Obama's Nobel Prize? ... I'm with Will Bunch ...

By J. Thomas Duffy

Much was made of President Obama's Nobel Prize speech last week, the World Wide Web was abuzz, with mostly pro reviews (See Glenn Greenwald's post - "The strange consensus on Obama's Nobel address")

And, let's face, it was Bizzareville, having a sitting president, who is conducting two wars, escalating one of them, up there, accepting a Peace Prize, for Peace that he hasn't actually accomplished (Yeah, I know, wait a few years, for after the escalation in Flintstonevilleastan).



Of all the megabytes and pixels, bloviating on it, there was one that stood out, cut to the chase, nailed it - Will Bunch, on his Attytood Blog;

Maybe U.S. presidents shouldn't get peace prizes

Hey, I didn't say which president. You know what? I hate to say it, but sitting American presidents are never a good choice for the Nobel Peace Prize, period. Since 1901, the honor has been bestowed on three White House occupants.

[snip]

The world needs uncompromising fighters for real peace and for meaningful justice -- people like a Martin Luther King -- who can go to Oslo and remind the world of what we must eternally strive to make it. Such worthy Nobel recepients are truth-tellers, and people they are telling that truth to are the world's kings and potentates and, yes, the American president -- a job that is engineered for compromise, and disappointments. If the world is to become a better place, we need more people who risk jail, risk pain, and risk death -- people like Dr. King or Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi -- have done, for the eternal ideals of peace that are uncompromising. The Nobel Peace Prize can be a valuable tool to remind us who these people are, and that you are going to find them in the streets, not in the White House.

Now, that, certainly, is something hopeful we can believe in.




(Cross Posted at The Garlic)