The St. Petersburg Times on Obama's Nobel Prize (Updated)

Scanning editorials at The St. Petersburg Times is a bit like Christmas. What's inside this one?

The liberal slant of the editors makes it fairly easy to predict, of course.

"Prize is an honor and a duty"

The Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Barack Obama on Friday reaffirms that the world still looks to America for leadership and has high hopes for its young president.

Much of the world doesn't want American leadership. Rather, they want the United States to do the heavy lifting on policies they happen to favor, and for the United States to butt out on everything else. But the editorial pegs it with the "high hopes" part. President Obama looks like a pushover, and that suits all those who can get in on the pushing.

As the Nobel committee noted, in less than a year Obama has established a new tone in international politics that emphasizes engagement over isolation and consensus over ultimatums.

Unfair slaps at Bush aside (Bush did, in fact, emphasize engagement over isolation), Obama has at least partially fulfilled his campaign promise to meet diplomatically with Iran minus preconditions. Not that we've gained anything politically from it aside from a Nobel Prize. On the other hand, Honduras may feel a tad isolated by Obama administration policies. But such a tiny country can hardly count against The One's record, can it?

In the long term, Obama will be judged by his accomplishments rather than his aspirations. But this unexpected recognition reflects the power of a compelling vision and America's singular role in defending peace, human rights and democracy.

Compelling vision, eh?

Iran sends out its military and paramilitary thugs to quell peaceful protests of a sham election. The Obama adminstration will not interfere in that. It wouldn't be appropriate.

In Honduras, President Zelaya disregards that country's constitutional restrictions on advancing a referendum to stay in office beyond his term limits and is removed by the coursts in accordance with its own constitution. And the Obama administration labels this a "coup" and proceeds to interfere via sanctions and threatened sanctions. I suppose that's "compelling," in a sense.

We can also ask the Poles and Ukrainians if they feel that Obama is defending their democratic governments.

Obama was as surprised as the world to be awakened with the news Friday, and he reacted with characteristic grace and humility.

The characteristic humility that led him to address throngs in Europe well prior to his election as president, I suppose. I don't buy the "characteristic humility" part. But Obama's Nobel acceptance speech, at least, was appropriately humble.

After barely nine months in office, he has hardly amassed a long record of achievement on the international stage. While the war in Iraq is winding down, the fighting in Afghanistan is heating up.

Actually, the war in Iraq is heating up a bit, also. Obama is simply ignoring that in favor of following through on his promise to end American participation in the war. The fighting in Afghanistan has heated up based on Obama's promise to focus on our true enemies in that region. And he has promised U.S. strikes in Pakistan at high-value targets regardless of Pakistani approval. Part of the new tone, I suppose.

It's hard not to be a bit intrigued by the awarding of a peace prize to a guy who ramped up violence in Afghanistan. One would think President Bush eligible on that point.

The Palestinians and Israelis are as far apart as ever on a framework for peace.

True, but President Obama has preferred the Palestinian side of the argument--at least publicly--to a far greater extent than did his predecessors in office. And the world likes that, even if it doesn't have much to do with peace.

Iran is still pursuing its nuclear ambitions, and the administration has not yet brought Russia or China around as constructive global partners. America has not broken significant new ground on immigration, energy or global warming.

One wonders what represents the peaceful policy on each of those last three issues. As for Russia and China, if Obama had tried hard bargaining with either nation then it would be harder for him to look like he favored engagement over ultimatum. It's more peaceful, apparently, to weakly engage and accomplish nothing else.

But in announcing the award, the Nobel committee singled out Obama for his "extraordinary efforts" to strengthen diplomacy. The jab at his predecessor, George W. Bush, was unmistakable. By replacing confrontation with dialogue as the norm of foreign policy, Obama had "captured the world's attention" and made the United States "a more constructive" player in meeting global challenges, the committee said.

"Extraordinary efforts" like what? Giving speeches? The statement from the committee appears to entirely lack specifics.

Whether awarding Obama the Nobel so early in his presidency is foolishly premature or remarkably prescient will not be clear for years.

Now that is funny. We can wait for years for any real evidence that Obama deserves the award before we can think it clearly premature. Let's say that Obama does something ... ten years from now that unquestionably deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. The Times would apparently ask us to think the prize committee prescient rather than premature. Why not both, eh?

The reaction from the Times is hardly a surprise. They think the same way politically as the prize committee, so a similar conclusion was inevitable.


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Update:


Steven Crowder's take on Obama's Nobel Prize seems like the perfect counterpoint to the Times editorial.