Nobody asked me, but...

By Carl 

(Note to The Reaction readers: this is a weekly feature at my own blog, Simply Left Behind, where I whip through stories you might have missed this week. I thought I'd share today, given last night's events.) 

1) Just in case you missed it, IMMORTALITY!

2) I loved Joe Biden's deconstruction of Paul Ryan last night, particularly when he all but called Grover Norquist a traitor to America:

And instead of signing pledges to Grover Norquist not to ask the wealthiest among us to contribute to bring back the middle class, they should be signing a pledge saying to the middle class we're going to level the playing field; we're going to give you a fair shot again; we are going to not repeat the mistakes we made in the past by having a different set of rules for Wall Street and Main Street, making sure that we continue to hemorrhage these tax cuts for the super wealthy.

Subtext? A pledge to Norquist trumps the Pledge of Allegiance. Beatifully done.

3) About all Paul Ryan had to do was to rip his shirt off and start flexing, if he wanted to come off anymore immature and shallow.

4) Your word of the day: Malarkey. When a politician wants to say "bullshit" but the cameras are rolling.

5) If I had been Biden, I would have argued even more forcefully, particularly on tax cuts. For instance, during the Bush years, taxes on the wealthy were at the lowest they've been since Hoover, yet Bush only managed to create 2.3 million new jobs, a figure Obama eclipsed inside of 18 months by passing middle class tax relief (the Social Security suspension), and when "Jack" Kennedy -- something else I would have called Ryan on -- lowered tax rates, the highest marginal rate was 70%, not 38%.

But you'll also note that America's greatest achievements came before Kennedy did that: the interstate highway system, Social Security, rural electrification, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the GI Bill, the Marshall Plan, leaps ahead in public education that benefitted Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. All of these came about when marginal rates topped out at 90%.

Let me say that again. They occured with taxes reaching as high as 90%. And even under Kennedy, the space program was developed and the moon landed on when taxes were 50%.

America will never lead the world the way it did post-World War II until we recreate those conditions.

6) Just how desperate are our times? The European Union, as a whole, won the Nobel Peace Prize today. 

7) Mitt Romney's timing is impeccably awful, yet again. Even before he shifts focus to China artificially manipulating the yuan to hurt America, the yuan skyrockets on currency markets, improving our economic outlook and bringing more jobs back to America.

8) Note to my L.A. readers: that is not E.T. on Crenshaw.

9) More evidence that water existed on Mars came yesterday. 

10) Finally, apparently you can buy too much toilet paper in New Jersey. Better alert Gov. Christie. I think his quota may be past.

(Cross-posted to Simply Left Behind.)

Bono on Obama: The world needs America again

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I highly recommend that you not read Bono's op-ed in Saturday's Times on Obama and "Rebranding America."

Actually, no, it's not that bad. It's hard to stomach Bono, I know, but his activism is admirable, particularly with respect to poverty, and he shows a welcome modesty here (false or not, I leave it to you to judge).

So go check it out, if you haven't already. Here are some of the better passages:

So here's why I think the virtual Obama is the real Obama, and why I think the man might deserve the hype. It starts with a quotation from a speech he gave at the United Nations last month:

"We will support the Millennium Development Goals, and approach next year's summit with a global plan to make them a reality. And we will set our sights on the eradication of extreme poverty in our time."

*****

Many have spoken about the need for a rebranding of America. Rebrand, restart, reboot. In my view these 36 words, alongside the administration's approach to fighting nuclear proliferation and climate change, improving relations in the Middle East and, by the way, creating jobs and providing health care at home, are rebranding in action.


These new steps -- and those 36 words -- remind the world that America is not just a country but an idea, a great idea about opportunity for all and responsibility to your fellow man.

*****

In dangerous, clangorous times, the idea of America rings like a bell (see King, M. L., Jr., and Dylan, Bob). It hits a high note and sustains it without wearing on your nerves. (If only we all could.) This was the melody line of the Marshall Plan and it's resonating again. Why? Because the world sees that America might just hold the keys to solving the three greatest threats we face on this planet: extreme poverty, extreme ideology and extreme climate change. The world senses that America, with renewed global support, might be better placed to defeat this axis of extremism with a new model of foreign policy.

*****

The world wants to believe in America again because the world needs to believe in America again. We need your ideas -- your idea -- at a time when the rest of the world is running out of them.

In my more pro-American moments, I think that, too. While I object to American hegemonism, neocon-style, I do believe in America, in the Idea of America, in the American Ideal, in America's ideas and ideals -- and in the possibility of America, the hope of America -- much as Obama himself does.

Sure, I think much of it is hollow rhetoric, however high-falutin', and there is a dark side to America -- a very dark side -- that Bono doesn't mention here -- but with Obama in the White House it is definitely possible to be hopeful again. (I would also add that Bono doesn't mention the areas where Obama has fallen short so far, and where he has been too much like his predecessor: national security and government secrecy, the Afghan War, gay rights, etc. Indeed, Bono credits Obama with putting an excellent foreign policy team together, but, of course, that team is hardly uniformly progressive. Robert Gates and Jim Jones are both establishmentarian types bent on maintaining the status quo, as are Biden and Hillary, more or less. As well, his economic team includes many of the figures, Wall Street and other financial insiders, who contributed to the collapse, notably Larry Summers and Tim Geithner.)

Anyway, I do think Bono is right about why Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize -- and it's why I don't really object to his winning it, or certainly not as vehemently as many others do:

The Nobel Peace Prize is the rest of the world saying, "Don't blow it."

I would go a bit further: The Nobel Peace Prize is the rest of the world, as interpreted by a select few in Oslo, saying, "We believe in America. We have hope in Obama. It is time for America to lead again."

Here's hoping the hope is not misplaced.

Iago-trip

By Mustang Bobby.

Ross Douthat lays into President Obama for having the temerity and overpowering ego to accept the Nobel Prize.

Here was an opportunity to cut himself free, in a stroke, from the baggage that’s weighed his presidency down — the implausible expectations, the utopian dreams, the messianic hoo-ha.

Here was a place to draw a clean line between himself and all the overzealous Obamaphiles, at home and abroad, who poured their post-Christian, post-Marxist yearnings into the vessel of his 2008 campaign.

Here was a chance to establish himself, definitively, as an American president — too self-confident to accept an unearned accolade, and too instinctively democratic to go along with European humbug.

He didn’t take it. Instead, he took the Nobel Peace Prize.

Big mistake.

Wow. That's a lot of anger packed into a few short paragraphs. So the president should have turned down the prize because of other peoples' expectations? Because he's not worthy of "European humbug"? What would he have him do, open a vein in the Rose Garden?

Mr. Douthat's impotent rage rises off the page like the stink of a freshly-laid turd. In a following paragraph he dismisses the Nobel committee as "five obscure Norwegians," then goes on and makes the case for the people he thinks were far more worthy of winning this prestigious prize. So in the space of two paragraphs he's telling the president to turn down this elitist nothing-burger because he's not on a par with the likes of "Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe’s heroic opposition leader; or Thich Quang Do, the Buddhist monk and critic of Vietnam’s authoritarian regime; or Rebiya Kadeer, exiled from China for her labors on behalf of the oppressed Uighur minority; or anyone who has courted death this year protesting for democracy in the Islamic Republic of Iran." If the prize is worthless, why is Mr. Douthat making the case for the losers?

Then, in the next twisty-turn of logic, he thunders on that there is no way President Obama can live up to the giddy expectations that come with receiving the prize and that no one -- certainly not the Afghans or the Iranians or the Russians -- will think any more of the president or his policies because of it. And now he has the "terrible burden" of succeeding because he's the Nobel laureate who probably won't get the Israelis and Palestinians to work things out or the Iranians to stop playing with their DIY nuclear warheads. And it makes Mr. Douthat root for his failure:

But by accepting the prize, he’s made failure, if and when it comes, that much more embarrassing and difficult to bear. What’s more, he’s etched in stone the phrase with which critics will dismiss his presidency.

Slick Willie. Tricky Dick. Jimmy “Malaise” Carter. Dubya the Incompetent.

And now Barack Obama, Nobel laureate.

He's not as crude or bombastic as Rush Limbaugh who still crows, "I hope he fails," but he might as well be. Success for the Obama administration in anything would, in his mind, be a terrible thing.

It's not hard to see what's really going on here, and you don't need to be a Shakespearean dramaturg to figure it out: jealousy rears its shiny head. No conservative thinks the Nobel Peace Prize is worth anything because it always goes to do-gooders and bleeding hearts, but when it gets awarded, they're secretly -- and sometimes not so secretly -- pissed off because their guy didn't get it. (You see this in other awards, too -- there are still those who don't believe Marisa Tomei earned her Oscar; it had to be a mistake.) And I suspect there's a little bit of internalizing going on here, too; it probably had to rankle that Mr. Douthat hasn't yet won a Pulitzer for his commentary, going instead to that flaming liberal Eugene Robinson at the Washington Post. Mr. Robinson suggests that instead of going off on an Iago-trip of inexplicable rage, the right wing should show a little maturity and send a simple note of congratulations. After all, if the prize doesn't mean all that much, what's the big deal, and why is Ross Douthat making so much of it? Dr. Freud, call your service.

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Now what?

By Mustang Bobby.

In all the attention that the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama is getting, it's easy to lose perspective. Right now a lot of the noise is coming from pundits who are still outraged that he won, even including some on the left such as Howard Zinn who think that by carrying on with Bush's wars, it's a cruel irony to award him a Peace Prize. The right, of course, is still wrapped up in their resentment that people they think should have won it -- George W. Bush in particular -- were snubbed. But the Nobel Committee has passed over some people you might think worthy -- Mahatma Gandhi, for instance -- and given it to people who's dedication to peace was problematic -- Yasir Arafat comes to mind.

So it might be a good idea to step back and consider the Nobel Peace Prize not for what it means in terms of accomplishments or even in political terms. As the president said, it is often awarded to those who aspire to achieve peace and effect change in the world through peaceful means, but who, at the time, haven't gotten there yet. Many people and organizations have won the prize while they were still far from achieving their goals: the Northern Ireland peace movement, Amnesty International, and the IAEA, to name just a few. Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who battled against apartheid, got the prize ten years before the end of segregation in South Africa. Lech Walesa won it long before the fall of the Communist government in Poland. Aung San Suu Kyi won it in 1991 for her fight for democracy in Burma and she's still under house arrest. As Doug Saunders of the Globe and Mail points out, it has gone to politicians who have barely gotten their careers off the ground.

A young politician, not yet fully tested, makes important and history-altering moves on the international stage – moves whose long-term outcomes remain uncertain – and is surprised to find himself with a Nobel Peace Prize.

That describes Lester B. Pearson in 1957. It describes Barack Obama in 2009.

Mr. Pearson's role in creating a United Nations peacekeeping force to resolve the first Middle East conflict won him the award six years before he was prime minister. It didn't change attitudes among Arabs or Israelis, but the Norwegian judges felt it was a symbolically important action that had a good chance of creating lasting peace in the Middle East.

Mr. Obama's leadership in uniting all the world's powers around total nuclear disarmament, his ending the impasse between Russia and the West and his goal-driven engagement with Iran and the wider Muslim world have not yet borne fruit, but the Norwegian judges believe the nature of the world has been significantly altered for the better.

The Nobel Peace Prize is not a lifetime-achievement award. It tends to honour actions that change the way the world functions, the way countries engage or publics think about a conflict. They should be important, historic actions, but the prize does not wait for results.

Another point that became clear in the discussion of the Nobel Prize was how amazingly self-centered the American reaction was. It was as if the Nobel committee was based here and should have only considered those candidates who were natural-born citizens of the United States (there's another morsel for the birthers to throw into their cauldron). But it's not; it's a prize held and awarded by Europeans, and their perspective on the world is, not surprisingly, different than from those of us here in the West.

The Nobel Peace Prize is a European prize. The world outside North America sees Afghanistan, Israel and the embers of the Iraq conflict amid a far wider array of threats and worries. There are larger issues at stake. Some of them involve the fate of the world.

Mr. Obama's decision to cancel the U.S. missile-defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic, and thus to end a simmering conflict with Russia and make nuclear disarmament possible, was an enormous development to Europeans.

His leadership of a UN Security Council summit that called for total nuclear disarmament – unanimously, for the first time – and launched a strengthened nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, just before sitting down with Iran, was probably the headline of the year outside North America.

His Cairo speech opening dialogue with the Middle East and putting international relations back on political and economic terms – ending the “clash of civilizations” and “axis of evil” confrontation of previous years – was received as a historic epiphany in much of the world.

His talks with Iran, with Russia's and Europe's help, and his recognition that Iran is a long-term problem rather than an immediate threat, have signalled a new recognition that change can be made to happen, as it was in 1989, by playing a long game built on shared values. That, for the rest of the world, was a big deal.

It could be dismissed as mere talk. But it is precisely the sort of initiative that has defined the Nobel Peace Prize, and that has led it to honour, with a few embarrassing exceptions, the great developments of our age.

It is also worthwhile to consider Mr. Obama's award from the perspective of someone who has themselves won it. We've heard from Jimmy Carter and Al Gore, but perhaps hearing what Elie Wiesel, who won it in 1986, might have to say as well. He was interviewed by Steve Inskeep on NPR:

Mr. WIESEL: After all, he's the president of the United States. But at the same time, seriously, he made history by allowing the American people to correct its own old racial injustices. After all, he's the first black person to have been elected to that high office, and in doing so he did bring hope and dignity to the fact, to the very position. And therefore I think he gave something to the Nobel Prize.

INSKEEP: He added to the Nobel Prize rather than the other way around.

Mr. WIESEL: It goes both ways. But in this case, really, for the president of the United States, a sitting president, who is nine months in office, it's true that he tries and tries - I'm sure he tries in many areas to do the right thing, and he will succeed, but in this case the prize will add or increase his moral authority.

INSKEEP: Moral authority. Well, let's talk about that. Because this is a president who has begun many efforts around the world and the Nobel committee cited them, from reducing the threat of nuclear weapons to reducing nuclear arms stockpiles, efforts to bring peace in different parts of the world. But it's been widely noted this morning that although many efforts have begun, none have really been concluded. Do you think it will make a big difference in those efforts that the peace prize goes to the president?

Mr. WIESEL: First of all, I think he is being recognized for his efforts and his beginnings, as you say. But I am a person who loves beginnings, I love beginnings. The mystery of beginnings is part of Jewish mysticism. And in this case, in politics, of course, because it's also - it's also politics - it is a good thing, it's a promise. The Nobel committee says that he represents a promise and I'm sure that he will try to fulfill it.

Several conservative commentators grumbled that Ronald Reagan, who they say ended the Cold War, was never awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. But Mikhail Gorbachev, who was Mr. Reagan's counterpart, did get it in 1990. It would seem that Mr. Gorbachev, at least in the eyes of the committee, not only did as much to end the Cold War as Mr. Reagan did, he had a lot more at stake. He was there to engineer the controlled demolition of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, and he faced the threat of a military coup in 1991 for his troubles. Ronald Reagan made a lot of speeches and rattled a lot of sabres, but in the end it was Mr. Gorbachev who did the heavy lifting. In other words, the right wing wanted Mr. Reagan to win for the same reasons they say Mr. Obama did.

It seems to be a uniquely American mindset that when someone wins an award, be it a Nobel or an Oscar or a Pulitzer, that it is the destination and now they can relax. In fact, just the opposite is true. As anyone who has achieved a recognition like that will tell you, the hardest part -- and the truest test of character -- is going on and proving that you were worthy of it in the first place. And therein might be the lesson -- and the warning -- for President Obama. He may have won the prize because of his potential, but he still has to achieve the goal. Instead of asking, as the critics of the president have been doing, "What has he done to deserve it?", the question really should be, "What will he do now?"

(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Obama's Nobel win -- "a call to action"

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Whatever you think of Obama's Nobel Peace Prize win -- I tweeted on it quite a bit yesterday, and, with reflection, I think that, while many others were just as if not more deserving (like Chinese pro-democracy dissidents, for example), if seen as an "aspirational" award, that is, if the Nobel Committee was sending a message (which it certainly was) that Obama represents the sort of change the world needs, that what he is and what he stands for is at this point more significant that what he has accomplished (which is, admittedly, very little so far), there's nothing wrong with his win other than that it raises expectation levels even higher than they already were and sets him up for failure -- he handled himself brilliantly in accepting the award:



For more, make sure to read James Fallows's astute reading of Obama's acceptance speech at The Atlantic. In making it not about himself, he struck just the right note. The award is "an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations." It is "a call to action" and "a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century." Obama interpreted his win just the right way, and it is clear that he will do his utmost to follow through with his commitment to address those challenges in constructive ways.

Does this mean that he is without fault? No, of course not. He may very well soon escalate the war in Afghanistan with a significant troop increase, for example, and his vaguely Bush-like record on national security at home, including with respect to government secrecy, is hardly reassuring. Still, the award should be taken both as approval and as encouragement: approval of what he stands for, encouragement to move forward. Let's hope he does just that. If his win really is "a call to action," he has no excuse not to act.

**********

Let me add that what I especially like about Obama's win is how it seems to be driving conservatives even more insane than they already were. They had no idea how to respond to it, were all over the place with their partisan knee-jerk reactions, and ended up spewing a discombobulated mix of confusion and rage. (It ought to be noted that Obama did not give himself the award. So whether he deserved it or not, it's not his fault. The conservative rage/outrage directed at Obama is thus thoroughly, if unsurprisingly, misplaced. Obama won the award. He has done the most with it so far. That's it.)

Round Up of Reactions to Nobel Peace Prize for President Obama

By Carol Gee

My sentiments exactly -- The first thought of many of us was that this will drive the Republicans crazy. Matt Yglesias tweeted: "They should institute a Nobel Prize for driving conservatives crazy." As a matter of fact it is making the Right Wing even crazier than they were before. With a HT to Matt Cooper for this link, showing typical arrogance, The Weekly Standard invites you to "meet the people who were passed over for Obama." Politico quoted several very critical conservatives including RNC Chairman Michael Steele and strategist Craig Shirley. The publication also quotes Rush Limbaugh's reaction: "'greater embarrassment' than losing Olympics." To quote further,

"This fully exposes the illusion that is Barack Obama," Limbaugh told POLITICO in an e-mail. "And with this 'award' the elites of the world are urging Obama, THE MAN OF PEACE, to not do the surge in Afghanistan, not take action against Iran and its nuclear program and to basically continue his intentions to emasculate the United States."

Limbaugh continued: "They love a weakened, neutered U.S, and this is their way of promoting that concept. I think God has a great sense of humor, too."

Later more sane reactions -- The Huffington Post linked to President Obama's Nobel speech, and provides more analysis of the selection of Obama, headlining that "Twitter explodes in response to the Obama Nobel win." New York Times "The Lede" gathered world reaction "to a Nobel surprise." McClatchy gives out "more updates." Matt Cooper spoke of President Obama's "elegant remarks" from the White House rose garden.

Earlier items -- The White House was surprised by the announcement, according to NPR. Taegan Goddard at the Political Wire reported on Twitter that "Obama will make a statement on the Nobel prize in the Rose Garden at 10:30." (It was just been delayed until after 11:00). Goddard also provided a round up of reactions to the Oslo announcement. Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic rounds up some fascinating opinions on why Obama should turn down the prize.

In conclusion -- Those who would disparage the Committee's award as merely honoring the President's "aspirational" sentiments dismiss it too lightly. One cannot be a peacemaker without engendering hope for peace in those who are in conflict. Those who dismiss the award as "not George W. Bush -- thank God he's in Dallas," diminish the strength of Obama's influence over people who do not live in the United States. Those who dismiss the award because we are still fighting in Afghanistan should take note of how much trouble the President is taking to figure out how to narrow the conflict and find ways to build bridges to the people of Afghanistan, including reconcilable members of the Taliban. Those who feel the President does not deserve the Peace Prize because of his civil liberties shortcomings should take note of his long commitment to denuclearizing the world. Those who dismiss the award because the President has yet to fulfill his campaign promises should take note of the unusually long list of serious problems he inherited from the previous administration. Sometimes it is enough to be hopeful, respectful of others, inspirational and willing to tackle anything. That is the elemental stuff of which real peace can be made.

Reference to the Nobel Committee announcement that President Barack Obama is their selection for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

(Cross-posted at South by Southwest.)

Nobelity

Quick hit: Three Four elected US Presidents have now won the Nobel Peace Prize. (ed. note: I forgot about Woodrow Wilson)

All Democrats.

Economic expansion historically occurs only under Democratic presidents.

Democrats = Peace + Prosperity

There's your bumper sticker, Gov. Kaine.

Congratulations, Mr President!

Way to go, Paul!

By Carl

A Nobel Prize in Economics?

STOCKHOLM, Sweden — The American economist Paul R. Krugman won the Nobel economics prize on Monday for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity.

Mr. Krugman, 55, a professor at Princeton University in New Jersey and a columnist for The New York Times, formulated a new theory to answer questions about free trade, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

“What are the effects of free trade and globalization? What are the driving forces behind worldwide urbanization? Paul Krugman has formulated a new theory to answer these questions,” the academy said in its citation.

“He has thereby integrated the previously disparate research fields of international trade and economic geography,” it said.

Gee... I can't imagine how the right wing is flopping about, gasping for air on that announcement. Go congratulate him.

It's elementary Watson

By Capt. Fogg

"What I really meant to say was. . ." is a phrase we hear too often when there's campaigning going on, but of course politicians aren't the only ones putting their feet in their mouths. Nobel Prize-winning biologist Jim Watson, co-discoverer of the double helix DNA structure, has managed to get himself quoted on various occasions as saying that women should be allowed to abort gay fetuses if a genetic marker can be discovered, and that there may be a correlation between skin color and sexual prowess.

His recent comments seem clearly to state that the intelligence of Africans is "not the same" as that of non-Africans and that while he hoped everyone was equal, "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true."

After the predictable furor and the cancellation of a lecture, the venerable Dr. Watson seems to have become aware of the multiple gaffe and has now told the Royal Society that "I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said." It's easy, Jim -- just open your mouth and the rest will come naturally to you.

"To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologize unreservedly. That is not what I meant. More importantly from my point of view, there is no scientific basis for such a belief."

Well I think that drawing an inference isn't the same as hearing an unequivocal statement, but OK, that's not what you meant and I'm sure that the explanation is elementary. Just don't tell us it had anything to do with a wide stance or a piece of toilet paper on the floor. That one's been used already.

Meanwhile, I'm going outside to work on my tan.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

Ménage à Wingnut

By Michael J.W. Stickings

This is from my C&L blog round-up for today. I'll get a jump on it and post the main items here.

**********

Memeorandum is one of the indispensable sites for bloggers. At least it's indispensable to me.

The top item (with four main links) right now -- and I'm writing this at 10:58 pm ET, Monday evening, two minutes to Jon Stewart [updated here, after midnight] -- concerns Michelle Malkin's press-stopping announcement that she will no longer be frequenting Bill O'Reilly's folk-ridden funhouse of fearmongering fascism. Apparently there's nothing more important going on in the world, but, hey, at least this headline from New York magazine is amusing: "Michelle Malkin Quits O'Reilly After Nasty Three-Way."

That's Malkin, O'Reilly, and Geraldo -- and I'm sure to have nightmares the rest of the week.

John Amato posted on this yesterday, but, if you just can't get enough of all this inside-the-right mayhem, see Sadly, No! and Comments from Left Field.

**********

Elsewhere on the right, Rush is miffed about the whole Gore-Nobel thing. Seems he was nominated, or nominated himself, and thinks he should have won. Yeah, sure. See Pensito Review and Liberal Values for more.

It's getting uglier and uglier over in wingnut territory, is it not?

For more on Gore, our own Capt. Fogg discusses Gore Derangement Syndrome (via NYT's Krugman) over at Human Voices.

(Yes, I know I have a crush on Gore. I am aware.)

Top Ten Cloves: Reasons for Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore not to run for President

News Item: Gore Wins the Nobel. But Will He Run?

By J. Thomas Duffy

10. Holding off making any kind of announcement, anxiously waiting to see if his real dream job comes through -- Managing the New York Yankees.

9. James Baker just scares the bejeezes out of him.

8. Thinks the phrase "First Lady Tipper" sounds like something off a Sexual Predator List.

7. Can drag out the suspense of the firm denial for a few months and relish seeing the Clintons twisting with the thought of his running.

6. Holding out -- If he can solve this Global Warming thing, some country will surely offer him a kingship.

5. Would be too tempted to do those prime time, national television speeches with his Oscar and his Nobel Peace Prize sitting on the desk in front of him.

4. Doesn't want to be petty -- Likely, in his first official act as President, if elected, would be to issue a Signing Statement on how much now-former-President George Bush sucks.

3. Knows he'll catch shit from the Green crowd when he flies into those Global Warming concerts in Air Force One.

2. Oh God, the diets...

1. Doesn't want to be the one to evict Vice President Dick Cheney, who, being addicted to the power as he is, will refuse to leave his office on January 20th, 2009.

Congratulations! ... Way To Go There, Big Al!

Bonus Gore Wins! Links

Josh Marshall: On Gore

Steve Benen: Gore has quite a decade

Scarecrow: Al Gore Wins the Nobel Peace Prize

Carl Pope: Why Al Gore deserves the Nobel Peace Prize; Gore's epic effort to focus attention on the perils of climate change supports the goal of preventing wars.





















(Cross-posted at The Garlic.)

Of spoils and spoilsports

By J. Kingston Pierce

“It’s like the best revenge fantasy ever, come true: Everyone who was ever mean to you, who wrote you off or sabotaged you? That nasty high school guidance counselor? The catty New York Times columnist? The partisan Supreme Court justice? Well, they can kiss your Oscar, your Emmy or your Nobel Peace Prize, because you won all three! In the same year!”

Those words belong to Salon editor Joan Walsh, but the sentiment regarding Al Gore’s win this morning of the Nobel Peace Prize is shared well beyond Salon’s San Francisco offices. “Once lampooned and beleaguered, Vice President Al Gore is avenged,” Mike Allen pronounces at The Politico. “Denied the presidency in the chaos of the Florida recount of 2000, he now has received what is arguably the most prestigious award in the world. His obsession with the environment and global warming, which led former President George H.W. Bush to mock him as ‘ozone man,’ has now been certified on a global stage as a worthy and consequential crusade.” Pseudonymous blogger Tristero piles on with his own back-pats: “Thinking about Al Gore’s career and his character--abundantly on display, for example, in the fall of 2000 and then again in 2002, and then once more in his prominent role in environmental causes -- I remember that there really are times when a prominent public figure truly can serve as a great example for kids on how to live a meaningful life. And for grown-ups, too.” Meanwhile, The New Republic’s Noam Scheiber wonders idly how the Texas frat boy who took Gore’s place in the Oval Office is reacting to the former veep’s latest triumph:

Watching Al Gore take a well-deserved victory lap this afternoon, I couldn’t help wondering what George W. Bush must be thinking. I mean, I know the guy still believes history will vindicate him and all, but, really, this has got to be pretty painful. Bush, according to various accounts of the 2000 campaign, absolutely despised Gore. He regarded him as a preening, self-righteous phony.

So Bush somehow manages to avenge his father’s defeat and vanquish the vice president of the United States. And yet, seven years later, it’s Gore who’s being hailed around the world as a prophet and a savior and Bush who, if he’s still being discussed at all, is mentioned only as the punchline to some joke, or when his poll numbers reach some new historic low. It must eat him up.

For his part, Gore has been amazingly restrained in the face of so much good news. Remarking on today’s commendation at his Web site, he writes, “I am deeply honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. This award is even more meaningful because I have the honor of sharing it with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- the world’s pre-eminent scientific body devoted to improving our understanding of the climate crisis -- a group whose members have worked tirelessly and selflessly for many years. We face a true planetary emergency. The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level.” The ex-VP adds that he’ll donate 100 percent of his share of the Nobel Prize money (somewhere in the vicinity of $1.5 million) to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a nonprofit organization he founded, and which he explains is “devoted to changing public opinion in the U.S. and around the world about the urgency of solving the climate crisis.”

Inevitably, Gore has also been forced to shoot down renewed speculation that his hat trick of successes this year will provoke him to run for the White House. Again. “My sense is that this won’t affect that calculation,” Gore adviser Michael Feldman tells The Politico. “He has said all along he has no plans to run for president. He’s been spending all his discretionary time on the climate crisis. This great honor will further enhance that.” It will enhance, too, his presence on the campaign trail, when--although he won’t be stumping for himself--he will likely speak out in support of Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or whoever the 2008 Democratic nominee turns out to be. There’s a moral gravity inherited by Nobel Peace Prize winners that simply isn’t available to rest of us mortals, and next year’s nominee will hope to exploit that.

Hoping to neutralize the ex-veep’s effect on that coming race, right-wing commentators and bloggers were quick to attack Gore and his Nobel victory--lest Americans start to reassess the man whom Republican’ts and their media toadies have disparaged these last eight years as “wooden” and “weird,” and begin to see him as he really is: superior to Bush Jr. In the National Review’s blog, The Corner, Iain Murray sought to equate Gore with Osama bin Laden, who Murray claimed idiotically, “implicitly endorsed Gore’s stance” on global warming. Painkiller addict and radio comedian Rush Limbaugh scoffed: “So now ‘Algore’ will join Yasir Arafat among the list of noble Nobel peace laureates.” He went on to charge that members of the Norwegian Nobel committee have “rendered themselves a pure, 100 percent joke.” Bush, ever the spoilsport, couldn’t so much as bring himself to congratulate his onetime opponent, even though, as Salon’s Tim Grieve pointed out earlier today, he has previously been conscientious enough to applaud everyone from spelling-bee winners to sports champs. When asked this morning whether the prez would dial up Gore to congratulate him, deputy White House press secretary Tony Fratto responded, “I don’t know of any plans to make calls to any of the winners at this point.”

Strangely, Czech President Vaclav Klaus parroted the American right-wing line. Described as “a rare vocal global- warming skeptic among heads of state,” Klaus is said to have been “somewhat surprised” by Gore’s Nobel win. “The relationship between his activities and world peace is unclear and indistinct,” spokesman Petr Hajek said in a statement. “It rather seems that Gore’s doubting of basic cornerstones of the current civilization does not contribute to peace.”

Of course, Gore need not pay attention to such naysaying. He’s too busy trying to find a little bit of room between his Emmy and Oscar for his Nobel medal.

Had history gone in a different direction, the United States would have benefited from Al Gore’s hard-won wisdom and leadership in the White House. As it is, over the last seven years we’ve suffered through natural calamities, economic downturns, the war-caused spread of terrorism in the Middle East, repeated Republican scandals, and a dramatic erosion of America’s worldwide standing. The bottom line is spelled out by Steve Benen at The Carpetbagger Report: “Everything Bush touched led to disaster. Everything Gore focused on turned out to be right.” History will recognize the difference, even if some Americans still don’t.

READ MORE: “Gore and U.N. Panel Share Peace Prize,” by Dan Balz and Juliet Eilperin (The Washington Post); “Prize Caps Year of Highs for Gore,” by Jim Rutenberg (The New York Times); “From One Prize to Another,” by John Dickerson (Slate); “What Should Gore Do Now?” by David Roberts (The Huffington Post); “Will Gore Fall Prey to the Nobel Curse?” by Eric Weiner (National Public Radio).

(Cross-posted from Limbo.)

Al Gore and the IPCC win 2007 Nobel Peace Prize

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(Make sure to read J. Kingston Pierce's post here.)

He won!

Al Gore and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have won The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Gore "is probably the single individual who has done most to create greater worldwide understanding of the measures that need to be adopted," according to the Nobel citation.

For more, see the NYT, WaPo, CNN, the AP, Reuters, and the BBC -- but, of course, the reporting is everywhere. For reaction, of which there will be a great deal throughout the day, see Memeorandum.

And to those who question what Gore has done for world peace, that is, who question the connectiong between global warming (and the awareness thereof) and world peace, to the deniers, to the clueless, imagine what chaos will be unleashed upon us when the seas rise, millions die, and the world as we know it falls apart.

**********

There is, of course, more talk that Gore will enter the presidential race. If only. He likely won't.

But I wish he would. He is the most qualified person in the world for the job.

All eyes on the prize

By J. Kingston Pierce

Yesterday’s big news was that British novelist Doris Lessing has won the 2007 Novel Prize in Literature. Will today bring word that former U.S. Vice President Al Gore--applauded by many, but chided by some for his courageous stand against global warming--has captured this year’s Nobel Peace Prize? If so, he will be the 20th individual U.S. recipient, and only the second veep (after Charles G. Dawes in 1925) to receive that honor, which has previously gone to Theodore Roosevelt, George Marshall, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Elie Wiesel, Jimmy Carter, and others.

The 59-year-old Gore--whose 2006 documentary about global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, picked up an Academy Award earlier this year--is widely considered the front-runner for this honor. However, he may be in close contention with Finland’s former president Martti Ahtisaari, who Reuters explains “helped broker a 2005 peace deal between Indonesia and its Aceh province to end 30 years of conflict and is U.N. special envoy on Kosovo--a task where he faces stiff resistance from Serbia and Russia.” The outcome depends on whether the Nobel committee again extends the definition of what it considers means toward peace. If it does, this race may not be close.

Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope wrote yesterday in Salon: “Regardless of the outcome [of today’s Nobel announcement], Gore is, quite simply, the indispensable player in the drama of mankind’s encounter with the possibility of destroying the climatic balance within which our civilization emerged and developed.” Not only did the onetime U.S. senator from Tennessee come to see early on how “carbon emissions are slowly causing the planet to overheat” (Gore initiated congressional hearings on the subject way back in the 1970s), but, writes Pope:

He recognized, too, that the incredibly hard task of turning around the world’s energy economy would become impossible if we waited for global warming to announce its presence, stage left, with alarum and hautboys as Shakespeare might have scripted.

So for years he accepted the thankless role of Cassandra, the Greek prophet no one would heed. But unlike Cassandra he did not sit by to watch fateful tragedy unfold. Once, when I was particularly frustrated by challenges I faced in my job at the Sierra Club, Gore heard me out and replied: “Never, ever give up.” That would seem to be his motto, as reflected in the thousands of speeches he has delivered, the Live Earth concert he built from scratch, the naysaying he has endured, the movement he inspired.

Pope goes on to suggest that Gore’s odds of winning the Nobel might be helped by recent precedents. “In 2004,” Pope observes, “the Nobel Peace Prize went to Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai. She is not a general or president. She was founder of the grass-roots Green Belt Movement, which planted more than 30 million trees across the country, providing jobs, power and education to women in the process. In the Nobel committee’s words upon awarding that prize: ‘Peace on earth depends on our ability to secure our living environment.’” The Nobel committee may view Gore similarly, suggests the Sierra Club exec, “as someone who has spent much of his career staving off conflicts by uniting strange bedfellows behind the common cause of protecting humanity’s only home.” Pope concludes:

In the 20th century peace was something to be achieved after the horrifying bloodletting of world war began. In the 21st century, although the world faces a new era of turmoil, peace ultimately must be about identifying and resolving the sources of conflict before battles break out. That’s why no one deserves the Nobel Peace Prize more than Al Gore.

Predictably, there are many right-wingers, including a rapidly shrinking contingent of George W. Bush supporters, who don’t want to see Gore take home the Nobel Peace Prize, and thereby enhance his rock star status. They still hold a vicious grudge against him for winning more votes in the 2000 presidential race than their Connecticut cowboy. On Wednesday, the conservative New York Sun newspaper editorialized in favor of General David Petraeus as an alternative. Its endorsement of Bush’s strongest recent advocate for the seemingly endless and deadly war on Iraq is rather petulant (the paper remarks, for instance, that “It is true that General Petraeus doesn’t seem to hate President Bush, which in recent years has seemed to be one of the pre-requisites for winning the prize”), and it is predicated on a pretty bizarre belief that Petraeus is trying to “save the nation of Iraq” by furthering a conflict that has already killed an estimated 1,084,379 Iraqis and left their country vulnerable to a worsening civil war and terrorist encroachment from outside its borders.

Republicans may also fear that his winning the Nobel Peace Prize might encourage Gore to run for president again. The former VP is one of the few Americans with the name recognition to leap into the 2008 presidential contest this late in the game, after raising less money than Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, and still come out on top--points mentioned in my psychoanalyst friend Trip Quillman’s op-ed piece last May in The Seattle Times. National polls taken earlier this month show Al Gore in third place among Democratic contenders, behind just Clinton and Obama. Even though Gore has said on more than one occasion that he has no intention of running for office in the future, a group calling itself Draft Gore purchased a full-page ad in The New York Times yesterday, encouraging Bill Clinton’s former No. 2 to step up to the campaigning plate once more and swing for the fences. “You say you have fallen out of love with politics, and you have every reason to feel that way,” the group says to Gore in that “open letter” advertisement. “But we know you have not fallen out of love with your country. And your country needs you now--as do your party and the planet you are fighting so hard to save.”

In all likelihood, a Gore candidacy would spell trouble for what seems, at this point anyway, like the inevitability of Hillary Clinton capturing the Democratic presidential nomination next summer. His prominent and repeated denunciations of Bush’s Iraq war and expansion of power sit very well with Democrats and others, who worry that the present White House is shredding the U.S. Constitution for its own dictatorial ends, and are leery of the dynastic fragrance of a Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton succession in the Oval Office. The GOP should be even more concerned about running the robotic Mitt Romney, the say-anything-to-win Rudy Giuliani, or Fred “Dumb as Hell” Thompson against a man committed to saving the earth for all mankind. The GOP nomination in 2008 is fluid at this stage of the game, because Republican’ts don’t much like any of the 10 white males still vying for their votes. Even Giuliani, running hard on his record of looking less incompetent than Bush did on September 11, 2001, is trailing Clinton by a long shot, and according to a new Quinnipiac University Swing State Poll, his support is much wider than it is deep. (Clinton, on the other hand, has strong support among her Democratic backers.) Just imagine how poorly Giuliani would stack up against the principled Gore.

Now, none of this suggests that I think Gore will run. Or that he should. I take him at his word when he says that he has no interest in making another try for the presidency. And in fact, if he’s so committed to ending global warming, he can probably do more good as a private citizen with a Nobel Prize in his pocket than he could as the American chief executive--a position that would necessarily force him to focus on more than melting icecaps, dying polar bears, and the catastrophic future flooding of coastal cities. When asked, in the wake of that Draft Gore ad, whether he could be persuaded to make a comeback bid for the White House, Gore spokesperson Kalee Kreider said, “Vice President Gore truly appreciates the sentiment and the feeling behind the ad, but as a private citizen his efforts are going behind a campaign of a different kind. The vast majority of his energy right now is going into educating people about the climate crisis and trying to get that issue to a tipping point.”

So Clinton and Giuliani can probably stop sweating the chances of Gore entering the 2008 race. But look out, Martti Ahtisaari. You’re up against a heavyweight.

(Cross-posted at Limbo.)