Obama’s No Messiah

Alex Massie at the Spectator has Obama’s Nobel win down about right:

What is mystifying, however, is Obama’s decision to accept* the award. Better by far to have quietly told the Nobel organisation that, while generous, their award was presumptious and, by any reasonable standard, premature.

Accepting a prize of such magnitude in return for little in the way of real achievement makes Obama look foolish. He’s not a latterday political messiah and, despite what some people, including some in the White House, seem to think it’s not all about him all the time. That being so, it would have been wiser to decline awards that reinforce the notion that it is.

Expecting politicians to be embarrassed by adulation is, in many ways, a mug’s game. And no-one has ever accused Obama of being without ego. Nevertheless, while the Nobel Committee are free to behave like King Canute’s courtiers**, it would have been better for all concerned if Obama had shown the wisdom of Canute and refused this preoposterous bauble.

*Perhaps he still can turn it down. He certainly should.

He has accepted a $1.4 million prize for having achieved nothing of note in 9 months. Guantanamo is still open. Drone attacks are continuing to kill significant numbers of innocent people in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Torturers have been protected; domestic surveillance defended and extended. He may want to rid the world of nuclear weapons and to get nice and cozy with Iran, but their nuclear programme hasn’t ended, despite the abortive uprising in June. Does this make Obama the new Kissinger?

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