T1B

BSmack wrote:So, the closest we have is Terry with the vague generalization that some folks in a link he provided have a "more complete" record. My assumption is that they have "more experience" because when I look at the causes they are working on, not a one of them is even remotely close to fruition.

Terry in Crapchester wrote:In any event, even if this is essentially a "At Least he's not Dubya" award, I'm okay with that. After all, it's always fun to point out to the righties here the nearly universal contempt in which their hero is held, even if they, and he, wear that contempt as a badge of honor.

Terry in Crapchester wrote:

BSmack wrote:So, the closest we have is Terry with the vague generalization that some folks in a link he provided have a "more complete" record. My assumption is that they have "more experience" because when I look at the causes they are working on, not a one of them is even remotely close to fruition.

Any efforts in peace are always a work in progress, wouldn't you agree? We humans suck at peace, unfortunately.

And after having had the opportunity to think about this over the weekend, I'm in a "why ask why" mode. Not to sound Vogelish, but we are witnessing a rare moment in history. Only three sitting U.S. Presidents ever received the Nobel Peace Prize, and anyone who posts on this board ('cept maybe Wolfman) is too young to remember another President receiving the award.

The 2010 Nobel Peace Prize
If Obama 2009 is the reindeer steak, Polanski 2010 will be the lingonberry sauce.

By Mary Eberstadt

MEMORANDUM
TO: Thorbjørn Jagland, Chairperson, Norwegian Nobel Committee
FROM: Your 2010 Peace Prize Search Committee

Dear Sir:

First, our warmest congratulations on your committee’s stunning Prize choice for 2009!

We hope that you don’t let the carping from around the world get you down. Okay, so Barack Obama is to global experience what Silvio Berlusconi is to stoicism. But what’s a worldwide embarrassment compared to typing “Norway” into Google News and actually getting hits back? So what if Lech Walesa — all right, and a few million other critics — complained, “Who, Obama? So fast? Too fast.” Tell Walesa he can kiss this year’s pickled-herring gift box goodbye. What did he ever do for world peace, anyway?

On the other hand, that’s some new standard you’ve set in a Peace Prize winner! Not to mention a hard act for your 2010 search committee to follow. Michael Moore we rejected as just too obvious. Hugo Chávez’s 15 seconds have come and gone. Given the challenges of finding a candidate who can live up to this year’s winner, we also took a long hard look at the posthumous possibilities. But these too seemed overfished. We thought of honoring Martin Luther King Jr. again, but his ability actually to give a compelling speech, as opposed to just getting praised for such, made some search-committee members worry about odious comparisons to the 2009 winner. And Jesus Christ was unanimously rejected as too divisive.

Nevertheless, and despite the challenges, we’re pleased to report that we have arrived at a truly serendipitous Candidate for 2010.

1. First and most important, as a peacemaker our Candidate has already accomplished the nearly impossible: He has united political opinion on the American Left, Right, and Center as no one else in recent memory.

Admittedly, what has brought those factions together is the idea of locking our Candidate in an American slammer and losing the key. But let’s not overemphasize the negative here. Not even our 2009 Prize winner can claim to have made Katha Pollitt write like Ann Coulter. We can hardly wait to see how our Candidate unifies opinion in the Middle East!

2. Similarly, though in a different way, our Candidate for the 2010 Peace Prize has also united Hollywood like no other criminal offender in years (Heidi Fleiss arguably excepted).

Recall the entertainment community’s courageous defense of our Candidate during his recent time of need. It’s a safe bet that no one will be happier with our proposed choice for 2010. And you know what that means: No more packing dried codfish for the next global-warming workshops in L.A. We’ll get a place at the sushi bar somewhere now for sure. N.B.: Speaking of paparazzi, imagine the sensation Whoopi Goldberg will cause in Oslo! Idea: We might even want her to confer the “prize prize,” in recognition of her statement that what the Candidate did wasn’t “rape rape.”

3. Further to his moral credit, our Candidate also shows promise of drawing attention to a group badly in need of humanitarian aid: sex tourists who shop for kids. Like Pee-Wee Herman before him, our Candidate stands to become a peacemaker in the most important way of all: as a rallying cry for an oppressed sexual minority.

In fact, he already is one. Just look at the courageous example of French culture minister Frédéric Mitterrand, who defended our Candidate against the puritanical Americans — and who now turns out to have written in an “autobiographical novel” about all those “boys” he has romanced for pay in hot-hot-hot Thailand. “The abundance of very attractive and immediately available young boys put me in a state of desire,” M. Mitterrand explained. Personally, your search committee cannot understand what M. Mitterrand’s critics are complaining about. Where did they expect him to go looking for half-naked Asian boys who’ll do anything for money? The Finnmark Plateau?

4. The increased fraternity and empowering of sex tourists around the world will further advance another important cause: the redistribution of wealth from the advanced nations to the developing ones, thus benefiting the local economies that need it most.

This happy result, we submit, is additional evidence of our Candidate’s future promise as a peacemaker. And since Norway in particular is obviously heavier on the export than the import side of sex tourism, the Nobel Committee’s decision will make plain that we are prepared to act even against our own economic interests. That’s one disclaimer that might come in handy as we try to recoup the world’s good opinion after 2009!

In sum, Mr. Chairperson, as you put it so compellingly in defending your choice of Obama, “Can someone tell me who did more than him this year?” We respectfully suggest that depending on what the meaning of “did” was, our Candidate might just take the smoked lamb’s head.

Again, look at the bright side: Plenty of folks right now think Obama is the most inappropriate honoree for the Nobel Peace Prize in history. At a minimum, Roman Polanski 2010 will prove them wrong!

BSmack wrote:Can you name one personal success she has had that contributes to world peace?

Diogenes wrote:Roger Bate has identified a very worthy candidate for the Prize.

IndyFrisco wrote:I really like how BSmack keeps avoiding this:

Diogenes wrote:Roger Bate has identified a very worthy candidate for the Prize.

Perfectly good candidate along with a set of accomplishments extremely worthy. See that? ACCOMPLISHMENTS. Not (bad) ideas that have not nor likely will never come to fruition.

BSmack wrote:Oh, and as the link you copied says, Mugabe is still making his country a living hell.

BSmack wrote:

IndyFrisco wrote:I really like how BSmack keeps avoiding this:

Diogenes wrote:Roger Bate has identified a very worthy candidate for the Prize.

Perfectly good candidate along with a set of accomplishments extremely worthy. See that? ACCOMPLISHMENTS. Not (bad) ideas that have not nor likely will never come to fruition.

I've had Boldiogenes on ignore since he came back. Occasionally I'll manually open one of his posts, but most of the time I allow the ignore feature to do its job and make this board more readable.

Oh, and as the link you copied says, Mugabe is still making his country a living hell. Were it not for multilateral pressure brought to bear on Mugabe, even Tsvangirai's token presence would have never happened.

Earlier this month the International Monetary Fund agreed to extend a line of credit for $800 million. And other nations have donated funds as long as they were spent on humanitarian efforts. Media reports indicate that the lives of the majority of people have marginally improved since Tsvangirai was made prime minister roughly a year ago.

The U.S. Senate will include President Barack Obama's request for up to $100 billion for the International Monetary Fund in its bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,

BSmack wrote:

IndyFrisco wrote:What has Obama done to deserve the NPP?

Any more deflections and you're done here...not that you haven't already accomplished that in this thread. Your avoidance is as mJewesque as I've seen since...well, mJew's last bail. Answer or STFU.

Jsc810 wrote:Glenn Beck has a conniption fit and demands that the president not accept what may be the world’s most prestigious honor?

Let the rejectionists fulminate and sputter until they wear themselves out. Politically, they’re only bashing themselves. As Republican leaders—except RNC Chairman Michael Steele—are beginning to realize, “I’m With the Taliban Against America” is not likely to be a winning slogan.

Jsc810 wrote: Does anyone remember the controversy over Henry Kissinger or Yasser Arafat or F.W. de Klerk?

The problem for the addlebrained Obama-rejectionists is that the president, as far as they are concerned, couldn’t possibly do anything right

IndyFrisco wrote:Jsc,

I think it is that most conservatives and pretty much everyone except the far left can't stand what he is doing (plus what else he is TRYING to do) to our own damn country that he should get no recognition for what he's NOT doing elsewhere in the world.

The problem for the addlebrained Obama-rejectionists is that the president, as far as they are concerned, couldn’t possibly do anything right

Mikey wrote:

IndyFrisco wrote:Jsc,

I think it is that most conservatives and pretty much everyone except the far left can't stand what he is doing (plus what else he is TRYING to do) to our own damn country that he should get no recognition for what he's NOT doing elsewhere in the world.

I think that you're pretty much wrong. But then myopia is a fairly common trait among middle age white males.

Eugene Robinson wrote:The problem for knowledgeable Americans is that the president, as far as they are concerned, couldn’t possibly do anything right

IndyFrisco wrote:

Mikey wrote:

IndyFrisco wrote:Jsc,

I think it is that most conservatives and pretty much everyone except the far left can't stand what he is doing (plus what else he is TRYING to do) to our own damn country that he should get no recognition for what he's NOT doing elsewhere in the world.

I think that you're pretty much wrong. But then myopia is a fairly common trait among middle age white males.

Says the far left myopic.

Mikey wrote:

IndyFrisco wrote:

IndyFrisco wrote:Jsc,

I think it is that most conservatives and pretty much everyone except the far left can't stand what he is doing (plus what else he is TRYING to do) to our own damn country that he should get no recognition for what he's NOT doing elsewhere in the world.

I'm not the one who thinks that I know what PRETTY MUCH EVERYONE thinks. You apparently consider anybody who doesn't think to be "the far left".

Martyred wrote:Obama can have a cigarette and a blindfold.

Go ahead and discuss that at your country club, IndyCuntflaps.

Mikey wrote:...fellow mental six year olds.

IndyFrisco wrote:

Martyred wrote:Obama can have a cigarette and a blindfold.

Go ahead and discuss that at your country club, IndyCuntflaps.

We already discussed that. Just a pipe dream. Hard to smoke a cig with a bag over your head.

Diogenes wrote:

Mikey wrote:...fellow mental six year olds.

Quit projecting. I'm no Leftist.

Martyred wrote:Your president is a piece of shit.

Bizzarofelice wrote:I don't get the "everyone but the far left thinks this guy is a fuck up" comment.

Why couldn't he get the shitty Plan bill through? Even Democrats were opposed to the initial version of the bill. Even Democrats were critical of his initial request for the $100 billion IMF "loan" (as if we are in the god damned position to loan $100 billion to anyone). Why is Gitmo still open? Why have our troops not been pulled out? He does not have full support of his party for the promises he has made, or he would have delivered SOMETHING by now besides more debt.

Bizzarofelice wrote:Oh. You were talking about the white males on this board.

Bizzarofelice wrote: I thought the Pres' approval was still above 50%

Martyred wrote:...Luksusowa.