Posted: Oct. 16, 2009 Obama's prize signals European yearning for America's better self BY LEONARD PITTS JR. McCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
! http://www.freep.com/article/20091016/OPINION05/910160317/1322/Obama-s-prize-signals-European-yearning-for-America-s-better-self So I guess now he's a socialist-terrorist-secret-Muslim-radical-Christian-Hitler-clone and Nobel Prize winner? Forgive me for laughing, but half the fun of Friday's surprise news that President Barack Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize lay in anticipating how his political adversaries would react. They did not disappoint. Rush Limbaugh pronounced the award "a greater embarrassment" than Chicago's failure to land the Olympics. Titular GOP leader Michael Steele said the honor reflected only the president's "star power." Blogger Erick Erickson called it "affirmative action." Of course, not even Obama's fiercest defenders -- or, for that matter, the president himself -- could argue with a straight face that he's accomplished anything that merits this prestigious prize, whose previous recipients include Desmond Tutu, Elie Wiesel and Martin Luther King Jr. "To be honest," Obama said, "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." He's right, of course. But then, one suspects that what is really being honored here is not Obama at all -- and that "honored" is probably the wrong verb, to boot. I suspect that last week's award was intended less to honor than to remind. As in, to prod a sometimes amnesiac nation into remembering and reclaiming its very best self. There has always been something rather bipolar about the United States of America. We have seesawed between competing extremes. We've been the visionary and great-hearted America that declared life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness inalienable rights, that fed and rebuilt Europe after a world war, that went to the moon, that inspired the world through the force of its ideals. And we've been the paranoid, reactionary America too small for those same ideals, the xenophobic, fraidy-cat America that wiretaps and witch-hunts and sees Reds behind every lamp post, illegals on every street corner, terrorists at every bus stop. The latter America has asserted itself emphatically in the years since Sept. 11, 2001. Encouraged by President George W. Bush and his endless appeals to expedience and fear, we retreated from our ideals the way you do from a house afire; indeed, we openly questioned whether ideals were still tenable in this frightening new era. In the absence of ideals, we tortured, detained, spied, lied and alibied, all to a chorus of demagogic appeals that would have done Joe McCarthy and Charles Coughlin proud. (2 of 2) Meantime, the world watched and wondered what had become of the other America, the better one. Then along comes Barack Obama promising hope and change. Yes, it was just a political slogan. Except that this slogan from the campaign of 2008 doesn't recede into irrelevance quite as readily as others before it -- mainly because it was not what they were. Not, in other words, simply a tool to be used in a contest between competing political visions. Rather, it was a clarion call for people left bereft by the loss of the better America. It was an invitation to feel clean again for the first time in years. And if the invitation was powerful enough to get Obama elected, it was also powerful enough to lift a world that needs the better America and was beginning to wonder where it had gone. So this prize seems to me less an endorsement of Obama than a stamp of approval for a vision of our national greatness many had feared lost for good. Granted, hope and change don't write health care bills or silence tea party extremists. But they do remind us of the values that are supposed to shape us and of the better America we can sometimes be. Obama's election suggested that some Americans have missed that America. His Nobel Prize suggests they aren't the only ones. Leonard Pitts is a columnist for the Miami Herald, 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla., 33132. Readers may contact him at lpi...@miamiherald.com. Single-page viewNext Page1 | 2Previous Page In Your Voice| Read reactions to this story Newest first Oldest first dummyo wrote: What a bunch of fools. Remember the phrase "Speak softly and carry a big stick" . While you cry and moan about a few speeches intended to chill out the world a little bit, true health care reform is being diluted into a giveaway for insurance companies, bank execs are helping themselves to huge piles of OUR cash, and the exporting of OUR jobs continues. Look past your stupid partisan views and see what is really going on here. If you aren't an exec in a multinational corporation, the right doesn't have much use for you, except as useful idiots. STOP CRUSADING AGAINST YOUR OWN INTERESTS! If you think that war helps anything except big corporations and Islamic extremist recruiters then you just aren't paying close attention. Don't be a lemming. Turn off FOX and do your own research. You have no idea how stupid you sound. 10/16/2009 10:14:12 a.m. EDTWhat a bunch of fools. Remember the phrase "Speak softly and carry a big stick" . While you cry and moan about a few speeches intended to chill out the world a little bit, true health care reform is being diluted into a giveaway for insurance companies, bank execs are helping themselves to huge piles of OUR cash, and the exporting of OUR jobs continues. Look past your stupid partisan views and see what is really going on here. If you aren't an exec in a multinational corporation, the right doesn't have much use for you, except as useful idiots. STOP CRUSADING AGAINST YOUR OWN INTERESTS! If you think that war helps anything except big corporations and Islamic extremist recruiters then you just aren't paying close attention. Don't be a lemming. Turn off FOX and do your own research. You have no idea how stupid you sound. dummyo Recommend New post Reply to this Post Report Abuse HankRearden wrote: "Obama's prize signals European yearning for America's better self". Did they say that? No? No. Blah blah blah. 10/16/2009 9:33:09 a.m. EDT"Obama's prize signals European yearning for America's better self".<br /><br />Did they say that? No? No.<br /><br />Blah blah blah.<br /><br /> HankRearden Recommend New post Reply to this Post Report Abuse mdavt wrote: So Europe is happy that Mr. Obama wants to make us more like them. A major surprise, that. The Uniter has proven to be king of domestic dividers, but many Europeans do love him. 10/16/2009 8:54:11 a.m. EDTSo Europe is happy that Mr. Obama wants to make us more like them. A major surprise, that.<br />The Uniter has proven to be king of domestic dividers, but many Europeans do love him. mdavt Recommend(1) New post Reply to this Post Report Abuse MarieLML wrote: He certainly hasn't brought peace to the USA. I have never seen so many people protesting anything or anyone since the Viet Nam war. Truthfully, I don't care about Europe's opinion. I think they have refrigerator-envy. They WISH they had our life style, our health care, our (is it a thing of the past?) self-confidence. 10/16/2009 8:43:19 a.m. EDTHe certainly hasn't brought peace to the USA. I have never seen so many people protesting anything or anyone since the Viet Nam war.<br /><br />Truthfully, I don't care about Europe's opinion. I think they have refrigerator-envy. They WISH they had our life style, our health care, our (is it a thing of the past?) self-confidence. MarieLML Recommend(1) New post Reply to this Post Report Abuse Bill45 wrote: Only one sentence of this entire slobbering column matters. Pitts writes: "Of course, not even Obama's fiercest defenders -- or, for that matter, the president himself -- could argue with a straight face that he's accomplished anything that merits this prestigious prize, ..."So, then, what really happened is that a handful of America-hating Norwegian leftists gave an award to another America-hating leftist as a reward for his promising to make America the lapdog of left Euro-elites. In one of the most blatantly fabricated quotes in American history Obama's daughter, Malia, supposedly informed Obama of the prize by saying to him "You've won the Nobel Peace Prize and today is Bo's [the dog's] birthday."Perhaps Malia was really telling him that Bo deserved the NPP as much for having a birthday as Obama did for anything he had done. 10/16/2009 8:09:08 a.m. EDTOnly one sentence of this entire slobbering column matters. Pitts writes: "Of course, not even Obama's fiercest defenders -- or, for that matter, the president himself -- could argue with a straight face that he's accomplished anything that merits this prestigious prize, ..."So, then, what really happened is that a handful of America-hating Norwegian leftists gave an award to another America-hating leftist as a reward for his promising to make America the lapdog of left Euro-elites. In one of the most blatantly fabricated quotes in American history Obama's daughter, Malia, supposedly informed Obama of the prize by saying to him "You've won the Nobel Peace Prize and today is Bo's [the dog's] birthday."Perhaps Malia was really telling him that Bo deserved the NPP as much for having a birthday as Obama did for anything he had done. Bill45 Recommend(1) New post Reply to this Post Report Abuse _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
