives are hoping Obama fails, and they hate it when he succeeds. And let me tell you, if Obama fails, America fails
Exit question: Is that true?
That’s going to be the topic of my next column. We’ll establish that paradigm. What does it mean to “hope Obama fails”? And what would that mean for America?
Until next time, here’s to achievement and liberty.
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Cory Truax @ October 11, 2009
[…] Obama, Cory Truax, Founding Fathers Last week I gave you my reaction to our dear leader being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Within that column, I illustrated to you […]