More on Obama’s Nobel: A weight around his neck?
At a weekend gathering, the buzz was all about President Obama and the astonishing news on Friday that he was this year’s Nobel Peace Prize recipient.
Note that this was a gathering that drew heavily from the liberal side of the spectrum; tattered Obama bumper stickers remained affixed to many cars.
Still, the talk about the prize was mostly negative.
“I love the guy, but a Nobel before he’s actually done anything? I just don’t get,” a friend said. He didn’t get many arguments.
A Los Angeles Times analysis piece nicely sums up some of the risks of the award.
“Intended to honor Obama for altering the nation’s diplomatic direction,” Greg Miller writes, “the award is likely to call attention to how much of the administration’s agenda — including closing Guantanamo Bay and winding down the war in Iraq — remains undone, and to the problematic nature of the American presence in Afghanistan.”
Plus, of course, an Israeli-Palestinian conflict whose resolution Obama made an early priority. These days, it looks an awful lot like the administration is caught up in the politics of delay and obfuscation that are so much a part of the region’s diplomatic character.
Tags: Israel, Nobel Peace Prize, Obama