After beginning by asking why Conservatives, at least some conservatives (since John McCain did offer congratulations, hate America, and why if they were so concerned about who wins they did not object to Henry Kissinger, F. W. De Klerk or Yasser Arafat, Eugene Robinson offers this gem:
The problem for the addlebrained Obama-rejectionists is that the president, as far as they are concerned, couldn't possibly do anything right, and thus is unworthy of any conceivable recognition. If Obama ended world hunger, they'd accuse him of promoting obesity. If he solved global warming, they'd complain it was getting chilly. If he got Mahmoud Abbas and Binyamin Netanyahu to join him around the campfire in a chorus of "Kumbaya," the rejectionists would claim that his singing was out of tune.
After that, we are off to the races in a terrific column, Obama's High Bar. And as he notes:
"I'm With the Taliban Against America" is not likely to be a winning slogan.
There is more. Robinson does not offer a comprehensive and exhaustive list of Obama's achievements such as some offered by others. He does note the shift from Bush's "cowboy ethos" towards multilateralism, towards an approach that will not only receive more foreign approval, but which is also far more likely to succeed.
Here I note that for better or worse, whether we consider ourselves the world's sole remaining superpower or not, America remains the world's one indispensable nation, for without our participation and cooperation major advances in world peace are simply neither fully achievable nor sustainable. We have to be a major part of the process. No other nation can match our logistical capability, we are able to talk to both sides of most major conflicts, and despite our economic woes the power of our economy is critical to the success of the rest of the world.
Robinson also questions those who would argue that accepting the Peace Prize has its downside. If the question is raising expectations, should we not, Robinson notes, remember all that Obama has taken on: rescue of the U.S. financial system and the long-term restructuring of the economy; revolutionizing our health care system; attacking energy; seeking major changes in education?
One does not have to agree with all Obama is doing. I don't. I am critical of much of his approach on education, for example.
Robinson's column is limited by length. He does not, for example, remind us of how often Obama challenged the American people to be part of the process of change. One can argue that his approach to international relations is similar. During the campaign he was criticized by his primary opponent about his willingness to talk with certain regimes and leaders, yet that opponent now serves as his Secretary of State. His speeches, for example in Berlin, not only raised the hopes of peoples of other nations, but challenged them to be part of the process as well.
Robinson is quite clear in his conclusion. After noting that Obama was quite clear during the campaign in saying that he wanted to be remembered as a transformational president, Robinson writes:
he only reasonable response is McCain's: Congratulations. Nothing, not even the Nobel Peace Prize, can set the bar any higher for President Obama than he's already set it for himself.
I agree. It is one reason that even when I criticized, it is in the frame of holding him to his own high expectations.
Perhaps the Nobel Committee wishes to reinforce those expectations, to offer support for what he has already begun, and what he hopes to complete.
That is not dissimilar from the reasoning behind other Peace Prizes - to Woodrow Wilson, trying desperately but ultimately unsuccessfully to bring America into the proposed new world order of the League of Nations, for example; or one might look at the names of recipients mentioned by Robinson - and perhaps remember that Kissinger's go-recipient Le Duc Tho refused his Prize because the work was not yet done.
This column may be as clear a statement about why Obama has received the prize, and perhaps how we should react, as anything I have read. That it comes from the pen/keyboard of Eugene Robinson does not surprise me.
I at least think he nailed this one.
What about you?
And my final salutation seems appropriate here:
Peace.