Obama Does In 12 Days What Gandhi Couldn't Do In 78 Years!

The Nobel Peace Prize has been given to such greats as Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr. It has also been given to such not-so-greats as Jimmy Carter, Yasser Arafat and Mikhail Gorbachev, to say nothing of Al Gore. But never before has it been given to a blank slate and that is what the Norwegian Parliament did when they gave it to Barack Obama.

Consider that the nominees had to be in by Feb. 1, when Obama had only been in office 12 days. It was humorous to see liberal pundits try to defend the decision. While a few insisted that closing Guantanamo, which Obama did on his first day in office, was sufficient most claimed that he had revitalized the feeling of hope in the world. Even Obama himself seemed dubious in his acceptance speech that this supposed revitalization of hope was sufficient to receive the prize.

In contrast, Reagan freed hundreds of millions of people from the iron grip of the Soviet Union and never received the prize. Gandhi liberated India and won self-determination for what is now the largest democracy in world by solely non-violent means and also never received it.

This is truly the cult of self-esteem taken to its inevitable and laughable conclusion. He made the rest of the world feel good about America again! He doesn't need to DO, he INSPIRES. And that he does. He inspires North Korea to fire missiles at Hawaii. He inspires the Taliban to ramp up the violence in Afghanistan to make the politically difficult (to Obama) decision to send more troops even more difficult. He inspires Iran to go nuclear while the United States insists countries like France and Germany give up their armaments.

But he hasn't inspired our allies to send more troops to Afghanistan. He hasn't inspired the Olympic Committee to pick Chicago. He hasn't inspired the American people that the same government that does everything half as well and at twice the cost of the private sector can run national health care.

Even giving Obama the credit of his full term so far, he is muddling through the economy, race issues (illustrated by the Gates affair), health care, Iraq and Afghanistan. At best, these are all unresolved issues; at worst, they are all worse now than they were a year ago.

If we remain on this path, by the end of his term we will be no more of a world power than Norway is...

...Oh wait now I get it.