Obama's Nobel Peace Prize becoming a political lead weight
President Obama鈥檚 Nobel Peace Prize is looking less and less like a shiny trophy for his mantel and more like a political lead anchor.
Far from fading from public discussion, Obama鈥檚 surprise Nobel win just keeps generating comment, derision, and gratuitous advice about what he can do with it. At the very least, it鈥檚 become a grinding distraction at a time when he鈥檚 trying to fix things like healthcare and Afghanistan.
And now that the five Norwegians who gave him the award argued among themselves over the Obama pick.
True, there are those who laud Obama鈥檚 award.
At , Joe Conason writes: 鈥淗e kicked out the neoconservative faction, led by former Vice President Dick Cheney, that prefers armed confrontation to diplomacy -- and the world applauded in relief, along with the majority of Americans.鈥�
Actually, Cheney is back to hector Obama. That would be Liz Cheney, the former vice president鈥檚 daughter. She鈥檚 just formed a group called Their target is Obama鈥檚 鈥渞adical鈥� foreign policies, reports .
But even more friendly commentators worry that Obama鈥檚 Nobel 鈥渢hreatens to become a central metaphor of Barack Obama's turbocharged political career,鈥� as Time鈥檚 Joe Klein put it.
鈥淗e seems fated to be feted for who he is not (George W. Bush) and who he might turn out to be, but not for things he has actually done. This is dangerous stuff, politically. It almost guarantees disappointment,鈥� Klein writes.
Other analyses are more sharply-pointed, some bordering on the vicious.
Daniel Henninger, deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, says the award reflects an age of 鈥減olitical decadence鈥� -- especially in what former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld liked to call 鈥渙ld Europe.鈥�
鈥淭he unanswered question at the center of this odd Nobel is whether Barack Obama admires Old Europe for the same reasons it admires him,鈥� Henninger writes. 鈥淲hen it was a vibrant garden of ideas, Europe gave the world more good things than one can count. Then it discovered the pleasures of the welfare state.鈥�
Ouch. Aid and comfort to the 鈥淥bama鈥檚 a socialist鈥� crowd.
So if Obama was given the Nobel mainly for not being George W. Bush, as many commentators have concluded, what might he actually do to deserve it as he proceeds through his term as president?
At the , Heather Horn surveys the free-advice scene to take note of 鈥�5 ways Obama can 鈥榚arn鈥� his Nobel Peace Prize.
Here at the Monitor, columnist and former editor John Hughes (who鈥檚 also a former Republican administration official) lists all the problems -- from Social Security to global warming to Iran and North Korea -- that Obama faces, suggesting that it鈥檚 too soon to count achievements.
鈥淎lthough he seems to be everywhere, popping up daily on television -- on five different networks in separate interviews in one day recently -- his elegant phraseology and soaring words of hope leave behind a formidable list of problems to be solved,鈥� Hughes writes.
Obama probably wouldn鈥檛 disagree.
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