Barack Obama & The Nobel Peace Prize

The three most insightful columns I've read on the awarding of Barack Obama the Nobel Peace Prize are these:

• Dennis Prager - Why the Nobel Committee gave it to him
  
  
• Peggy Noonan - A Wicked and Ignorant Award
  
  
• Thomas Friedman - The speech President Obama should give

P.S. Please keep in mind that Thomas Friedman is an American liberal.

The Beginning of the End: Undoing the Mistake of 0-8

Olympics Defeat Will Hurt Obama [Peter Wehner]

I will, with some hesitation, dissent from Jonah’s political analysis. My instinct is that the Chicago Olympics fiasco will hurt President Obama a fair amount and that it’s not an “inside-the-Beltway” phenomenon (I usually think the “inside-the-Beltway” vs. “rest of America” mindset is overdone).

In my judgment, what happened Friday will begin to cement an image about Obama that is negative — that his supposed “golden touch” is very nearly the opposite; that his rhetorical talents and appeal are vastly overstated (he delivers a major health-care speech to a joint session of Congress and it does nothing to move the needle; he then makes a personal appeal to the IOC and Chicago is dropped from the list in the first round); and that he is a surprisingly weak figure who is easily rolled by Democrats on Capitol Hill, by adversaries around the world, and, now, by the IOC.

So much of politics has to do with when disparate issues metastasize, for good or ill. I don’t know if we’re at that point with Obama just yet — but we’re a good deal closer than we were. He hurt his prestige a great deal today, and he failed in an environment when things look bad and he is beginning to seem overmatched on almost every front. (The slapdown by the IOC, when combined with the unemployment rate reaching its highest point since 1983, is a tough combination for the White House.)

Things can, of course, change, and change quickly. But I suspect this moment will be remembered as one that adds to an increasingly negative “narrative” of the Obama presidency.

Few presidents have suffered this much loss of support in so short a period of time — and things will probably get worse before they get better. Friday didn’t help. Mr. Obama has sustained a political wound at a vulnerable moment for him.

Obama Self-Portrait

Chicago Eliminated in the First Round

Prescience

I recently started reading Joker One, a book about the experiences of U.S. Marines in Iraq. It was written by Donovan Campbell. The last sentence of Part 1 of the book (on Page 59) begins thusly:

But hope is not a course of action . . .

Having read Charles Krauthammer's latest column earlier this evening I was struck by the prescience of Mr. Campbell's words. For they have equally great impact when applied to Barack Obama's [lack of] foreign policy.

Amateur Hour at the White House

Jennifer Rubin reports.

Barack Obama & His 3 Stooges

Everything is Now Racist!

The False Logic of Those Using the Race Card over Obamacare

Charles Krauthammer's Take on Maureen Dowd

Congress Veers Left on Health Care

Interesting article by Kimberley A. Strassel.

Best comment of the bunch:

Does anyone really believe that Obama will not do what Obama has always wanted to do?

The country that voted him into power does not like what he is proposing? So?? A tyrannical despot does not care as to what the country may think or how it may have changed even if it did vote him (53% anyway) in as President.

HealthCare is the biggest prize for Obama's philosophy - to contain and destroy as much of the productive capacities of the US of A and take away as much personal freedom people may have and place as much control in the hand of Federal Bureaucrats and authoritarians who would control every aspect of people's lives.

Great Insights from Stephen A. Smith

The Coming Downfall of the American Economy

Charles Krauthammer Responds to Evan Thomas' Pronouncement

In response to this idiotic comment by Newsweek's Evan Thomas, Charles Krauthammer shares his thoughts.

The Great Divide Between the Left and the Right

Barack Obama has quickly proven to be a lightning rod between the Left and the Right. He clearly inspires the former yet makes the latter wince with great skepticism.

Andrew Cline has written a new article that explains this divide. Here's a snippet:

President Obama's approach to foreign policy rests entirely on [the premise that other nations and peoples are motivated primarily by a desire to get along with others]. If he is right, amazing accomplishments await. If he is wrong, reality awaits instead.

Obama's Promises vs. Reality

Barack Obama's Cairo Speech

I commend Barack Obama for giving the speech in Cairo, Egypt. You can watch it in full here and read the entire text here. I don't agree with everything he said but at least he has put his cards on the table. This clearly was a much more friendly speech than would have been given by George Bush. The question is, will Obama's approach actually do anything? Here are some reactions hand picked by the BBC.

Now that Obama has shown his cards, here are some questions I have:

• What will governments throughout the so-called Muslim world do in response?
• According to the Left, harmony with America on the "Arab street" should now result. Will it?
  
• Will the rights of Muslim women be greatly strengthened? Even one little bit?
  
• Will citizens be given similar human rights to those we in the West have?
  
• If none of these things occur can we then agree that Obama's approach was naive?

I'll also be most interested to see the reaction from Israel. As I've long said, I believe the Israel-Palestinian situation cannot be resolved because only one side wants peace. Furthermore, I firmly believe that certain dark forces throughout the Muslim world want the Palestinian people to keep on suffering in their squalid conditions because if that were ever to end, it would not suit their political objectives.

More than anyone, I do hope that things improve for the billions of Muslims around the world. But I think it has a lot more to do with them than anything any American President can hope to do.

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Update: Here's a humorous take on Obama's speeches of late.

Invasion of the Bodysnatchers [in the MSM]

Carefully watch this video of NBC's Brian Williams. You will see him actually bow to Barack Obama!

After watching this video, is there any surprise about Robert J. Samuelson's recent editorial?

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Here's another version:

The New GM: Socialist Motors

I'm very disturbed by the news today that the Obama Administration will now effectively be running GM. This is a very bad sign in the long history of American capitalism.

Amongst the strangest of the news of this government takeover is that the person managing it all will be a 31 year-old law student named Brian Deese. His experience in the automobile industry to date is . . . absolutely zero. In fact, I don't actually believe that he has ever worked in the private sector whatsoever. So why is Mr. Deese involved in this at all?

Henry Payne provides some interesting background information on what led up to this day. Hugh Hewitt and his listeners discussed the issue as well.

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Thinking ahead a few moves . . . Barack Obama is clearly staking his future on this plan. I strongly suspect that very few conservatives (which polls indicate constitute 60% of Americans) are going to buy a government made car. So that leaves the remaining 40% of Americans. There will be a HUGE push to get this latter group to buy GM cars.

After all, GM is now the perfect company for the Left:

• Government controlled
• Employing highly paid union workers
• No more "greedy capitalists" at the helm to mess things up

The question is, do you think that the Leftists and Limousine liberals will walk their talk? Will they put their money where their collective mouths are? Will they give up their Priuses and Honda Civics and Smart Cars and Lexuses and BMWs and instead buy GM cars? Obama's future depends upon it.

Obama's Strongest Adjectives

Mark Steyn shares his thoughts on Barack Obama's fecklessness when it comes to threats from Barack Obama. Here's a sampling:

The president's general line on the geopolitical big picture is: I don't need this in my life right now. He's a domestic transformationalist, working overtime – via the banks, the automobile industry, health care, etc. – to advance statism's death grip on American dynamism. His principal interest in the rest of the world is that he doesn't want anyone nuking America before he's finished turning it into a socialist basket case. As the comedian Andy Borowitz put it, "President Obama said that the United States was prepared to respond to the threat with 'the strongest possible adjectives'."