http://satyamshot.wordpress.com/2009/10/09/obama-wins-nobel-peace-prize-in-stunning-news/
Kaleem Hasan’s Obama coverage is second-to-none on the net, and it’s high time he gets some acknowledgement at Wonders in the Dark. An enthralling thread has been building at Satyamshot with reactions from the Indian community and a number of other cross-cultural posters. Since Obama first announced he would run in the Democratic primary, Mr. Hasan has been there with the most comprehensive and impassioned coverage on this monumental world figure. No doubt this is a very happy day for Mr. Hasan, as well it should be.
Please click on above link to read press release and Satyamshot comment posters.
A great day for America, and a sure-fire way to reverse sagging ratings.
Premature at best. Rhetoric does not achievement make.
I agree with Tony on this. I’m not sure why Obama was picked. To his credit, Obama doesn’t seem sure either, and has said he doesn’t deserve it. He’s still accepting it, and rationalizing it as a “call to action” – I don’t know. Would it be horribly poor manners for a U.S. president to refuse the prize? Probably so. Still, it certainly gives more ammo to critics of his supposed hubris.
And it gives him one more distraction from health care and Afghanistan, which should have been his two top priorities – save perhaps the economic crisis – for the past nine months. My worry is that with a large majority in Congress, a still mostly impressed public and media (even if poll numbers have gone done), and a totally irrational and discreditable opposition, his ambition is not being kept in check. I think he could be a great president and terrific leader if someone would just pin him down and hold his feet to the fire. I mean, the biggest Democratic majority in Washington for a generation, and we’re still dropping the public option? Give me a break. And I’m still awaiting the full-on plan for Afghanistan: neither staying the course nor getting out (something both right – the dirty hypocrites – and left seem to favor now, but which would leave us right back where we started before 9/11) make sense.
Focus, Mr. President. Then you can receive (and earn) your award.
Yes, I can only repeat my old favourite line from Dangerous Liaisons and echo Tony and MM, “one does not applaud the tenor for clearing his throat”, nor does one applaud someone for merely saying something. Obama has done nothing to merit it yet. Forgive me for stating the obvious, but the Nobels are just as political as any other award ceremony. The only good thing is that the prize money will at least be given to charity, and frankly, giving away prize money for such a prize is so sickening as to be beyond belief.
Frankly, this has no place here on the site either, it belongs on Kaleem’s as he cannot get through a day without praying to his Obama altar, but not us, please, no, not us…
This post was featured here to honor Mr. Hasan, who has been a loyal and prolific commentator at Wonders in the Dark since the very beginning. I do believe his site “Satyamshot” deserves showcasing, as he’s done much to enrich the world of politics, film and culture. The site may strongly favor film, but theatre, music, politics, literature, food, sports and world events are all part of the mix.
Thanks very much for the very kind introduction here Sam.. I am exhausted after a day of blogging on that thread to argue too much on anything. LOL!
I eagerly await the results of the 80s poll.
Allan of course pulled a Rosenbaum on this one by doing literally the most idiosyncratic list imaginable. Not that I have a problem with it but then I never had one with Rosenbaum either!
Hey, if a genocidal war-monger like Henry Kissinger can win it, then what value does it really hold?
Anyway, the US as a super-power is doomed. It might take another 20 years for it to collapse utterly. $10 trillion plus dollars in debt, all working class and now middle class jobs out-sourced by multi-national Corporations to “Third World” countries (leaving only service jobs) – all technical knowledge passed to what would have been considered it’s competitors, a miltary-industrial-media-political complex that thinks nothing about lossing $2 (or was it one) trillion dollars off its books. The only thing left is the film industry. One slightly soft left politician is pretty much useless.
What exactly did Obama do to win?
I believe the term is “waxed lyrical”
Frankly, he’s just as deserving as plenty of other winners. Or, if you want to be cynical about it, just as undeserving. As Bobby J mentioned, did Kissinger deserve it for taking part in ending the Vietnam War? Did Arafat and Rabin deserve it for trying (and FAILING) to end hostilities in Israel? George Catlett Marshall for dreaming up the Marshall Plan? And let’s not forget the people who were nominated in the past, but never won, like GHANDI.
The people who hand out the Nobel Peace Prizes have historically applauded whoever won headlines with their virtues that year without thinking about the sins they’d committed in the past. Then again, the prize is named after the guy who invented DYNAMITE, for Christ’s sake, so let’s not take it too seriously.
Yep, my point was that Kissenger expanded the war into Cambodia and hid it from the American people and Congress. And it inadvertently allowed the Kamer Rouge to seize power. He and Ford also ok the genocide of East Timorians.
by the way Sam, what happened to Monday Morning Diary?
scratch that, just read it Tuesday Morning Diary.