Screw the Children
If you’ll pardon the hackneyed expression, what if Bush had done this?
Obama had quite a whirlwind day Thursday – he signed the Nobel guest book, huddled with Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, met with King Harald V and Queen Sonja, and delivered an acceptance speech after he was formally presented with the prize. He also joined the king and queen at an evening banquet.
But he skipped out on several other activities, including lunch with the king, a news conference at Oslo’s Grand Hotel, CNN’s traditional interview with the prize winner and a “Save the Children” benefit concert, where organizers replaced him with an Obama cardboard cutout. Obama also won’t be around for Friday’s Nobel Concert.
Skipping out on a Nobel Concert? Outrageous! You just can’t hear Grieg’s Piano Concerto enough times (actually, you can).
I just want to know where we can get a Obama cardboard cutout. It’s almost benign:
If Tiger were truly advising President Obama, he’d never have blown off the event. So many cute blonde girls: a target-rich opportunity.
But let’s get serious (for once), and have a brief look at yet another speech by the Great Orator himself, mmm-mmm-mmm:
I am at the beginning, and not the end, of my labors on the world stage. Compared to some of the giants of history who have received this prize - Schweitzer and King; Marshall and Mandela - my accomplishments are slight.
Aw, come on, Barack: Arafat and Carter, Gore and El Baradei. You’re right where you belong.
I am satisfied that he justified the necessary use of war at a peace prize ceremony—even if CodeSkank must be gagging up a hair ball—but I wish he’d stop inflating his own importance:
Martin Luther King said in this same ceremony years ago - “Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones.” As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King’s life’s work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there is nothing weak -nothing passive - nothing naïve - in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.
Aren’t we all people “who stand here as a direct consequence of Dr. King’s life’s work”? Didn’t his life and death transform all of America? Can’t his model serve as an inspiration to me? My first sports heroes were (by sport) Roberto Clemente, Bobby Orr, Paul Warfield, and Bill Russell—a Puerto Rican, a Canadian, and two black men, a veritable United Nations of Hall of Famers. But it wasn’t intentional or self-conscious. I just wish President Obama stopped reminding us so often of his Historic Importance (nce-nce-nce).
I don’t have the stamina to go much further, but one last point:
[E]ven as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by no rules, I believe that the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war. That is what makes us different from those whom we fight. That is a source of our strength. That is why I prohibited torture. That is why I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed. And that is why I have reaffirmed America’s commitment to abide by the Geneva Conventions.
You “ordered” Guantanamo closed? That’s like saying I “ordered” Pamela Anderson to disrobe. Neither is likely to happen any time soon (thank God—such human degradation and disfiguring should not be made widely known lest it inflame the public).
And I’m too tired of the torture argument to take it up here. We are just lucky that the Bush administration was in power when it was. And we’ll just have to survive this one as best we can.