Obama's Nobel Peace Prize becoming a political lead weight
(Read article summary)Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize is looking less and less like a shiny trophy for his mantel and more like a political lead anchor.
President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize is looking less and less like a shiny trophy for his mantel and more like a political lead anchor.
Far from fading from public discussion, Obama’s surprise Nobel win just keeps generating comment, derision, and gratuitous advice about what he can do with it. At the very least, it’s become a grinding distraction at a time when he’s trying to fix things like healthcare and Afghanistan.
And now it’s being reported that the five Norwegians who gave him the award argued among themselves over the Obama pick.
True, there are those who laud Obama’s award.
At Truthdig, Joe Conason writes: “He kicked out the neoconservative faction, led by former Vice President Dick Cheney, that prefers armed confrontation to diplomacy -- and the world applauded in relief, along with the majority of Americans.”
Actually, Cheney is back to hector Obama. That would be Liz Cheney, the former vice president’s daughter. She’s just formed a group called “Keep America Safe.” Their target is Obama’s “radical” foreign policies, reports Politico.
But even more friendly commentators worry that Obama’s Nobel “threatens to become a central metaphor of Barack Obama's turbocharged political career,” as Time’s Joe Klein put it.
“He seems fated to be feted for who he is not (George W. Bush) and who he might turn out to be, but not for things he has actually done. This is dangerous stuff, politically. It almost guarantees disappointment,” Klein writes.
