A few weeks back, at the height of the Nobel Peace Prize brouhaha, I wrote a short column for a Washington Post (yes, that Washington Post) “America’s Next Great Pundit” contest. I wasn’t selected as one of top ten finalists … think it had anything to do with my slamming one of the Post’s own top columnists? Nah, me either. Just better writers out there! Anyway — here’s the column I submitted to them; know it’s no longer timely, but … take a gander anyway and comment if you like (or don’t like!).
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Less than Noble-Prize Behavior from America’s Top Pundits
If the Norwegians gave an award for miserly-hearted writers – the Nobel Prize for Petty Punditry, perhaps? — they’d have an abundance of Americans from which to choose, awash as we are with self-righteous columnists outraged over the news that their president, Barack Obama, has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Thomas Friedman, of the New York Times, wrote that the prize “has been devalued” by its conference on Obama. Ross Douthat, also of the Times, asserted that Obama should have turned it down. And Charlie Krauthammer, of the Washington Post, called the selection of Obama “comical.”
With their uncharitable words, Friedman et al reflect what Americans have become in our meaner moments: a people lacking in good will and manners, using our various pulpits – microphones at town hall meetings, reality-show hair-pulling, and lofty positions at the nation’s best papers – to scorn and berate.
Whether one agrees or disagrees with the award, instead of denigrating our president in front of the world, instead of whining that the prize was politically motivated or undeserved, instead of insisting that it should only be given for accomplishment and not for potential, why not ask what can we do to help Obama– and our nation – become the agents of peace this prize so generously predicts? Might we not celebrate the esteem Obama has earned abroad and bask in its implied applause for the public who voted him into office?
Much remains to be done by the Obama administration. But have we forgotten where we were less than two years ago — ridiculed and despised on the world stage and desperate for someone to believe in at home?
Barack Obama’s person, if not yet his presidency, has already accomplished something extraordinary by renewing a spirit of possibility in his own country. That spirit traveled ‘round the globe the night he was elected and people on all continents rejoiced along with us. They rejoiced because they felt hopeful, and that hope jump-started the beginning of a return of respectful foreign relations and enabled the first steps to be taken in the slow process of rebuilding America’s stature as a world leader.
It’s no small feat to inspire hope across a global playing field. For that alone, the Nobel Peace Prize was rightly bestowed. Our nation’s wordsmiths on high might want to give some thought as to what it is, precisely, that they are inspiring.