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Republican Pre-Conditions
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Citizens United v. F.E.C. (Part 4): Kennedy's and O'Connor's Basic Approaches to Constitutional Decisionmaking – Top Down and Bottom Up
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Collector Car Hobby Loses One of the Best—Jim Roll
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Decisions Decisions: Credit Cards or Your Mortgage?
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Loucile is looking for a Lake Erie getaway in June for three kids, ages 1, 3, and 5.
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Talk of the Town – Top entertainment picks for the weekend
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Track HR Research
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Do IT this week: Layering
Award a reminder of the gap between his promises and accomplishments
By Adam Nagourney
New York Times
Published on Saturday, Oct 10, 2009
WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama is given to big events at big moments, replete with stirring speeches, lofty backdrops and stadium-size crowds.
But when Obama walked into the Rose Garden on Friday morning, having just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize — normally cause for high celebration, if not the culmination of a life's work — he was humble and self-deprecatory, popping a hole in the balloon of his accomplishment. He talked about being congratulated by his daughter Malia, who proceeded to remind him that it was the family dog's birthday, and he suggested that he was undeserving.
''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,'' he said.
Whatever it meant on the world stage, in the United States the award to Obama
was a decidedly mixed blessing. It was a reminder of the gap between the ambitious promise of his words and his accomplishments.
The award drew attention to the fact that while much of the world was celebrating Obama as the anti-Bush, he had not broken as fully as he had once implied he would from the previous administration's national security policies. And it set off another round of mocking criticism from opponents who have chafed at what they see as the charmed and entitled rise of Obama.
So while he accepted the award and said he would travel to Oslo to pick it up, Obama also sought to minimize any impression that he was basking in the glory or forgetting that he was a long way from achieving the goals — ridding the world of nuclear weapons, stopping global warming, bringing peace to the Middle East, among others — that the judges seemed to expect of him.
A mixed response
There are, without doubt, benefits to Obama. Democrats moved quickly to portray the Nobel as an honor to the United States after years of being an object of some scorn. For the liberal base of the Democratic Party, the prize is a ratification of the belief that Obama's election would carry powerful symbolic meaning. Abroad, it provides Obama additional stature to be lumped with the likes of Nelson Mandela and Lech Walesa.
''I'd like to believe that winning the Nobel Peace Prize is not a political liability,'' said David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Obama. ''But this isn't something I gave a moment of thought to until today. Hopefully, people will receive it with some sense of pride. But I don't know; it's uncharted waters.''
It was all but impossible to escape the fact that in the politically polarized world where Obama operates — locked these days in a fierce debate over overhauling the health plan that is central to his presidency — this was another complication. Even before Obama made it to the Rose Garden, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, had issued a statement mocking him, a line of attack that was echoed on conservative blogs and radio talk shows throughout the day.
''Can you imagine, folks, how big Obama's head is today?'' Rush Limbaugh, the conservative talk-show host, asked his listeners. ''I think it's getting so big that his ears actually fit.''
Symbol vs. leader
The timing of the announcement was not ideal. Fairly or not, an emerging criticism on the left and the right is that after nine months, Obama has not gotten much done.
Related to the question of whether his record justified the award was the notion of whether Obama, to some degree, remains as much a symbol as a flesh-and-blood political leader. The image of Europe celebrating him as a global peacemaker recalled the period during the presidential race when Sen. John McCain's campaign portrayed Obama as a vapid celebrity playing to huge European crowds, a line of attack that left the normally sure-footed Obama team flummoxed.
It is hardly clear that the award will have any long-term impact on the public's perception of Obama or of his agenda. It came at a time when his prospects for getting the Democratic-controlled Congress to pass some kind of health bill seems stronger than ever; as Obama's advisers said, a victory like that could go a lot further in shaping public perceptions than attacks from conservatives.
Still, this White House was leaving little to chance. His muted speech was followed hours later by an e-mail message to supporters echoing many of those same self-deprecatory themes.
At the same time, Democrats quickly began making the argument that this was an honor less for this president, and more for this country, and that no one should offer any apologies.
''The Nobel Committee couldn't award the peace prize to the voters of the United States, but that's what they are doing,'' said Bob Kerrey, the former Democratic senator from Nebraska.
Whatever the case, the White House clearly hopes that this is one celebration where the congratulations do not go on for too long.
A few hours after his Rose Garden appearance, Obama was addressing dignitaries in the East Room about consumer financial regulations, in one of the orchestrated events that have become so familiar during the first year of his presidency.
WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama is given to big events at big moments, replete with stirring speeches, lofty backdrops and stadium-size crowds.
Get the full article here.
Comments
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Orrville, Oh
Posted 06:55 PM, 10/10/2009
President Barrack Obama gap between promises; and complying; with demands; of Natural Law: what Mother Nature, God, or Whatever Power decreed to be the reality of the real world, God, democracy, capitalism, the US Constitution, and free, fair, and affordable commerce.
Demanding every corporation, farmer, business, outsourcer sweatshop, and nonprofit, tax-exempt, organization and Church; markets the cost; in the wholesale and retail price of his or her product and service; Of every workers, consumers, and taxpayers living (including pension and health care); enabling parents to love, nurse, nurture, discipline, protect, and provide for every child (job) they conceive; and fund schools, infrastructure, national security, government services, and etc.; with money derived from wages or independent business profit.
This defiance of realities demands; Makes free, fair, and affordable commerce IMPOSSIBLE; Makes funding schools, infrastructure, and etc. IMPOSSIBLE; Makes balancing every budget IMPOSSIBLE; Makes union workers, consumers, taxpayers, and America’s grandchildren’s children LIFE UNAFFORDABLE; and created the $40 trillion social security and the $9.3 trillion national debt. America’s grandchildren’s children are responsible to pay interest with this debt until they are 18 years old. Then pay the debt with the $7.30 per hour government mandated labor wage.
There is no reason to believe America’s grandchildren’s children that go to bed hungry can afford life; and pay this debt; with the $7.30 per hour; government mandated labor wage; in a hundred million years; with money derived from wages or independent business profit!
