The Strange Consensus on Obama's Nobel Address

[bigtree]

December 11, 2009

by Glenn Greenwald

REACTIONS to Obama's Nobel speech yesterday were remarkably consistent across the political spectrum, and there were two points on which virtually everyone seemed to agree: (1) it was the most explicitly pro-war speech ever delivered by anyone while accepting the Nobel Peace Prize; and (2) it was the most comprehensive expression of Obama's foreign policy principles since he became President. I don't think he can be blamed for the first fact; when the Nobel Committee chose him despite his waging two wars and escalating one, it essentially forced on him the bizarre circumstance of using his acceptance speech to defend the wars he's fighting. What else could he do? Ignore the wars? Repent?

I'm more interested in the fact that the set of principles Obama articulated yesterday was such a clear and comprehensive expression of his foreign policy that it's now being referred to as the "Obama Doctrine." About that matter, there are two arguably confounding facts to note: (1) the vast majority of leading conservatives -- from Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich to Peggy Noonan, Sarah Palin, various Kagans and other assorted neocons -- have heaped enthusiastic praise on what Obama said yesterday, i.e., on the Obama Doctrine; and (2) numerous liberals have done exactly the same. That convergence gives rise to a couple of questions:

Why are the Bush-following conservatives who ran the country for the last eight years and whose foreign policy ideas are supposedly so discredited -- including some of the nation's hardest-core neocons -- finding so much to cheer in the so-called Obama Doctrine?

How could liberals and conservatives -- who have long claimed to possess such vehemently divergent and irreconcilable worldviews on foreign policy -- both simultaneously adore the same comprehensive expression of foreign policy?


read more: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/11-9

[Echo In Light]

1. That last paragraph - good question

K&R

[bigtree]

3. it is

I think we'd better figure it out or we'll end up codifying these types of deployments into perpetuity without any politically defensible argument against the republican party if they're ever in a position to direct our military forces again.

[optimator]

2. what liberals have praised the warmongering speech?

democrat does not = liberal

[bigtree]

4. mostly pundits

[G_j]

5. "I'm not a real liberal, I just play one on TV"

those pundits..

[branders seine]

13. There are only two or three actual liberals on TV.

The others are just media cardboard cutouts representing a *slightly* less overt form of fascism.

Except for (occasionally) Olberman and Maddow, on mainstream TV there are "conservative" bad cops and "liberal" good cops. BOTH are cops. NEITHER is actually conservative or liberal. BOTH represent whatever views serve our corporate and oligarchical masters.

It is completely unsurprising that both "sides" endorse an overtly violent and militaristic foreign policy. They always have, except for a couple of years during Viet Nam before the national security state "cleansed" the media. Our media is ALL about America's business, and America's only two remaining businesses are war and financial speculating.

[Enrique]

8. Greenwald cites four

Eugene Robinson, a NYT editorial, Ruth Marcus, and Joe Klein.

[emulatorloo]

6. "It's weak to take 2 presidents, see them both use the word "evil," and then say they are the same"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=433&topic_id=51574&mesg_id=51574

Direct Link:

http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/12/on_obamas_speech.php

Ta-Nehisi Coates

On Obama's Speech

11 Dec 2009 04:00 pm


Listened to it this morning, and as always, I was impressed. So was Sarah Palin:

"Wow, that really sounded familiar," said Palin, a frequent Obama critic. "I talked, too, in my book about the fallen nature of man and why war is necessary at times."

I'd like to pair this with something I'm hearing a lot these day. After an entire campaign season where Obama was dismissed as a far-left radical, the new meme became that he was actually firmly entrenched in the "right wing of the Democratic party."

Now I'm hearing people say that Obama's speech could have been made by Bush, or some such.

There are people who think presidential politics--from a voter's perspective--is about electing someone who will do exactly what you say and enact every single one of your priorities in exactly the same manner as you would.

And then there are people who think presidential politics--from a voter's perspective--is about electing someone who shares many of your priorities, but not all of them, who may not enact them as you would, and yet whose wisdom you trust. That, for me, is the point. Barack Obama is wise. Sarah Palin is not.

In that vein, I didn't object to George Bush because he claimed that there was "evil" in the world. I objected to George Bush because there was so much evil that he didn't see, and he was awful at prosecuting the evil he did see. I objected to George Bush's foreign policy because it married a freshman's view of idealism (Big talk on human rights) with a profane, dishonest take one realism (We don't torture.) It's weak to look two presidents, see them both use the word "evil," and then conclude that they're the same.

I expect Obama to be who he campaigned as. But more than that, I expect him to actually think about the world. I expect him to be curious, deliberative, and cool-headed. That's who he is. I often disagree with him. But I don't regret a thing. I don't understand these people. It's like they thought he'd go to Oslo, hand over the launch codes, and offer twenty Texas virgins in exchange for a pledge from Al'Qaeda to stop being mean to us.

=====

ON EDIT grammar spelling

[GeorgeGist]

15. Empty.

[JohnnyLib2]

7. The times they are a'changin.

My nightmare is that the speech was based more in the situation (Peace prize) and rationalization of current strategy than in an intended doctrine. And now we have a "doctrine," intentionally or not.

Or, ghastly as it sounds, have Rove et al co-opted the moment and locked in the course the OP raises in post #3. Shudder.

[earth mom]

9. Karl Rove likes it-which should really clue people in around DU as to how right wing that speech

really was.

[Stinky The Clown]

10. As during the campaign, Obama has the abiility to rhetorically create vast plains of Common Ground

But as can been seen within our party, just on the single issue of health care reform, those vast plains of Common Ground are illusory and ephemeral.

[varelse]

17. Very elegantly phrased

"Obama has the ability to rhetorically create vast plains of Common Ground"

Very nice.

Do you suppose it is his ability that is selective, or his application?

[L0oniX]

11. This is what happens when a Dem president moves center right?

[NashVegas]

12. You Know Alfred Nobel Invented Dynamite, Right?

And owned an arms factory?

[bigtree]

14. the prize is notable for the recipients

. . . more than the author's establishment of the prize (I believe it was posthumously established).

[youmayberight]

16. Among its recipients is Henry Kissinger!

[NYCGirl]

18. And Al Gore, Mother Teresa, Elie Weisel and the Dalai Lama. Warmongers all!

:sarcasm:

[dixiegrrrrl]

19. "both simultaneously adore the same comprehensive expression of foreign policy?"

You don't suppose that is because both are bought by the same M.I.C., hmmmmmmmm?

Have you not noticed that every law they agree on makes huge money for banks, Pharma, military
contractors, etc? and few laws give anything to us?
To focus on what each party SAYS would be to ignore what they both DO.
And they both end up voting to make a few at the top very very rich.

"The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=114x73306