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2009
Soap Box Archives
Much Ado About Nothing Congratulations, President Obama on your Nobel Peace Prize. Your name will be right up there with such other dubious winners as Al "The Sky is Falling" Gore, Jimmy "Cry Racism" Carter, and that loveable terrorist Yasser Arafat… The prize obviously has very little luster left. Maybe it's a consolation prize for your hard work in the losing effort for Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics. Not trying to downplay the honor, Mr. President. It is quite an achievement, considering your resume, which has largely consisted of being the first African-American to be elected President. Apparently that IS the basis for Obama's nomination, because he had been in office for less than two weeks when his name was thrown into the hat. If he had been nominated in 2010 -a year after he had been in office- it wouldn't seem as absurd. It would still be absurd, but not AS absurd. He would at least have had a chance to do something worthy of the nomination, rather than just being elected. Disagree with me if you will, but in February of 2009, he had absolutely no track record on which to base a nomination. Nothing. One could even argue that he still has done basically… nothing. Even the highly left-leaning Saturday Night Live tackled this recently. Fred Armisen opened a recent show in a skit where President Obama admitted that he had done nothing since being elected. The mainstream media came unglued, and criticized SNL for being "too hard" on the President. Believe it, or not, CNN even had someone fact-check the skit and take the show to task on points that they believed were false. If there has ever been a more blatant example of the mainstream media's liberal bias, I'm not aware of it. How many times did we see George W. Bush lampooned on SNL -and plenty of other shows- in the last 8 years as a complete bumbling buffoon? More times than I can remember. But did any "credible" member of the news media EVER criticize SNL for poking fun at Bush, or feel that his good name was being so tarnished by the folks at 30 Rock that a Bush-bashing sketch needed to be fact-checked? Not that I would expect anything else from SNL, which also made Ronald Reagan look like a clown; they lean to the left, and that's fine. Yes, SNL did skewer Bill Clinton, but Darrell Hammond's portrayal was more about celebrating Clinton as a womanizing horn dog, than any criticism of his presidency. In recent years the few times that the show has done any political sketches that weren't taking shots at Sarah Palin, John McCain or any other Republicans, the left has cried foul, but the mainstream media's defense of this President from criticism is unprecedented. And why is that? Because he is perceived as being too big to fail? Because of what he represents as the first African-American President? Whatever the reason, people are finally starting to be critical of "The One" including many on the left. The President's Nobel Peace Prize has even garnered flack from Obama supporters who question the logic behind giving an award so early in his administration. One of the officials on the Peace Prize Committee said, "The committee wants to not only endorse but contribute to enhancing that kind of international policy and attitude which he stands for." So they basically admit he has done nothing, but they believe that he has a lot of potential. It's along the lines of giving the MVP award to a rookie quarterback in week one of the NFL season because they like his throwing motion. So far, this promising young quarterback has bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, told the tiny country of Israel which, is surrounded by larger Islamic countries, that it must give up land, and apologized for being cause of most of the world's problems. Not exactly a Rookie of the Year performance. One of the more disturbing bits of Obama's foreign policy is his attitude towards Afghanistan, which was one of the central themes of his campaign. He was very adamant that the U.S. was ignoring the real objective of the military action formerly known as the "War on Terror," which was Afghanistan, and vowed to get Osama Bin Laden. Now Obama is waffling on Afghanistan, and rather than following General McChrystal's advice of sending an additional 40,000 troops, he would prefer to only send enough troops to keep the Taliban at bay, that he would be open to them having some involvement in the Afghan government, and even giving them control over some parts of the country, which makes as much sense as giving the Nazis a say in post World War II Germany, and telling them they could keep Czechoslovakia. So, based on what I've seen in his rookie season, I can't say that I have a lot of faith that Obama is going to be a future Hall of Famer, but he does have that nifty Nobel Prize, which no one can take from him, even if he has done nothing to deserve it. But there's always next year. Charlie Daniels, Jr.
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