{"id":5523,"date":"2009-10-09T06:07:16","date_gmt":"2009-10-09T11:07:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=5523"},"modified":"2009-10-09T10:22:58","modified_gmt":"2009-10-09T15:22:58","slug":"cheapening-the-brand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=5523","title":{"rendered":"Cheapening The Brand"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Life is full of ironies, if you’re stupid<\/em>”<\/p>\n

— P.J. O’Rourke<\/p>\n

———-<\/p>\n

Europe is beginning to seethe <\/a>with contempt for the US – partly over the Administration’s early social gaffes, and partly because of its fecklessness.<\/p>\n

The Administration sold the Poles and Czechs down the river, causing two nations that have risked boundlessly to express their allegiance to the US to openly wondering if the US is good for its obligations.
\nIsrael is nervous that the US has abandoned it – or at least that it will when the chips are down, one day.<\/p>\n

Georgia is still rebuilding from when the Soviets<\/strike> Russians gang-raped it.<\/p>\n

Our president bowed to a tin-pot potentate.<\/p>\n

Afghanistan is spiralling into the toilet.\u00a0 (Thankfully, the grownups were in charge long enough to buy Iraq a decent chance).<\/p>\n

The Administration is pushing socialism, which is inevitably disastrous for the environment, and gundecking capitalism, which is the world’s best hope for benefitting <\/em>the environment.<\/p>\n

Iran is building nukes, and there’s not a damn thing we can (or will) do about it (short of defend against them – which the Administration eschews on dogmatic grounds).<\/p>\n

China – a nation that’s killed tens of millions of its own people –\u00a0 is ascendant, while the US,which as recently as twenty years ago freed hundreds of millions, is rapidly neutering itself.<\/p>\n

Naturally, Obama gets the Nobel Peace Prize. <\/a><\/p>\n

President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, citing his outreach to the Muslim world and attempts to curb nuclear proliferation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, after Algore, “cheapening the brand” is all very relative.<\/p>\n

Um, “congratulations”, Mister President.<\/p>\n

UPDATE: Or as Mo Rocca says on Twitter<\/a>, “Nobel Peace Prize officially awarded to “Not George Bush.” Most passive aggressive Nobel ever?<\/span><\/span>”<\/p>\n

UPDATE 2: Nominations for the Peace Prize were due by the end of January.<\/p>\n

Ten days after Obama was inaugurated.<\/p>\n

UPDATE 3: A friend of mine wrote asking if the Onion hadn’t pulled the ultimate hoax.\u00a0 He wasn’t alone<\/a>.<\/p>\n

UPDATE 4: Jeff Rosenberg<\/a> from MNPublius:<\/p>\n

Extraordinary efforts? I\u2019m sorry, but what extraordinary efforts has he made? This prize should be given for a major lifetime achievement, and while I like Obama, this is really, really jumping the\u00a0gun.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even lefties – some of them – are astounded by this.<\/p>\n

UPDATE 5: A prize winner who actually earned one – Lech Walesa, 1983 winner and former president of Poland:<\/p>\n

“So soon? Too early. He has no contribution so far,” former Polish President Lech Walesa, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, said Friday. “He is still at an early stage.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Also, his record since the nominations closed, on February 1, has been so utterly dismal…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Life is full of ironies, if you’re stupid” — P.J. O’Rourke ———- Europe is beginning to seethe with contempt for the US – partly over the Administration’s early social gaffes, and partly because of its fecklessness. The Administration sold the Poles and Czechs down the river, causing two nations that have risked boundlessly to express […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64,73,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-president-obama","category-western-civilization","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5523\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}