Obama Nobel: But what will the wingnuts think?

The president wins the Nobel Peace Prize and some Democrats are wondering if he should turn it down because it might upset the wingnuts. Marc Ambinder summarizes:

This tracks with one argument I'm hearing and reading from Democrats and others who are skeptical of the prize: it will turn the volume and enthusiasm level all the way to the extreme end of the dial for conservatives -- overmodulating at 110%; the resulting hyperpolarization will hurt Obama's agenda.  (Representative of this opinion: I think it will feed not just conservative dislike but the growing concern of independents and elites, that he is a man of rhetoric, a work of imagination, but as of now an unaccomplished statesman. The smartest thing he could do is turn it down. It will backfire on him.

Sometimes I feel like I'm living in a parallel dimension where everything is inverted. Winning the Nobel Peace Prize makes you look bad? It's narcissistic to accept prizes from other people? 

I am gobsmacked that some Democrats want the president to turn down the prize for his own good. What message would that send to the rest of the world? Something along the lines of 'Thanks, guys, but I'm really all about war'?  

Of course the Republicans are going to freak out. Our guy wins a Nobel Peace Prize after 9 months in office, primarily for tinkering with the worst excesses of the wars their guy started. That's humiliating. Humiliated Republicans lash out, news at eleven.

Comments

[Fleas correct the era]

Are these actual Democrats with names, or are they the well-known and popular "some" Democrats?

The members of the latter brainy and scientific group have never been identified, but are thought to include Zombie Richard Nixon, Zombie Joe McCarthy, Rush Limbaugh, and the founders of the Lieberman for Lieberman party.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

I wouldn't have believed this either, but the online water cooler is buzzing with this nonsense--at least among the liberal journalists I know. Don't worry, every single one of them is writing a column now.

[Dom]

"Winning the Nobel Peace Prize makes you look bad?"

It does when you haven't done anything. Someone was just voted off of Project Runway ... maybe he should get a Nobel too. Makes as much sense. Or how about you? You write a blog. No one else writes blogs. You should get a prize. Maybe in Chemistry.

[Alon Levy]

Our guy wins a Nobel Peace Prize after 9 months in office, primarily for tinkering with the worst excesses of the wars their guy started.

Indeed, his withdrawal from Iraq and his decisive actions to cool down I/P tempers brought peace to the Middle East.

[Eric Jaffa]

=====================================
"I will accept this award as a call to action," Obama said, outlining his goals - a world without nuclear weapons, confronting the threat of climate change and respectful of its peoples' diverse religions and practices.

"These challenges can't be met by any one leader or any one nation," he said.

He called for "unwavering commitment to the rights of all Israelis and Palestinians to live in security in nations of their own."

"This award is not simply about the efforts of my administration," he said, it's shared with everyone who fights for "justice and dignity."
===================================

[Alon Levy]

Obama said, outlining his goals - a world without nuclear weapons, confronting the threat of climate change and respectful of its peoples' diverse religions and practices...

...and a pony for every child, and two for every American child. Seriously, he doesn't start with even the basics: withdrawing from Iraq, regulating or taxing air pollution (this is not the same as emissions, but they tend to occur together, so attention to only one of the two just means both will be reduced by an insufficient amount), supporting democratization efforts in countries like Honduras or Iran with more than vaguely worded press releases, conditioning aid to Israel on real efforts to dismantle settlements (even Bush Sr. tried doing that - it's not exactly a moonbat idea).

[parse]

Maybe there's an upside to this award. I can only hope Obama would be ashamed to accept the Nobel Peace prize and then turn around and send 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

[twitter.com/Broadsnark]

Sorry, but I too think it is nuts to award the peace prize to someone who is fighting two wars, defending indefinite detention, and refusing to prosecute criminals (who he is required by law and treaty to prosecute).

It's just a bit much.

[Lindsay Beyerstein]

I agree with Broadsnark on the substance. Still, it's not up to Obama to decide whether the Nobel Peace Prize committee made the right decision. It's his job to graciously accept the honor and pledge to continue the projects that caught the committee's attention in the first place.

[Dom]

"...and pledge to continue the projects that caught the committee's attention in the first place."

But the Olympic Committee already turned him down!

[Alon Levy]

Lindsay, I think it's important whether Obama actually continues said projects, regardless of what he pledges.

[Dom]

I think I figured it out. The Nobel Committee was about to give the award to the Chinese dissidents, when Kanye jumped in front ... and ... well, you know.

[BK]

He won something he didn't campaign for or seek. Turning it down would tell the rest of the world that the prize is trivial, showing American arrogance even though the Right would likely complain about not accepting it. Sure, this is probably a premature award (assuming he accomplishes something in the future) but this is an award that society has deemed important and meaningful. Take the prize home, President Obama, and live up to it.

[Alon Levy]

Look, if Teddy Roosevelt could win a Nobel and accept it with a straight face, so can Barack Obama. This doesn't change the fact that Obama has done nothing to deserve any peace prize.

[Michael Schmidt]

Some, such as Aung San Suu Kyi have received the Nobel Prize for essentially being imprisoned dissidents--the Prize in those cases was a plea for their release, regardless of what they had or had not accomplished thus far. Of course, Obama is far from imprisoned, but one might contend that some of his critics have stooped pretty low.

[El Gato Negro!]

I guess Obama should just curl up in a little ball and murmur "I'm sorry I was elected, I'm sorry I was elected..." over and over again. Anything else is sure to piss off the wingnuts.

[LongHairedWeirdo]

I could deal with him turning it down for certain reasons... but not because he wants to make peace with the wingnuts.

"There must surely be someone more deserving than I" would be an okay reason. Of course, then the wingnuts would *really* hate him for his "false modesty". (It would have to be false, or they wouldn't have anything to whine about, right?)

[Alon Levy]

Aung San Suu Kyi was both the leader and the symbol of the Burmese democracy movement. She got a Nobel for leading a popular movement for democracy and civil liberties in Burma, which won a free election before the military cracked down on it.

Turning a prize down because there's someone more deserving is an unrealistic standard. Most people who've gotten Nobels were not the most deserving; the Peace Prize is especially bad, because it's given right when a peace agreement is signed without regard for the aftermath or for the recipients' prior actions. It's a prize that went to Teddy Roosevelt and Kissinger, and to Rabin and Arafat.

[Sean]

If he attacks Iran, I wonder if they'll give him a second prize?

[Tyro]

Obama Nobel: But what will the wingnuts think?

Didn't these journalists' mothers ever teach them not to worry about what other people think of them, especially the "bad kids" in the class?

[michael schmidt]

"Aung San Suu Kyi was both the leader and the symbol of the Burmese democracy movement. She got a Nobel for leading a popular movement for democracy and civil liberties in Burma, which won a free election before the military cracked down on it."

Obama was the leader and symbol of a movement to reverse course in American foreign and domestic policy. He got a Nobel for leading the Democratic party to their biggest victory in almost two decades, winning a free election before the Republican naysayers distracted the American people with tea parties, birth certificate controversies and intransigence in the legislative branch.

[Alon Levy]

Obama was the leader and symbol of a movement to reverse course in American foreign and domestic policy.

No, he wasn't. He was the eventual leader of a movement to elect a Democrat as President, a movement that was part opposition to Bush, part opposition to the Iraq War, and part support for various domestic policy solutions such as universal health care and a higher minimum wage.

Suu Kyi was imprisoned after she won the election; her supporters were systematically murdered by a military junta. Obama faced standard negative campaigning; his supporters occasionally get criticized in the media. It's not the same thing.

[Michael Schmidt]

You're right, it's not the same thing--but in both cases, the Prize was more of an encouragement for a particular course for the future rather than an acknowledgment of accomplished fact.