This morning, I woke up to the news that Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize.  Say what?

The Times (UK) reports:

The award of this year’s Nobel peace prize to President Obama will be met with widespread incredulity, consternation in many capitals and probably deep embarrassment by the President himself.

I doubt that.  Obama no more knows embarrassment than does Clinton.  Surprise, yes, but not embarrassment.

. . . the prize risks looking preposterous in its claims, patronising in its intentions and demeaning in its attempt to build up a man who has barely begun his period in office, let alone achieved any tangible outcome for peace.

Amen.

There is a further irony in offering a peace prize to a president whose principal preoccupation at the moment is when and how to expand the war in Afghanistan.

Is that why Obama's been dragging his feet on McChrystal's recommendation?  Hold off making a decision until after he's awarded the prize?

The committee said today that he had “captured the world’s attention”. It is certainly true that his energy and aspirations have dazzled many of his supporters. Sadly, it seems they have so bedazzled the Norwegians that they can no longer separate hopes from achievement.

Yes, folks, the Norwegians just awarded rhetoric to the tune of $1.4 million.

The prize worth 10 million Swedish crowns ($1.4 million) will be handed out in Oslo on December 10.

Gibbs claims the president was "humbled."

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, who woke the president to tell him the news, said Obama was "humbled."

I doubt it.  He knows humility no more than he knows embarrassment.  Arrogance doesn't equal humility.  Arrogance, with a dash of petulant whininess, is all I've seen from Obama since he took office.

The deadline for nominations is Feb. 1, meaning the president was nominated after being in office for just 11 days.

This is further proof that this award has nothing to do with achievement.

Lundestad admitted that the committee knew the world would be surprised by the decision . . . and Obama has "nothing to fear."

Except the wrath of American voters in 2010 and 2012.

There have been some controversial winners in the past (Yassir Arafat, for example), but this win takes the cake.  In addition to making the committee look like a bunch of jokers, it dimishes the real accomplishments of other past winners who truly deserved the award.

Several thoughts struck me as I watched the inauguration proceedings.

First of all, Obama's speech was full of platitudes.  He just had to bring up segregation and racism, in a "we shall overcome" kind of way, didn't he?  It was like listening to an MLK speech.  Is that what an inauguration speech is supposed to be all about?

The woman in the red coat who follwed Obama's speech with a poem didn't know how to read it.  She looked around really nervously for several seconds before she began to read.  When she finally began reading, she did so in a really stilted tone that did the poem no justice.  The poem itself had racial undertones.  Was this supposed to be a message of hope, or a look back to the days of, um, George Wallace in Alabama?

After that came Rev. Joseph Lowery, who gave a speech that again, had racial overtones.  I can forgive his halting speech pattern; he's in his 80s.  It was the content of his speech with which I took issue.

I missed the very beginning of the inauguration.  Obama had already begun speaking when I flipped on the television.  Yet, the only white person I ever saw up on the podium to get anywhere near the microphone was the woman who introduced each person to speak.  Every time she tried to make the introduction, the cheers from the crowd drowned out her voice.  No wonder she just went on, regardless, and waved the next person up to the mike.  All the speakers I saw were black.  All the speakers I heard mentioned racism in some form or other, in the context of bringing the nation together, as if it's something to which we can all relate.

The only good thing I heard in any of this is that Obama did address the issue of Muslim jihadi terrorism, not using that particular terminology, of course.  Diplomatic, as it was, he did convey the message that he had no plans to be a lapdog for the jihadis.  I hope he backs up those words with action, if it becomes necessary.

An article from Simon Tisdall of The Guardian grabbed my attention this morning.  He's up in arms about Obama's deafening silence regarding the Hamas/Israeli conflict.  The title of the article, "Obama is losing a battle he doesn't know he's in" [sic], is telling enough.  The gist of the article is that Obama's already a disappointment, because, even though he's not yet president, he's not placating the Moslems in the Middle East.

But evidence is mounting that Obama is already losing ground among key Arab and Muslim audiences that cannot understand why, given his promise of change, he has not spoken out. Arab commentators and editorialists say there is growing disappointment at Obama's detachment . . .

As proof of his assertion, Tisdall states:

The Al-Jazeera satellite television station recently broadcast footage of Obama on holiday in Hawaii, wearing shorts and playing golf, juxtaposed with scenes of bloodshed and mayhem in Gaza. Its report criticising "the deafening silence from the Obama team" suggested Obama is losing a battle of perceptions among Muslims that he may not realise has even begun.

Remember, The Guardian was one of the biggest champions of Obama, pre-election, and practically danced in glee, with most of the rest of Europe, when he was elected.  Clearly, Tisdall is already disenchanted with Obama, but his article isn't much more than an opinion piece, framed as hard journalism.

"People recall his campaign slogan of change and hoped that it would apply to the Palestinian situation," Jordanian analyst Labib Kamhawi told Liz Sly of the Chicago Tribune. "So they look at his silence as a negative sign. They think he is condoning what happened in Gaza because he's not expressing any opinion."

This sounds like posturing to me.  Personally, I think that most rational citizens of both the Middle east, and EU countries are willing to take a wait-and-see approach to Obama's presidency, and recognize posturing for what it is.  Tisdall either buys it hook, line, and sinker, or recognizes it as posturing as well, but won't let it interfere with his opinion.  Either way, it diminishes his credibility as a reporter, as far as I'm concerned.

Regional critics claim Obama is happy to break his pre-inauguration "no comment" rule on international issues when it suits him. They note his swift condemnation of November's terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Obama has also made frequent policy statements on mitigating the impact of the global credit crunch.

Expressing a personal opinion regarding the Mumbai terrorist attacks, and speaking about what his official American government global policy would be, are two different things, at this point.  Nobody approves of terrorist attacks, except for those who either commit them, or back those who do.  Also, any statements that Obama has made about the current global economy are not official "policy."

There is a global credit crunch, to be sure, but at this point, Obama has ideas about how to deal with it, that are not government "policy," and let's face it -- he won't be able to cure it, anyway.  Financial crises are cyclical.  People tend to forget that the economy in the U.S. took a nice little nosedive with the dot-bomb crunch before the end of Bill Clinton's administration, which Bush inherited.  Those who like to say that Bush inherited a boom economy are merely dreaming about the past.

If Tisdall is so quick to criticize Obama for not speaking out about global issues, why is he not whining about Obama's silence regarding Russia's gas supply cutoff to Ukraine, since that's the country through which a good chunk (~ 20%) of Europe's supply comes?  This could easily affect the UK.

On the campaign trail, Obama (like Clinton) was broadly supportive of Israel and specifically condemnatory of Hamas.

So, where, exactly is the contradiction, here?  Obama's designated Sec'ty of State, Hillary Clinton, got elected to the senate, in large part, due to her NYC-based Jewish constituency.  Why does this journalist think that America's support of Israel will change -- or for that matter, should change?

As the Gaza casualty headcount goes up and Obama keeps his head down, those sentiments are beginning to sound a little hollow. The danger is that when he finally peers over the parapet on January 21, the battle of perceptions may already be half-lost.

They were already lost by those of us who didn't vote for him, and groaned when he won the election.  Obama may yet surprise me, but I won't be holding my breath, as long as Pelosi's running the senate.

There's another article about Obama proposing big tax cuts for us U.S. taxpayers, to stimulate the domestic economy, but that can wait for another blog entry.