For a change of pace, instead of me blathering on and on about the obviously preposterous, I’ve pulled a few quotes from the brilliants. And of course I award them all my PTBC Quote of the Week Award, which I’m sure they will accept …with great humility … as unworthy recipients…
…Assuming the White House did nothing to encourage or lobby for the award, it is not Barack Obama’s fault that he has been embarrassed by this honor. And it may possibly hold for him an unanticipated benefit. It may give him pause: Look what idiots my biggest international supporters are. I may have to rethink a few things. …
—Peggy Noonan
WSJ October 10 2009
She’s right. This should help. It’s a like a free teaching moment. All of America — and Canada — should rethink a few things.
…Mr. Obama sees the U.S. differently, as weaker than it was and the rest of the planet as stronger, and so he calls for a humbler America, at best a first among equals, working primarily through the U.N. The world’s challenges, he emphasized yesterday, “can’t be met by any one leader or any one nation.” What this suggests to us—and to the Norwegians—is the end of what has been called “American exceptionalism.” This is the view that U.S. values have universal application and should be promoted without apology, and defended with military force when necessary. …
The lead editorial,
Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2009
And possibly the best conclusion is drawn by John Podhoretz, the son of one of my intellectual mentors, Norman Podhoretz, in the “Contentions” blog of dad’s legendary Commentary Magazine.
The Michael Moore of Oslo
John Podhoretz – 10.09.2009 – 10:06 AMI can’t agree with my colleagues here on CONTENTIONS that a) Barack Obama should reject the Nobel Peace Prize or b) be embarrassed by it. The Nobel Committee chose him wisely because he does, in fact, represent the organization’s highest ideals.
He is an American president queasy about the projection of American power. He is an American president who rejects the notion of American exceptionalism. He is an American president eagerly in pursuit of legitimacy to be granted him not by those who voted for him but by those who do not cast a vote and who chafe at American leadership. It is his devout wish that America become one of many nations, influencing the world indirectly or not influencing it at all, rather than “the indispensable nation,” as Madeleine Albright characterized it. He is the encapsulation, the representative, the wish fulfillment, the very embodiment, of the multilateralist impulse. He is, almost literally, a dream come true for the sorts of people who treasure and value the Nobel Peace Prize.
It’s the most obvious choice, once you think about it, since Michael Moore won an Oscar for Bowling for Columbine.
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
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