'Obama Doctrine' Praised By Conservatives After Nobel Speech

Conservatives reacted with shock and disdain to President Obama's Nobel prize, and some attacked his speech on Afghanistan before he even delivered it. But now many on the right are lauding Obama's lecture in Oslo defending the use of American power.

In an interview with USA Today, former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin suggested the speech could have come from her mouth.

Palin praised President Obama for the speech he gave Thursday to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. She said the president's defense of war to combat evil could have been taken from the pages of her memoirs.

"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."

Former House majority leader Newt Gingrich told WNYC the speech was "actually very good."

"He clearly understood that he had been given the prize prematurely, but he used it as an occasion to remind people, first of all, as he said: that there is evil in the world ... I thought in some ways it's a very historic speech."

A spokesperson for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) added, "As President Reagan said, Republicans believe in peace through strength, and we were pleased that today President Obama addressed and defended our mission in Afghanistan, where success is the only option."

Erick Erickson, the conservative founder of RedState.com, wrote, "I was surprised by Obama's speech. Parts sounded like full throated support for the Bush doctrine."

Rory Cooper, the director of strategic communications for the Heritage Foundation, said: "It was a speech that defended America's pursuit of liberty and freedom, and defended our global leadership and military might."

Of course, as historian Michael Kazin pointed out to McClatchy, Obama was speaking not specifically of fighting America's enemies but of fighting injustice. And, as blogger Spencer Ackerman points out, the president was never the pacifist that many on the right seem to think he was.

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Comments

[EnjoyTheRide]

03:47 PM on 12/14/2009

I'm confused. First you said conservatives praised the President's speech, then you said Sarah Palin suggested the speech could have come from her mouth.

Have you even been paying attention to the crap that comes out of her mouth?

Her statement wasn't a compliment!

[GalapagosTortoise]

11:32 PM on 12/13/2009

I'm disappointed in Obama's speech, but moreso, the coupling of his words with our military actions in Afghanistan. What could have been an opportunity to move this nation into peacetime and send a very different message has been lost. I was initially excited by his winning the peace prize, but now I have begun to think differently.

Bottomline, we should be focusing on domestic problems at home, and rather than empowering the far right: telling them to sit down and move over, for a change. Whether it be their hawkishness --- which scores of Americans said "NO" to, when they moved Democrats into control over Congress -- or their sentiments on healthcare -- which our leadership, Republicans and Democrats, are ignoring in a frighteningly big way.

I am also tired of hearing about Sarah Palin and her "opinions," and a book I will never buy.

The entire country was terrified of her leadership and spoke resounding in unison, there, on election day.

So why is the President of the United States making speeches that could have come straight out her mouth?

He should know better. I do not think there is anything going on here other than naively soothing the ruffled feathers of people who will only rise to the occasion to take more, and give less.

When is the media going to stop parading her antics all over the place?

Give more worthy and intelligent voices publicity instead.

[fictioneer]

10:16 PM on 12/13/2009

Palin's book definitely reminds me there's evil in the world, without ever having read it.

[catrst]

08:37 PM on 12/13/2009

I am part of a traditional peace church and I understand what Obama is doing. He is working to remove the occasion for war. That is the opposite of the neocon position or the position of someone who warmongers. He is not a pacifist but he reveres Ghandi and King. To any progressive I say he has not changed his positions. He is doing exactly what he told us he would do. To any right wing hard liners, he does not agree with you nor will he support your war profiteering or instigating.

[thrdr]

04:20 AM on 12/14/2009

I am a progressive and I didn't vote for him and I know what he promised and I am pissed at what he's doing--which is supporting the MICC and war profiteering and instigating more hatred of the U.S. and "the West" than we already have to deal with. The Right is simply coming to the realization that hey--ohmiblessedjesus--he's on OUR side on this war thing--maybe we could let him be one of us after all . . . .

[MarsAmbassador]

07:37 PM on 12/13/2009

So many things come to mind reading this:

1) Why does Citizen Sarah think anybody outside of her base cares what she thinks on ANY subject?
2) Is she implying that he has copied her stance on things?
3) Do religious conservatives not understand that the military-industrial complex uses their Good vs Evil worldview to make billions and billions and billions of dollars every year selling arms to every corner of the planet, thus propagating struggles and strife and war and death from one corner of the planet to the next? THEY create all this mess that these religious folk use as proof that the world is a mess and needs to be fixed by their Goodness.
4) Strength = Peace. Yes, but for whom? The strong and nobody else. Ask the average citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan how that peace is working out for them. Hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens in these countries have been slaughtered, murdered and bombed for our so-called Peace.
5) Success in Afghanistan. Boehner, can you please expand on that? Win. Victory. Success. For whom? America? Afghanistanis? Their grade school black and white understanding of the world is not conducive to anything other than America's involvement in stupid war after stupid pointless war. They learned nothing from Vietnam.

[Michael Onyekwere]

02:58 PM on 12/13/2009

In all honesty, this myth of Obama as a liberal president was propagated by the right.

Obama has always been left of centre and moved even farther to the right the minute he won the Democratic nomination.

I remember the net roots going crazy with glee thinking he was some liberal saviour....ehhh!

I can think of many clues that pointed otherwise....

maybe his advocation of a unilateral strike on Pakistan should have been a clue.

or maybe his silence during the Isreali incursion into the Gaza strip....

or maybe even his own WORDS! "I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars"

This guy was never a pacifist, he was just blank enough to allow his liberal base project their own aspirations on him

[quoteme]

02:53 PM on 12/13/2009

wow. the cons finally admit there actually was a bush doctine.

now we can all agree how clueless palin was and is.

[brt929]

04:49 PM on 12/13/2009

The cons denied there was a Bush Doctrine?

I thought it was their side that coined the term- Charles Krauthammer?

[quoteme]

02:23 PM on 12/14/2009

yes. somewhere between the run up to the iraq war and the 2008 election, the cons lost all memory. strangely, after palin's confused "in what respect, charlie?" nonanswer to gibson after he questioned her on the bush doctrine, nearly all goopers rushed to palin's defense claiming that either an actual bush doctrine did not exist, or that it was such a complex, incomprehensible, and esoteric idea such that she should not be held accountable. good grief.

[wilray]

05:35 AM on 12/14/2009

Sarah thought the Bush doctrine was instructions for bikini waxing.

[Rt-Wy-4me]

02:37 PM on 12/13/2009

All due respect......Obama will be a 1 term president!!

[brt929]

05:32 PM on 12/13/2009

Well, you can hope.

[catrst]

08:42 PM on 12/13/2009

I'll be working my tail off to make a liar out of you in 2012.

[bobm0001]

12:47 PM on 12/13/2009

Why is everyone so surprised by Obama? He said he was going to lead from the middle. He said he was going to push bi-partisan legislation. His stance on health care, Afghanistan, torture, and the climate hasn't changed. Other initiatives, like Guantanamo, will take longer, but are still in the works.

I'm a progressive so I want him to exert more leadership on the issues that I care about. But the truth of the matter is, he's just what we elected.

[quoteme]

02:50 PM on 12/13/2009

makes you wonder where people were duing 2008.

[bobm0001]

04:08 PM on 12/13/2009

The McCain-Palin ticket made Obama look like he was more to the left than he really was.

[GalapagosTortoise]

12:23 AM on 12/14/2009

I didn't expect him to start morphing into Bush accepting the peace prize, though. Speaking about how "thar's evil out there." Do you think the Nobel Committee did, and based on what their spokespeople said during (at least one) interview?

HIs campaign played both sides of the story. What you saying, yes, but they also allowed a very large number of people to think that he was a progressive. Or, progressive enough that what we are now seeing would not be happening.

Leading from the middle is not possible in America. It only means going with the right-wing. Letting them screw America yet again and again.

[supergenius02]

11:47 AM on 12/13/2009

I am not surprised that Obama ripped a speech from Sarah Palin's book. Sarah is everything that Obama is not: brilliant, ethical, principled, beautiful and person with a deep appreciation and respect for God and country.

[thewah]

12:05 PM on 12/13/2009

so entertaining.

[rabiddog6708]

12:07 PM on 12/13/2009

Hi, Bristol, how is that abstinence thing working out?

[VietVet67]

11:39 AM on 12/13/2009

Sarah, Sarah, you're so funny.

[epsiloneon]

10:33 AM on 12/13/2009

Obama just may get re-elected with the help of his conservative base. There is no need to get a front runner for the republican party when you already own the white house.

[AnnfromCA]

11:26 AM on 12/13/2009

Heaven's, that's optimistic. Have you seen his polls?

[Prakosh]

01:16 AM on 12/14/2009

Annie D amn! Does he have polls?

[Mitsy]

07:52 AM on 12/13/2009

War, and the justification for war, is such a positive path for conservatives.

How much more hyprocritical can these republicans get? One moment they decry the nobel peace prize, next minute they are offering praise for nobel peace prize speech. Sounds schizophrenic to me!

[TommyMcCarthy]

04:33 AM on 12/13/2009

Congratulations to President Obama on achieving his very HIGHEST aspiration.

Praise from Republicans

Liberals like me are no longer puzzled by Obama's betrayals

It's the SEDUCTION that counts

The day he can get hard core conservatives to jump up and down and mindlessly chant "Yes we can!"

His work will be complete.

He's already HAD us

Hope is dead...change isn't coming ......and it turns out......No, we CAN'T
tm

[ask0]

01:31 PM on 12/13/2009

The fact that conservatives are happy with Obama makes me unhappy. This is not the man who ran for president.

[Scent]

03:49 AM on 12/13/2009

That's the worst sign for his policies: Republicans applauding them.

[catrst]

08:45 PM on 12/13/2009

Nothing republicans do reflects thoughtfulness or consideration for the well being of our national community. Their reactions are not indicative of anything but their own lack of character.