As if almost on cue, the Nobel committee this week served up another softball for this blog. Just last week, Saturday Night Live skewered Obama with a parody on his lack of achievements [see Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT5Kl38fSVY or search SNL Obama Do Nothing skit]. A liberal politician should take heed when SNL, Jon Stewart and Conan O’Brien are taking potshots at you.
The Nobel Prize just rounds out a legacy of nonaccomplishment for Obama. Other than winning elections, his resume has been completely void of actual, tangible results. As a community organizer, no one has come forth with anything one can call an actual achievement. As both a State Senator and US Senator, he sponsored not a single piece of legislation. As a professor, no original published works carry his name. No one in recent history has attained as high of a station and gotten more accolades on such a flimsy record of concrete results. In the business world that I inhabit, any job candidate must credibly reel off a series of actual, quantifiable achievements if he or she wishes to be a serious candidate for the job. For the Nobel committee, however, aspirations and great speeches are apparently enough.
So, what exactly did Obama do to deserve this distinguished award? Let us look at the statements of the Nobel Prize committee itself for the answer. In its press release, the committee singled out Obama for, “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.” Again, maybe I’m missing something, but so far, the actual accomplishments of the Obama administration have been to (i) send the mullahs in Iran a holiday video greeting, (ii) paid our UN dues and joined the Human Rights Council (along with other zealous defenders of human rights such as Russia, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and China), (iii) kicked off his presidency with a European apology tour, telling them that “America has been arrogant and has even ridiculed” its European allies, and (iv) permitted the investigation of whether the CIA caused undue discomfort to Khalid Sheik Muhammed and his cronies in attempting to gain intelligence from them. One would think that to win a Nobel Prize, you would have to come up with at least one signature achievement of some import. However, we are no closer to a Middle East peace accord, no closer to a stringent verifiable nonproliferation regimen, no closer to defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan, or advancing women’s rights (as an aside, I find it interesting that NOW found time to scold David Letterman for his “promotion of a hostile work environment” but they still have yet to utter a word about how women are treated in the Middle East). In fact, under the Obama administration, America has not entered into a new material accord with anyone, nor has America brokered a peace deal between any two parties in discord.
The committee singles out our president for his “vision of a world free from nuclear arms [and he] has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations”. This is almost a parody in itself. Obama made his high minded vision statement about a world free of nuclear weapons concurrent with the disclosure of the Iranian facility at Qom was made public. No actual steps were taken by Western leaders (other than to talk to the Iranians and give them time to hide things before the IAEA came to visit). Perhaps Barack will someday persuade the mullahs to give up their nukes, but so far, the centrifuges are still spinning. If actual tangible achievement counted, surely Ronald Reagan would have gotten a Nobel. Under Reagan, more verifiable arms control agreements involving the dismantling of more kilotonnage and throw weights than any other world leader. But this award is not about achievement. It’s about politics. It’s about the Norwegian committee blessing Obama’s vision for America as the semi-European nanny state, where all states, no matter how odious have equal standing, where democracy is only one of many equally plausible ways of organizing a state and governing peoples, where the state, not individuals are responsible for the well-being of its citizens, and where aggressive, hostile, and tyrannical regimes are faced with letters of disapproval, carefully crafted by large committees. It is a world in which two of the world’s leading democracies—the US and Israel are roundly condemned, while the world’s worst dictators are free to acquire weapons to threaten and destabilize the world. We have gone from Ronald Reagan’s vision of the “shining city on the hill” to the vision of Obama, “we’re sorry we’ve been so arrogant in our promotion of liberty, democracy and free enterprise.” This is why the European on the Nobel committee is so willing to overlook that nagging little detail about not having any achievements. They love his, well, European vision for America.
The Nobel Prize just rounds out a legacy of nonaccomplishment for Obama. Other than winning elections, his resume has been completely void of actual, tangible results. As a community organizer, no one has come forth with anything one can call an actual achievement. As both a State Senator and US Senator, he sponsored not a single piece of legislation. As a professor, no original published works carry his name. No one in recent history has attained as high of a station and gotten more accolades on such a flimsy record of concrete results. In the business world that I inhabit, any job candidate must credibly reel off a series of actual, quantifiable achievements if he or she wishes to be a serious candidate for the job. For the Nobel committee, however, aspirations and great speeches are apparently enough.
So, what exactly did Obama do to deserve this distinguished award? Let us look at the statements of the Nobel Prize committee itself for the answer. In its press release, the committee singled out Obama for, “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.” Again, maybe I’m missing something, but so far, the actual accomplishments of the Obama administration have been to (i) send the mullahs in Iran a holiday video greeting, (ii) paid our UN dues and joined the Human Rights Council (along with other zealous defenders of human rights such as Russia, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and China), (iii) kicked off his presidency with a European apology tour, telling them that “America has been arrogant and has even ridiculed” its European allies, and (iv) permitted the investigation of whether the CIA caused undue discomfort to Khalid Sheik Muhammed and his cronies in attempting to gain intelligence from them. One would think that to win a Nobel Prize, you would have to come up with at least one signature achievement of some import. However, we are no closer to a Middle East peace accord, no closer to a stringent verifiable nonproliferation regimen, no closer to defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan, or advancing women’s rights (as an aside, I find it interesting that NOW found time to scold David Letterman for his “promotion of a hostile work environment” but they still have yet to utter a word about how women are treated in the Middle East). In fact, under the Obama administration, America has not entered into a new material accord with anyone, nor has America brokered a peace deal between any two parties in discord.
The committee singles out our president for his “vision of a world free from nuclear arms [and he] has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations”. This is almost a parody in itself. Obama made his high minded vision statement about a world free of nuclear weapons concurrent with the disclosure of the Iranian facility at Qom was made public. No actual steps were taken by Western leaders (other than to talk to the Iranians and give them time to hide things before the IAEA came to visit). Perhaps Barack will someday persuade the mullahs to give up their nukes, but so far, the centrifuges are still spinning. If actual tangible achievement counted, surely Ronald Reagan would have gotten a Nobel. Under Reagan, more verifiable arms control agreements involving the dismantling of more kilotonnage and throw weights than any other world leader. But this award is not about achievement. It’s about politics. It’s about the Norwegian committee blessing Obama’s vision for America as the semi-European nanny state, where all states, no matter how odious have equal standing, where democracy is only one of many equally plausible ways of organizing a state and governing peoples, where the state, not individuals are responsible for the well-being of its citizens, and where aggressive, hostile, and tyrannical regimes are faced with letters of disapproval, carefully crafted by large committees. It is a world in which two of the world’s leading democracies—the US and Israel are roundly condemned, while the world’s worst dictators are free to acquire weapons to threaten and destabilize the world. We have gone from Ronald Reagan’s vision of the “shining city on the hill” to the vision of Obama, “we’re sorry we’ve been so arrogant in our promotion of liberty, democracy and free enterprise.” This is why the European on the Nobel committee is so willing to overlook that nagging little detail about not having any achievements. They love his, well, European vision for America.
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