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Huh?
Wait, what? Seriously?
I mean, why? He hasn't done anything yet.
Let me make a point. Barack Obama has made great strides in returning the world to some sort of diplomatic normalacy. He's done this by re-opening diplomatic channels, and by striving to reconnect the world's strongest military power to the world that it threatens. He has made several statements about human rights, specifically in Africa, where of all the first world leaders he has special clout, that are commendable and deserve praise. He has made steps both in nuclear disarmament and in promoting peace that are laudable, and in the fullness of time may bear spectacular fruit. And he is reforging the kind of alliances that we hope will see the world through the rocky times ahead as the political landscape of the world changes.
But all this, all the uncertainties in that paragraph, underline a very serious flaw. None of his accomplishments, none of his speeches, none of his initiatives, and none of his overtures, have yet yielded serious results. He's being praised for getting Iran back to the bargaining table against a united front, for essentially pulling the plug on Chavez's South American block, for re-normalizing our relations with an internally unstable Russia, and for the message that he's sent to Africa. But none of these efforts have yet produced anything substantial. Maybe in a year or two we'll be celebrating a victory on the diplomatic front, but right now we just don't know. We don't know whether he has the skill, the persistence, or that all-important trait, the luck to pull it off. And to hand the prize out based on expectations, on good intentions instead of results, seems to me against what the prize should stand for. We reward people for what they've done, not for what they say they're going to do.
It was a lousy year for the peace prize, and I don't think there were many stand-out contenders for it, but to award it to someone in their first year on the global stage, without any real significant accomplishments under his belt, cheapens both the prize and the recipient more then they deserve.
(I may be the only disgruntled person on my F-list, but since when has that stopped me from making an ass of myself?)
I mean, why? He hasn't done anything yet.
Let me make a point. Barack Obama has made great strides in returning the world to some sort of diplomatic normalacy. He's done this by re-opening diplomatic channels, and by striving to reconnect the world's strongest military power to the world that it threatens. He has made several statements about human rights, specifically in Africa, where of all the first world leaders he has special clout, that are commendable and deserve praise. He has made steps both in nuclear disarmament and in promoting peace that are laudable, and in the fullness of time may bear spectacular fruit. And he is reforging the kind of alliances that we hope will see the world through the rocky times ahead as the political landscape of the world changes.
But all this, all the uncertainties in that paragraph, underline a very serious flaw. None of his accomplishments, none of his speeches, none of his initiatives, and none of his overtures, have yet yielded serious results. He's being praised for getting Iran back to the bargaining table against a united front, for essentially pulling the plug on Chavez's South American block, for re-normalizing our relations with an internally unstable Russia, and for the message that he's sent to Africa. But none of these efforts have yet produced anything substantial. Maybe in a year or two we'll be celebrating a victory on the diplomatic front, but right now we just don't know. We don't know whether he has the skill, the persistence, or that all-important trait, the luck to pull it off. And to hand the prize out based on expectations, on good intentions instead of results, seems to me against what the prize should stand for. We reward people for what they've done, not for what they say they're going to do.
It was a lousy year for the peace prize, and I don't think there were many stand-out contenders for it, but to award it to someone in their first year on the global stage, without any real significant accomplishments under his belt, cheapens both the prize and the recipient more then they deserve.
(I may be the only disgruntled person on my F-list, but since when has that stopped me from making an ass of myself?)
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I feel...rather irritated, and I'm not quite sure why.
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Mostly I'm just grumpy because I don't like surprises, and I don't think this puts the Nobel committee in particularly good odor right now. Like you, I'm feeling sort of irritable about all this.