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Jewish World Review
Oct. 16, 2009
/ 28 Tishrei 5770
The Empty Suit's Empty Prize
By
Robert Tracinski
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The only thing worse than Barack Obama being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize is the way he has accepted it.
I am among those who believe that the Nobel committee did him no favors in giving him the award. It's not just that the award was announced-with perfect comic timing-less than a week after a "Saturday Night Live" sketch lampooning Obama as an ineffective leader who hasn't done anything with his nine months in office. What's worse is that Obama was basically forced to admit, in his own words, that he doesn't deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.
That's how he began his statement on the award last Friday, saying that "I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments." No kidding. He continues: "To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize, men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace."
One of the things I've learned over the years is not to be jealous of people who receive unearned rewards or adulation, because the very fact that it is unearned means that it is of no value to them. For someone else, being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize might have capped off a long and distinguished career-or, in the Nobel's best tradition, it might have been a lifeline, bringing international recognition and support for a dissident fighting against an oppressive regime.
For Obama, it was humiliating. Practically everyone agreed that he didn't deserve it (see, for example, here, here, here, and here), and he had to acknowledge that they were right.
If that had been all there was to Obama's remarks, it would have been an amusing moment of comeuppance for him and for the Nobel committee. But if he were able to truly recognize that he didn't deserve the Nobel, Obama's next step should have been to refuse the award and tell the Nobel committee to give it to someone else, which is what several commentators urged him to do. And that would have been a smart move politically. Obama would have gotten all the prestige of being offered a Nobel-but then critics like me would have had to shut up and swallow all of our barbs about his presumptuousness and moral posturing.
I was pretty sure, though, that we were going to be safe on that score. Obama's whole career has been based on accepting unearned honors, on being a "blank screen"-his own metaphor-filled in by others. So why stop now?
Thus, his remarks on Friday compounded the basic evil of the Nobel committee's decision. The committee gave the award to a man who has accomplished nothing-and he promised to keep on doing it.
First, Obama threw up the smokescreen of "American leadership," declaring that the Nobel committee gave him the Peace Prize as "an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations." But of course, everyone knows that this is the opposite of the truth. He got the award for disavowing American exceptionalism and for subordinating the US to "world opinion" and UN deliberations. The surest sign that Obama knows this is that he went out of his way several times to repeat that phrase about "American leadership." This is the trademark Obama technique for obfuscation, and it's not very sophisticated: you just take the fact you want to evade and baldly state the opposite. It's a technique that depends on an uncritical press, which will never call him on these contradictions.
But Obama clearly doesn't mean any of what he says about "American leadership," because here is the kind of "leadership" he goes on to offer:
I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century. Now, these challenges can't be met by any one leader or any one nation. And that's why my administration has worked to establish a new era of engagement in which all nations must take responsibility for the world we seek.
Get that? This award is a "call to action" and a "responsibility" for other people.
To underscore that point, the next six sentences out of Obama's mouth either begin with "we" or with "all nations." He doesn't say what he will do but what a vague consensus of nations will do.
And in case you missed that point, he hits you over the head with it at the end of his remarks:
I know these challenges can be met, so long as it's recognized that they will not be met by one person or one nation alone. This award is not simply about the efforts of my administration; it's about the courageous efforts of people around the world. And that's why this award must be shared with everyone who strives for justice and dignity.
Obama will still be the one standing on that stage in Oslo soaking up the applause, mind you. It's just that everyone else will be doing the actual work. And we can apparently expect it to take about as long as any other task done by committee: "Some of the work confronting us will not be completed during my presidency. Some, like the elimination of nuclear weapons, may not be completed in my lifetime." Well, certainly the elimination of Iran's nuclear weapons program won't be accomplished in his lifetime-not at this rate.
So there you have it. Obama accepts the Nobel Peace Prize by saying that he doesn't deserve it and does not intend to personally do anything to deserve it in the future.
What an empty feeling this empty suit must have about his empty award. Too bad the rest of us are also getting an empty feeling in the pits of our stomachs knowing that this zero is in charge of America's foreign policy for another three years.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Robert Tracinski writes daily commentary at TIADaily.com. He is the editor of The Intellectual Activist and TIADaily.com. Comment by clicking here.
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