Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Comments

  1. He’s done a d-mn good job as president, can’t deny that.  Better than I can honestly expect Hillary Clinton to have done.

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    p>But when Obama was nominated he’d barely done anything yet.  Perhaps in the eyes of the voters “not being President Bush” was sufficient, but I think it’s awkward that the third American winner over the last eight years.

    • Before anybody starts telling me he’s the only good choice, I’d simply repeat that any year that passes without Morgan Tsvangirai winning the Peace Prize is a lost year.

          • Between David’s 4s and the “look it up yourself” attitude I didn’t realize that was the expectation here.  Sorry for asking questions!:(

            • …maybe it’s just a matter of approaches.  If somebody mentions something and I don’t understand, I tend to Google it myself.  

            • I un-rated your comments.  But really, Google is your friend with things like this.  If you really want the answer, you will get it much faster with a 10-second Google search than by waiting for someone to respond.

              • It is kind of rude/lazy to toss out mentions of 1973 without any explanation and expect everyone to do the same google search. Otherwise you put the stamp of approval on various trollish posts that contain nothing but innuendo, which we are expected to waste time researching.

    • Obama would score BIG politically if he politely declined.  

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      p>”I appreciate it.  But I’ve gotten no results yet….

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      p>And I think the biggest potential to create peace in the world right now is with China and Russia.  If they can help us fend off the Iranian and North Korean nuclear threat, they’d have made the world a much more peaceful place.”  

      • Was done so –as to insure his being selected for “The Prize”. That would be kinda rotten. Allowing Americans to be killed in Afghanistan so that he has something for his mantle? Kinda like the same people who kill wild animals so that they can put stuffed animal heads in their den. Nice legacy—like Lyndon Baines Johnson—he has 57 thousand heads.

        • Like the rumors that Obama was not born in the US? One would have thought that someone who believes “most human beings morons” would not put much stock in internet rumors.

        • That the voting took place long beforehand, and nominations well before that.  And that conservatives will pass along any lie that conforms to their limp worldview (see Ayers+memoir).

        • the haters want to impeach Obama
          http://www.impeachobamacampaig…

          our Founding Fathers fully intended to allow for the removal of the President for actions which were… well… simply put… egregious… grossly incompetence… grossly negligence… outright distasteful… or, in the case of Barack Hussein Obama, actions which clearly show “malevolence toward this country, which is unabated.”

          Sponsored by Floyd Brown who put his face on the web site.  I guess he’s tired of Willy Horton getting all the press.  

    • when you look at a calendar and see that the inauguration took place on 1/20/09 and nominations closed 2/1/09 for the award.  11 days and you get the peace prize?

      • What we need to understand is that any random schmuck can get nominated for a Nobel prize. 3000 national leaders and other prominent citizens are asked to submit nominations. This is why “Nobel nominee” (the actual list of nominees is not, in fact, public) is such an oft-seen and useless phrase–there are always many, many, nominees. There’s a hell of a difference between this as “getting” the prize.

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        p>This aside, I strongly disagree with the awarding of the prize.

    • was the explanation I read.

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      p>He was working hard on that as a Senator, and he’s made foreign policy gains on it since then.  I don’t know the details, but that’s the gist.

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      p>Anybody got the inside scoop?

  2. The President should decline, his political foes will be jumping all over him if he accepts this award and labeling him as a premadonna. The proff is in the pudding, when he went to Copenhaggen they were complaining about it,and how he thinks he can walk on water and how he’s wasting money. If he accepts this award they will be far more vicious. I hope he declines until a later date when he accomplishes something MAJOR in foreign policy.

  3. I think this award is a message from the Nobel Committee that they welcome the message that President Barrack Obama gives, they welcome the messenger, and they welcome the spirit in America that elevated him to America’s highest office.

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    p>I think this is also their nuanced commentary on the prior administration. It perhaps suggests that the world will not be outraged when war-crimes prosecutions against the prior administration belatedly begin.

    • Not exactly.  That’s what I mean by a “naked political play.”

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      p>As for war-crimes prosecutions against the prior administration … I hope the Committee isn’t holding its breath, or there will be a lot of blue faces in Stockholm.

  4. Agreed — this is WAAAAYYYYY premature and really smacks of oh-thank-god-Bush-is-out-of-office. Besides, I was always under the impression that one was awarded the Peace Prize for a body of humanitarian work over time.  

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    p>Does anyone know whether anyone has ever declined a Nobel Prize?

  5. “making nice speeches” that are able to motivate us all, (or at least some of us) to work hard together for concrete positive change, even if, together, we haven’t fully accomplished it ….yet.

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    p>

    To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds.

    And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders, nor can we consume the world’s resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.
    Inaugural Address 1/20/09

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    p>This from a person who has this little cynical sign over her desk:

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    p>                   Hope is not a course of Action

    • and now a Republican Congress that bitch slaps the Dems on a regular basis, who exactly has Obama motivated to “work hard together for concrete positive change” other than the people who supported him in the first place?

    • New sign over my desk. Hope is a cause for action.

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      p>A  beaming President Barack Obama said Friday he was both honored and humbled to win the Nobel Peace Prize and would accept it as a “call to action” to work with other nations to solve the world’s most pressing problems.

  6. The Peace Prize has been meaningless since the 1973 award.

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    p>It’s amusing to watch wingnut heads explode across the country (oooh, aaah!) but if this is the best the NPP committee can do, it must have been a slow year for peace.

    • Michael Vick is getting his own TV Show.  (Is it on Animal Planet?)

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      p>“My dear Sir, take any road, you can’t go amiss. The whole state is one vast insane asylum.
      Author: James L. Petigru”

        • is just so unnecessary.  We do have people on this blog who were either very young or not even born in 1973, and given just how little has been achieved in terms of peace in the Middle East…well, perhaps it’s not even taught in school.

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          p>You, my friend, need to learn the difference between your friends in the foxhole with you – and your enemies.  No sense shooting up everybody.  

  7. was a major development in world peace, and arguably the most positive change in the last year, so it does make a kind of sense. The Nobel committee isn’t dumb, and they know they could wait until a later year when Obama should have more concrete accomplishments to point to. I have to believe that they are trying to send a strong message that the Bush/Republican style of engagement with the rest of the world is unwelcome, and also want to send a message to Obama that he should try to live up to the award.

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    p>It will be amusing/scary to see how Republicans respond to this.

    • First – Obama did not solicit this, and it is a gift with ramifications that Swedes/Europe may not realize.  It isn’t going to be seen as prestigious recognition, but an unwarranted gift in a society that values merit and accomplishment.  They may have had Brandenburg Gates campaign crowds in mind, but even that had a mixed reaction here.

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      p>Second – and I haven’t read the citation, only heard it described on the news – it was given for giving people hope and a sense that change was posible.  If that’s the case, I would have given it to Susan Boyle, for unexpected recognition of a gift, late in life, that all sorts of seemingly drab and mediocre prople have within them.  THAT is hope for the many.

      • – and I haven’t read the citation, only heard it described on the news – it was given for giving people hope and a sense that change was possible.

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        p>and then you said

        <

        p>

        If that’s the case, I would have given it to Susan Boyle, for unexpected recognition of a gift, late in life, that all sorts of seemingly drab and mediocre prople have within them.  THAT is hope for the many.

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        p>Not sure about that.

        <

        p>Although I must admit (and I don’t know why) I am an official Susan Boyle fan on facebook.  

    • He who laughs last—-laughs loudest. After the elections of 2010—then what will be the excuse? Vast Right Wing Conspiracy that rigged the elections?

    • they might have given him the award for winning the election and sparing the world of four more years of neocon preemptive war-making. if so, I wish they had said it.  

  8. It would be a brilliant stroke of inspiring leadership if President Obama graciously declined the prize for reasons that BMG posters have expressed here (he does read BMG, doesn’t he?). BTW, Arafat and Kissinger received this prize too. Sometimes awardees have not been deserving (Kissinger, IMHO) and sometimes the prize has been given more in hope for future performance than for tangible results (Arafat).

    • To be precise, the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to Yitzhak Rabin, Yasser Arafat and Shimon Perez. Rabin changed markedly in the cause of peace and wound up sacrificing his life for it. I think he clearly deserved it. Arafat was too corrupt and two-faced – not deserving. Peres less deserving than Rabin but more deserving than Arafat.

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      p>In 1978, Anwar Sadat and Menchem Begin shared the Peace Prize too. Sadat had a similar story to Rabin’s: transcended his past to take risks for peace and got assassinated by his own countryman for his efforts.

      • John Hume gave everythng he had for the cause of peace in Northern Ireland.  David Trimble rode the wave of hate as far as he could, and changed for peace only when in his interest.  Trimble didn’t deserve the award, but it’s tough to award it to only one of two sides making peace.

    • Mind you, I was surprised when I checked my e-mail before heading in to Boston for the day so popped up a quick post to alert you all….Humnn…maybe I have a poem in  the 100s of poems in my poem drawer [going back to age 8 after all and I am 62] that I may share or adapt…

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      p>But it would be insulting for Barack Obama to decline; lets  where being inspired by it takes him…after all, its NOT like he asked for it or could have dodged it.  The serenity prayer comes to mind; having the Nobel Peace Prize given to one is like so many other life events – NOT controllable.

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      p>Given that Nobel, I am told, wanted to atone for inviting dynamite and all….

      • …is with a lot of the Salon commenters who said it should go to ACORN, just to watch the right-wing hissy fit!

  9. Is the award to recognize accomplishments only, or can it be used to “instigate” peace.  Arafat is an example listed on this thread of a possible “instigate peace” award.

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    p>I can’t help but wonder if the committee felt that Obama’s work on anti-nuke and his general rhetoric on political engagement was good, but that they were also hoping to show the world that some politics are to be rewarded (hint: not GWB’s) and also to try and encourage Obama to live up to the award he’s already received.

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    p>Just idle speculation of course…

    • Isn’t it interesting that he’s scheduled to meet with McChrystal et.al. TODAY to discuss Afghanistan strategy and possibly sending more troops there..

      • He’s the fscking president.  He does lots of things every day.  He’s constantly meeting people about military, foreign policy, health care, the environment, the economy, etc etc.  The vote for the prize wasn’t yesterday.

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        p>In short, don’t act like a twit.  Not everything is a dang conspiracy.  Show a little judgment and don’t jump on every anti-Obama idea, rumor, or crackpot claim.

        • Wow, that’s nice…

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          p>I still think its interesting.  Not a conspiracy theory, not anti-Obama… How could it affect today’s meetings?

  10. Alternate scenario. International Olympic Committee calls up Nobel Committee: We had to go with Rio but he’s such a nice young man… anything you can do?

  11. This is one of those Friday joke postings.  You had me going there!  If this was real, I’d barf.  

  12. I can hear the angelic trumpets!  I can mark October 9,2009 as the second American Independence Day!
    The good energy of the universe itself is rushing through my body as mankind starts upon a new destiny.

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    p>I want the T-shirt copyright!
    The “Illuminati” says man is retarded,
    What say you World!

      • Downing Street memo
        extra-ordinary renditions
        Puppy chucking marine
        enemy combatants
        tazering grandma
        LRAD/VMAD
        Deliberate Engineered global depression
        Unicorn flu
        Peace was an inside job!

  13. …the importance of the President’s decision to cancel the Bush proposal for radar and anti-missile sites in Central Europe that resulted in a Russian announcement of dismantling missiles close to their border.

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    p>His work to bring Iran and North Korea to the table is also admireable if a bit early still.

    <

    p>It is a chance to make something of America’s new reputation and set a vision for peace and democracy.

  14. Who won the Nobel Prize last year? How about the year before that?

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    p>Of course it’s political. It freaking matters who our president is! And he has calmed the waters of the world. Premature? Of course. But it’s a sea change.

    • two years ago it was Al Gore.  And yeah, that was obviously political too.  Last year it was the former president of Finland who “has worked to end conflicts in troubled spots around the world for more than three decades.”  Examples:

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      p>

      Mr. Ahtisaari’s work – as a Finnish diplomat, a United Nations envoy and the representative of various negotiating groups – has taken him to Namibia, Kosovo, Indonesia and Northern Ireland, among other places. He has led humanitarian missions, presided over contentious talks between sworn enemies and helped resolve disputes involving delicate matters of ethnicity, religion and race.

      Mr. Ahtisaari has said that the highlight of his career may well be his work over 13 years in helping Namibia make the transition to independence after years of violent conflict with South Africa.

      But he has done much more. His work in the former Yugoslavia during the war of the late 1990s, and then in 2005-07, helped work toward a solution of the question of Kosovo’s future. As the head of his own organization, Crisis Management Initiative, he organized unpublicized meetings earlier this year in Finland between Iraqi Sunni and Shiite Muslims. His work in 2005 set the stage for a peace agreement between separatists in Aceh Province and the Indonesian government, after years of bitterness and fighting.

      <

      p>Kinda hard to argue with that record, IMHO.

      • if it’s for work in a faraway place that we scarcely have heard of, or care about. Particularly if it’s given to a Scandinavian.

        <

        p>If it’s about our country, then it’s “political”.

        • Awarding the Peace Prize is not political if you give it to someone who actually has achieved peace in many places, over many years.  That’s Ahtisaari.  It has nothing to do with “a faraway place that we scarcely have heard of, or care about” — they were fighting, and now they’re not.  That’s peace, dude, and Obama hasn’t done that.  Anyway, you may not care about them…

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          p>It’s political if you give it to the guy who isn’t George W. Bush, and who hasn’t really got anything to show for it yet.

          <

          p>Are you really going to maintain that Obama, right now, has the claim to a Peace Prize that, oh, I don’t know, Desmond Tutu, Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter, Anwar Sadat, and Yitzhak Rabin had, just to name a few obvious ones?  I don’t think even Obama would maintain that.

    • “he has calmed the waters of the world. Premature? Of course. But it’s a sea change.”

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      p>I think he got it for winning the election and his foreign policy principles as compared to the preemptive warfare policy of the prior administration and McCain’s campaign. The writing was on the wall with McCain.  His campaign people advising on foreign policy were in Georgia prior to that armed conflict. The writing was on the wall.  

  15. how Obama stacks up against the other candidates for the NPP, but the stated reasoning is:

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    p>

    The Norwegian Nobel Committee picked the 48-year-old president from 205 nominees for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” The committee praised Obama’s creation of “a new climate in international politics” and said he had returned multilateral diplomacy and institutions like the United Nations to the center of the world stage.

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    p>In short, his accomplishment is not world peace, but creating an atmosphere that opens the door for countries to begin to achieve steps in that direction.

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    p>This was a palpable change felt around the world that would have been difficult for anyone else to accomplish and should not be underrated. What else was up there? I could change my position, but looking at a global change, isn’t this in the mix?

  16. on the right.
    It’s an honorary award, we should not forget.  Sure, he could gain points by declining; but there’s a part of me that wants him to accept the award, speak again about a humble, let’s-work-together America and then give the money to Acorn.

  17. Obama wins the Peace Prize on the same day the headlines are all about his plans to wage war in Afghanistan.

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    p>An absurd choice, in my opinion. Laughable, even. An example of the worst kind of uncritical Obamamania. Arguably counter-productive as it suggests that simply by being elected Obama has accomplished everything that needs to be done.

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    p>Another irony is that the last US president to win, Woodrow Wilson, was one of the most racist presidents in our history who did more than many to cement racial segregation as a national policy.

    <

    p>Still, I don’t think he should decline. That would be ungracious. He won, he should accept it, and more power to him.

    <

    p>As to peace, that’s a separate matter, apparently.

    • “because he has directed american military might toward our common enemy: the Moon.” #ReasonsBHOwonNPP

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      p>LOL.  If you missed it, here is what he’s talking about.

    • He can request they put it away in a cupboard, to be given conditionally three years from now. He can say, “judge me in 2012 by what I have accomplished for peace.” Similar to what Tom Menino said in his 1996 state-of-the-city speech at Jeremiah Burke High School after the school had lost its accreditation: “I want to be judged as your mayor by what happens now in the Boston Public Schools. I expect you to hold me accountable…If I fail, judge me harshly.”

    • …the B-52s cross into Iranian airspace?  Did the men, women and children of the countries the US occupies get to vote?  How bad is the drug problem in Sweden?  

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      p>Hey, the guy should just take the tax free money and run.  

      • A half dozen of these bombs will be ready by the end of November. The B-2’s have already been retrofitted for the
        loading assembly. Not much of a boom on the surface—but those Iranians down below are going to wake up with a REAL bad headache.

        <

        p>http://www.investors.com/NewsA…

  18. It’s a great honor for his country as well, but between the right’s mocking of this prize and cheering his failure to get the Olympics, I never want to hear that crowd complain about anti-Americanism again!

    • for our President, if it makes Rush Limbaugh’s head explode, that would be justification enough for accepting the award.

      • …if Rush Limbaugh’s head did explode I’d hate to think what would come out of it!:)

  19. This is proof positive that not only are most human beings morons—but they actually believe 90% of the nonsense they espouse. Just think of all the awards that have been rendered worthless. Speaks volumes.

  20. Hey, The President was awarded the prize. It’s not like he campaigned to get it. The committee gave it to him. I think this is just another attempt to characterize the man as undeserving. Congratulations Mr. President! Now, close Guantanamo, prosecute torturers, and restore our civil liberties.

  23. Given that he just beat out the Free Roman Polanski Committee, I suppose it’s a blessing. Frederic Mitterrand on the stage accepting the Nobel Peace Prize? Sure, they’d love it in Hollywood, but elsewhere? Not so much.  

  24. re the prize were as good as could be expected (barring declining the prize, which obviously he did not do).  He said he didn’t think he deserved to be in the company of (some of) the other prize winners, and he’s right about that.  He said that he was taking it as an indication that there is international support for some of the aspirations of his administration.  Which seems about right, I guess.  I’m still not convinced that the Committee’s decision was a good move, either for the Nobel Committee or for Obama.

  25. Courtesy of Salon

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    p>

    Let me be clear, I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations. 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. But I also know that this prize reflects the kind of world that those men and women and all Americans want to build, a world that gives life to the promise of our founding documents.

  26. Baratunde Thurston
     Breaking News: U.S. President Barack Obama has won the 2010 Super Bowl!

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    p>LOL!!  If you haven’t friended him on facebook, you should.

    • …but more frequently embarrassing.  My theory is he does a lot of his blogging from JJ Foley’s.

      • Jay Fitzgerald has lost credibility. His column sources are his JJ Foley pals and his his fact checking is non-existent. Just ask the members of SEIU who are now stuck with one of his buds as their new “leader” thanks to Fitzy’s help… incompetence has it’s place I guess.

  28. The global establishment just call you a retard
    What say you world!

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    p>Peace means bombing the crap out of
    Iran
    Afghanistan
    Pakistan
    Iraq
    Venezula
    North Korea

  29. Well, this ought to make for some creative tension for Barack Obama, the Commander in Chief presiding over two wars and Barack Obama, the new face of nonviolence and reconciliation around the world.  It will be interesting to see what my Peace Studies kids have to say….  

  30. So that puts the current score at:

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    p>Nobels: Obama 1, Gore 1
    Grammys: Obama 2, Gore 1
    Oscars: Obama 0, Gore 1

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    p>I think that still puts Gore ahead since I would say an Oscar outrates a Grammy.

      • Gore did take two oaths of office as VP after winning two presidential elections as Clinton’s running mate. So if we are just counting oaths he is still ahead 😉

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        p>  

          • It was prior to the 25th amendment so the President Pro Tempre of the Senate would be President in the event of an emergency essentially becoming Acting Vice President. A quirk caused one such person, David Rice Atchison to become President for one day because the term of James K. Polk ended on March 4th and Zachary Taylor refused to be sworn in on the customary March 5th date because it fell on a Sunday that day and he refused to work on the Sabbath yet the previous government had already had its term expire so it was President Atchison but only for one day.  

            • He was the first VP to succeed and people weren’t sure whether he became President or was simply acting as President.  I believe every member of his (really William Henry Harrison’s) cabinet except Secretary of State Daniel Webster resigned because Tyler had the “gall” to pursue his own course rather than just behave like a substitute teacher.  Tyler, who while elected as a Whig had Democratic sympathies, returned unopened letters addressed to the “Acting President”.  He was not renominated and left office basically a man without a party.  He was elected to the Congress of the Confederate States, but died before he could take his seat.  His other claim to fame is that he had the most (15? by two wives) children of any President.

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              p>Interestingly it is the 25th amendment that codifies the prevailing assumption that the VP “becomes” the President.  This IS different from MA practice, however.  Although we may have refered to say Jane Swift in conversation as “Governor Swift”, because she was not elected to the top job she was never “Her Excellency, the Governor”.  Her title after Cellucci went to Canada was “Her Honor, the Lieutenant Governor, Acting Governor”.  For that matter Cellucci was in the same position prior to January 1999, even though being Massachusetts we do the ceremonial hand over the symbols anyway.

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