Morning Joe

Wait, who won the what now?

I’m an avid supporter of Obama, but I’m a little surprised by this award myself. It seems more like an effort to help the president help the global community as opposed to rewarding him for some amazing thing he may have done. I’m not saying that’s necessarily wrong, but I do wonder if that’s the path the Nobel really wants to take.My concern is that it will undermine Obama. How many other world leaders are going to begin to be sick of hearing about Obama the Superstar? Will that have a negative effect?It looks like they chose to give him some cover and some clout to accomplish the things he wants to accomplish. Health care for all Americans would have a good effect on our economy which would have a good effect on the world. I get that, but is the prize meant for this? There are things Obama is doing that I disagree with, and some of those things seem to fly in the face of the Prize. Just some thoughts, not trying to raise anyone’s hackles here.

The full citation read: “The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.”“Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the United States is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.”This is a great honor and it is silly to say it might harm Obama’s efforts. Have another cup of coffee! He most certainly does deserve it. He has already changed world diplomacy.This is also a slap to the neocon/Bush policy of telling the world to shove it.

The right will spend great energy telling us that the Nobel Peace Prize is worthless and socialist. And that even if it weren’t such a horrible award, that President Obama doesn’t deserve it.

even some on the left are dismissing the awardsee Josh Marshall at TPM

@eve:>>even some on the left are dismissing the awardWhat the fcuk is wrong with people?

I’m stunned at the Morning Joe reaction. It’s just nuts.Congratulations to President Obama!QT

Ok,my take…1) They decided this 12 days before he became president ( I guess they liked what they saw)!2) To get a racist country like America to vote for a bi-racial president, with a majority I might add, and he did it with dignity,class and panache, whilst giving hope, is enough for a nobel prize, as well as all the other stuff he did before being president.3) It is only the Americans who do not realise and appreciate what they have.4)Everytime I talk to someone now, because of the daily rants that come through global world,the conclusion is that people are now realising just how folksy,mythical and unenlightened people in America are…sorry to say!5)A whole panel of people unanimously voted for this.And, no-one has yet to come up with, judging from the other names nominated,who else could have been given it?P.S After listening to the cynicism of the talk cable ‘opinionistas’, please could some-one tell me…WHAT ARE THE VALUE of these shows anyway? You learn nothing, Nada ..nothing! What you do get is disgusted!

Wait. Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize? Within nine months of his presidency? And W. got a couple of shoes?Oh, right. Europeans hate America, and so have awarded a Muslim-fascist-socialist-communist for threatening to tear the country apart at its seams. Crafty bastards, those Swedes.It should be fun, now, watching Doucheborough, BillO, Hannity and the like come out forcefully against Peace. I mean, they haven’t made any attempt to hide their disdain for a world without insane amounts of violence, but now it’s going to get really unhinged. Any takers on a bet that they’ll be calling for Obama to prove he has testicles by bombing the shit out of some defenseless country of brown people?

Eve, don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that they recognize the movement he inspired, but I don’t think it’s silly that something like this could possibly damage the president’s agenda. I hope not, believe me, but it still feels like a strategy to encourage his future plans rather than reward for his accomplishments.I hope like hell it will help strengthen his and America’s stature so this country will continue to be a leader and improve upon that. I hope it will help him get support for things domestically that will benefit people internationally. Maybe I’m just too beaten down by the children who comprise the opposition and morons who follow them. Still, you’re right, it’s great and we should all be very proud.

I think the idea of the Nobel Peace Prize, in this instance especially, isn’t so much to award some enormous task done well, as to award the steps taken toward said task. If the Peace Prize were only awarded for achieving peace, there’d be no such award. I think it is meant, again especially in this instance, to recognize and promote, or at least encourage, the small steps required in the pursuit of that ultimate prize.Literally changing the world’s opinion of America almost overnight is a somewhat larger step in that direction than I think many of us may yet realize. Even speaking about not only ending nuclear proliferation, but ending nuclear stockpiles entirely, is another such step with ramifications I’m not sure we’ve fully considered. I could be wrong, but I don’t recall any other sitting head of state of a nuclear-armed country ever calling for such a thing, publicly, and especially not when speaking to another head of state of such a nation.Also, turning away from the implied, and sometimes outright, Islam-bashing methodology of W. and his gang can’t be overlooked. Having served in the Air Force for six years, between 2002 and 2009, I’ve seen enough such bashing to be sickened. It is, at times, literally encouraged by the leadership, and more often at the very least not -dis-couraged. Changing that tone, more than anything else in the modern world, may well put us on a path toward something at least resembling peace.I’ve read quite a bit, already this morning, about how President Obama doesn’t deserve this award because he hasn’t, quote, accomplished anything. To such arguments, I can’t help but think, what about Mother Theresa? While I do not mean this to lessen the woman, nor her message, what did she accomplish worthy of the award? The answer, I think, is that she was a transformative figure, who brought to a global scale a message of peace, love, and simple humanity. Our President’s message may not be quite the same, and maybe not even equal all things considered, but it is a message of hope. What could possibly deserve to be awarded, after eight years of global trauma, more than simple, pragmatic hope?

So, near agreement that this is a good thing? I’m sorry, I guess I don’t understand how many pointless wars one needs to escalate/prolong before one is ineligible for a peace prize. It’s especially damning here on the eve of his all-but-certain decision to double down on this Afghanistan idiocy.”Any takers on a bet that they’ll be calling for Obama to prove he has testicles by bombing the shit out of some defenseless country of brown people?”No disrespect and I’m sure we’d agree on 95% of the issues discussed here, but where have you been? That has been happening since the campaign, and Obama has been all too happy to oblige. I knew this when I voted for him, phone banked for him, and went door-to-door, but it’s not something I’m proud of.

I think, Cory, we can agree wholeheartedly that the Iraq war was a pointless, misguided, clusterf-ck of epic proportions. The Afghanistan war…eh. It’s different, in that at least there was a logical, true reason to go in the first place. Having stayed so long is another matter entirely, but we’ll start with the idea, on my end at least, that going to Afghanistan, to get bin Laden, was a worthy cause.That said, I should have inserted, “-another-” into the quote you provided.I also agree, that we shouldn’t be in either country, any longer. While I fully understand it’s not as simple as many make it out to be, to simply load up every Soldier, Marine, Airman and Seaman and get them the hell out of there overnight, I would have liked to see drastic steps in that direction. But I knew, when voting for Obama, that in this I was more liberal minded than he was.

Tim, well said. I think you guys have really persuaded me to lighten up and just appreciate the moment rather than concern myself over what the idiots are going to do. The second cup of coffee was a good idea too. I’m slow, but I get there.

to paraphrase Mike Schmidt’s line about the philadelphia sports writers:Obama can experience the thrill of victory and the agony of reading about it.