Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize – I Agree with Bill O’Reilly?
I hate to be one of millions of voices saying the same thing, but I simply must say something about this.
If you know me, or have read any of my thoughts over the last year, you know that I support President Barrack Obama. I voted for him. As it stands now, I would vote for him again. I don’t support everything he supports but I believe he is the right leader for our nation at this point.
But, like many others, I feel like the Nobel Peace Prize is premature. Along with many of us, the President himself feels that this award was a call to action. A call to follow up his words with deeds. I agree with all of that and I hope it works, but the award should have been given to someone because of his or her accomplishments.
I don’t believe, as some do, that he should have declined the award. The most interesting argument in this regard, though a bit of a stretch in my view, is by Rinku Sen. She writes:
There’s an additional element that affects the struggle for racial justice. Obama talks a lot about personal responsibility for black men. He doesn’t think you should whine and ask for things you’re not willing to earn. Is that just about asking, and never about accepting? Perhaps he will earn it, I’m not saying he won’t, but he hasn’t yet, as he himself acknowledged.
— Obama Should Have Turned It Down
As usual, I also don’t agree with Rush Limbaugh when he claims that this makes our President a laughing stock. He writes:
Folks, the Nobel Peace Prize, we owe ‘em. Our president has become a laughingstock. They are telling jokes about Barack Obama even in State-Controlled Media. ABC is assembling what they think are the funniest jokes that they’re finding anywhere, from blogs to State-Controlled Media sources and so forth and it’s hilarious. Everybody in the world is laughing except the Norwegians, everybody is laughing at our president. You know, I’m a former nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize. I was nominated this year, the year that Gore got the Peace Prize, official nominee. I’m especially qualified to comment on this. I’m much closer to having won a Nobel Peace Prize than any of you people are because I’ve actually been nominated. (laughing) And, by the way, when I was nominated there wasn’t any laughter. No, there was no laughter. There was anger and rage from certain sectors of this country, but there was no laughter. Our president has won the Peace Prize, and he is a standing joke.
— Our President is a Laughingstock: Obama Awarded Nobel Peace Prize
I also don’t subscribe to the notion that Obama won because he is black. Rinku Sen writes:
I’m sure the Nobel committee is very, very smart, but it all made me wonder if they’re so eager to reward the first black president of the U.S. that they wanted to get it done now, just in case he turns out to be a warmonger robbing them of their chance to meet the coolest kid on the block. — Obama Should Have Turned It Down
and this wingnut writes:
I did not realize the Nobel Peace Prize had an affirmative action quota for it, but that is the only thing I can think of for this news. There is no way Barack Obama earned it in the nominations period.
— Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize: He’s Becoming Jimmy Carter Faster Than Jimmy Carter Did.
What surprised me most about all of this is that I agree with Bill O’Reilly’s comments. I’m pleasantly surprised by his comments on this. He writes:
“Talking Points” does not share the dissent — understands it, but does not share it — because having a U.S. president honored with a peace prize is good for the country. We should want the world to think we are a nation that gives peace a chance, because that’s what we are.
In the past, Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson won the prize. Jimmy Carter received it after he left office. Yasser Arafat also won the Nobel Peace Prize, if you can believe it. But so did Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Teresa.
There are times when what’s good for America should trump partisan politics. President Obama was honored Friday, and deserved or not, the world is hearing “America” and “peace” in the same sentence. That’s good.
There are a lot of negative things one might say about this development but I have to agree that this is good for America.