I will have a post up a little later looking at the merits of the Nobel Committee's decision to award President Obama with the Peace Prize. For now, however, I want to focus on the messaging of the award. It is pretty great:
Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts.(...)
Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.(...)
His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.
Shorter Nobel Committee: we really hated unilateral Republican foreign policy. In fact, we hated it so much, we are going to give President Obama the award pretty much for just not being a Republican. Just having the United States talk to other countries is good enough for us.
Seriously--it is hard to read this award as anything but the Nobel Committee giving the middle finger to American exceptionalism as the driving force behind American international relations.
The messaging from the DNC in response to Republican outcries is pretty exceptional, too:
The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists - the Taliban and Hamas this morning - in criticizing the President for receiving the Nobel Peace prize. Republicans cheered when America failed to land the Olympics and now they are criticizing the President of the United States for receiving the Nobel Peace prize - an award he did not seek but that is nonetheless an honor in which every American can take great pride - unless of course you are the Republican Party. The 2009 version of the Republican Party has no boundaries, has no shame and has proved that they will put politics above patriotism at every turn. It's no wonder only 20 percent of Americans admit to being Republicans anymore - it's an embarrassing label to claim. .
Wow! That is just about the most aggressive, hard-hitting rhetoric I have ever read from a Democratic Party committee. It is like Alan Grayson wrote this response.
So, say what you will about the merits of the award--which I will discuss a bit later on--but the messaging is phenomenal. The world gives the finger to Republicans, Republicans can once again cheer against America, and Democrats actually get aggressive in their response messaging. That's not nothin'.
Update: Just to be clear, I like that the DNC is willing to be so aggressive, not that they are calling everyone who disagrees with the award Taliban sympathizers. |
