“The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists - the Taliban and Hamas this morning - in criticizing the President for receiving the Nobel Peace prize.”
If you want to argue that they are not saying that the Republicans are throwing their lot in with terrorists, then you will have to explain to me what part of the phrase “the Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists” is not equivalent to “The Republications are throwing their lot in with terrorists.”
Sure, I get the “meaning” of the statement - that the Republicans are offering the same opinion as the terrorists. Why make this observation, if not to score cheap and base points by comparing the opposition to Hamas and the Taliban and hoping the association sticks?
True enough, they should pay more attention to the graceful generosity being displayed by the right. Screaming thier heads off, setting the furniture on fire, but gracefully…
They also explain what they mean by it, and it’s clearly intended to be a little tongue in cheek (and as an oblique reference to the rhetoric Republicans have been using against them for the last decade), so I don’t have a problem with it, and it’s good to see the DNC fighting back for once. I hope it’s the beginning of a trend.
Obama certainly has made progress in promoting peace and humanitarian causes. Scrapping the missile shield was pretty big news, for one. Revealing the torture memos was big, too. Guantanemo detainees are starting to get trials. We’re on a timetable for withdrawal in Iraq. He’s engaging middle eastern rivals in promising discussion that never would have happened before. The tone he has set regarding international diplomacy is inarguably less hostile and confrontational than we have seen recently.
You can argue he doesn’t deserve it by aligning yourself politically against him and disagreeing with his approach, and it would be a legitimate argument. But I think the Swedes have a perfectly legitimate argument, too. Who would you suggest deserves it more than him?
Setting aside Obama’s actual win, the whole bit about the nomination occuring two weeks into office is meaningless. Remember a year or two back when Rush Limbaugh was bragging about being a nominee? All it meant was that some Right leaning think tank group submitted his name to the committee. All Obama’s nomination meant was that someone said “Hey, let’s send in Obama’s name” and got him on the list before it closed.
Whether or not Obama’s actions between the listclosing and the final decision made him deserving of the prize is a good question but shocked gasps that his name was on the list are kind of silly.
He’s significantly drawn down, and set a time table. The previous administration was never going to do jack shit. McCain said he wasn’t going to ever leave at all.
Doesn’t that just sort of prove my point? If an organization that gives out a “Peace Prize” starts to make its decision making based on what will upset a subset of the political spectrum in the United States then I can only view that as monumentally unfortunate, and certainly not something for any reasonable person to celebrate.
I do think that the Norwegians are probably a little more mature than you, though, and I doubt very much that their decision was at all based on how individual Americans would react.
It’s much more likely it came about because Obama has positioned himself in opposition to Israel which has long been a very popular stance amongst Europeans.
What is wrong with pointing out that among the people really mad about this are terrorists? Particularly when Republicans more than anyone are frothing at the mouth terrorist haters? That the most self-proclaimed patriots in the country are aligning themselves with those who seek to destroy that country?
To me it’s more of a Dorian Gray thing and the Dems are showing the Repubs the picture of their actual selves. I’m perfectly fine with pointing this out to them and not letting them continue to wrap themselves in the flag and assume some holier-than-thou stance.
No, it wouldn’t be the correct response, and let me tell you why. Because the whole “Obama as Messiah” meme is retarded on the face of it. The last thing we need is to hear more right-wing American frothers accusing the left-wing American frothers of undue worshipfulness over something they had nothing to do with in the first place.