From the UK: The Times' Vitriol Over President Obama's Nobel
When Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973, the satirist Tom Lehrer remarked that he saw no further need to perform as the award had made satire obsolete. By offering the world's most prestigious political accolade to Barack Obama, a man who has held office for barely nine months, the Norwegian Nobel Committee is in danger of putting the entire comedy industry out of business.-- "Prize Fools," the Times, lead editorial, October 10, 2009
As an American traveling in Great Britain (a country I love) I was appalled to read the fusillade of defamatory comments aimed from Fleet Street at President Barack Obama on the occasion of the award of the Nobel Peace Prize. For openers, the Times compared Obama's prize to the widely-condemned-as-undeserved award to former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1973, after one half the American war dead in Vietnam had been sacrificed during the first term of President Nixon!
The Times does not get it in evaluating Mr. Obama. This has to be in part due to the widespread disdain for the Gordon Brown Labor government, which succeeded eight years of the thoroughly discredited prime ministership of Tony Blair. The Brits have had no new and exciting leader to cleanse their parliamentary system following George Bush's poodle. David Cameron just might prove to be it at the next election, by the way.
Themes of leadership can be far more potent than substance when facing large intractable issues. The restoration of hope is a vital achievement in the world's most powerful democracy. Obama has changed the face of government in the United States -- after eight years of a retrograde, autocratic, incompetent, imperial, contemptuous-of-the-law administration that drove the country to the brink of depression. Playing by the rules can be more important than substance in a democracy; that is, behaving like who we say we are.
More to the point of the Prize, Obama's living example has changed the face of America before the world -- from South Africa to Germany, from Japan to Brazil, from Russia to India and Indonesia, from China to Iran. A new course has been set when turning the ship of state around, and it takes a while when taking positions on multilateral diplomacy, climate change, arms control, and the over-tilt in favor of Israel in the Middle East. But all the Times could cynically summon up was: "a Nobel Prize for politics."
The cheapest shot of vitriol by her editors was the short list of previous controversial Nobel nominations published in the same issue: Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin, Benito Mussolini. For shame! And very sad for what was once the world's premier newspaper.
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While Obama's agenda might look similar to a European agenda, Obama himself has no feeling for this place. His preoccupation and interest are North, South. He has no bonds to Europe- Rather, Kenya, Hawaii, Indonesia. He was born outside of the cold war.
The solutions to issues facing America today will not come from Europe and nor will problems. I believe the times felt this chill and has struck out in its helplessness.
Agree.
Congratulations President Obama!
The U.K 's Times is owned by Rupert Murdoch, Enough said!
British Conservatives still feel America belongs to Britain.
Their ultimate design, to my opinion, is somehow and someday to force break up of the US to two or more smaller countries. This would wipe out the United States of America as a super power. They still dream of bringing back the lost British Empire back to its feet. One of their closest allies in this scheme is the Islamic Republic of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad.
The British conservatives have infiltrated the US system to the bone marrow. Fox news, Beck, Limbaugh, untold number of Republican Senators and Representatives, and etc. are all tools of the Brits in this ongoing hidden war.
lol
As a Brit who has never voted for the UK conservatives and never would I have to see this is about the most daft thing I have ever read. The defining characteristic of the Conservative Party is its near universal hatred of what it calls "Europe". Dear old Rupert Murdoch shares and encourages that viewpoint.
"The restoration of hope is a vital achievement in the world's most powerful democracy. Obama has changed the face of government in the United States -- after eight years of a retrograde, autocratic, incompetent, imperial, contemptuous-of-the-law administration that drove the country to the brink of depression. More to the point of the Prize, Obama's living example has changed the face of America before the world -- from South Africa to Germany, from Japan to Brazil, from Russia to India and Indonesia, from China to Iran." --Wm. E. Jackson, Jr.
What can one say more to this? No one man has ever accomplished as much, and still more to manifest, in so little time, as had Barack Obama. One wonders exactly what imperceptible force leads him on in face of gigantic odds and untiring enemies of the right-wing sector. I believe the impetus is more than free will on the part of this individual. There is something greater that impels him forward. Whatever it is, whoever it is, must love this country much! The Nobel Prize committe has dare made its selection boldly before the world. And to that degree do I agree.
hear hear!
I can recall the mass spontaneous happiness in Britain when former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari won last year. (yeah sure).
Britain in the main is a sour country with bad food, sodden dangerous streets and ill dressed people. Resentment of the blessing of others is their motto, at least since Britannia ceased to rule waves or even its major intersections.
"bad food, sodden dangerous streets and ill dressed people"
I do hope you're not a yank, because the irony would be just too much.
Since when can an American, of all people, comment on the clothing and style of anyone in Europe??!! Thats too funny.
Anyway, the point to be made is that The Times is a Murdoch paper and as such, adheres tightly to Murdoch's personal world-view in it's editorials. If you work for him he owns you and your opinions.To be surprised at the vitriol of The Times is to be surprised at the vitriol of Fox News.
I don't think they do irony, it's one of the multiple concepts they have little understanding of.
I second that
I'm surprised you find it acceptable to turn up on a forum and for absolutely no reason at all (other than the fact that you don't agree with something printed in a newspaper) launch a childish, bitchy, and hypocritical attack on a nation and it's people.
Whatever floats your boat...
The TImes is a right wing rupert murdoch newspaper, same as Fox news.
It's nothing like Fox news. Americans don't seem to realise that Rupert Murdoch is a lot more subdued on this side of the Atlantic. His equivalent to Fox news here is Sky news which is excellent and considered bi-partisan.
Murdoch has to compete against the "too powerful" BBC, he appears to do it by trying to emulate it, and by sending his son out to whine about how unfair it all is.
I find the Sun particularily subdued. Its coy images of bare breasted girls, its multiword stories... Its fascination with up-skirt shots.
Yes. The Sun. Murdoch at his most subtle. Dont want to offend the sensibilities of the boyos now do we.
People's comments about the Times being a Murdoch owned elitist rag demonstrate widespread ignorance of the situation not just in Britain, but across Europe.
The feeling that the award to Obama was misplaced and simply embarrassing was close to universal. Not just in Britain either.
If you'd looked in the Guardian, you would have found identical or close to identical editorials. The Sunday Observer had a pithy editorial of 1 paragraph suggesting the new Laureate might first use his status to grant sanctuary to Silvio Berlusconi - a gesture of reconciliation and peace. The comments below the articles were close to universal in agreement. The award was not Obama's fault, but it was utterly ridiculous.
Michael Tomasky, 'liberal' US editor for the Guardian wrote that Obama should give the prize back. German reaction was equally skeptical, sometimes scathing.
This has nothing to do with 'conservative rags'. To suggest so shows how dangerously out of touch the vox populus of the US is with the rest of the developed world. Many of us see no significant change of anything after 9 months of Obama and don't particularly care for the man either. It isn't the genuine hatred that was felt towards Bush. It is just a cold indifference, of the kind Obama himself seems to radiate so freely.
An approval rating of 77% across Europe, from a poll just taken last month, tells an entirely different story than yours.
http://www.theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=8049
Yes, a general approval rating, NOT an approval rating concerning the award of the Nobel Prize.
It is a right wing elitist rag - what do you expect
No, that's the Telegraph, I'd hardly call the Times elitist, right wing yes, but slightly downmarket these days...
I guess things have changed. When I was in the UK years ago, the Times was considered the elite newspaper and the Telegraph on the centrist/liberal side. I used to love the Telegraph's crossword.
Thanks for the update.
The Times is a conservative rag that is best used to wrap take out fish and chips.
you are wrong sir. It is best used as a**wipe.
what did you expect from murdoch.s rag, check out nypost and more specifically wsj...and mother of all fox news...
If you want to be appalled my friend, go to Gaza. Maybe then you will understand why so many people don't understand why President Obama received the award.
Wasn't GWB in office at that time!
What a bizarre comment!
Obama has done more for Gaza in the past 10 months than Bush did in eight years. Of course on the ground it cannot be changed so suddenly, especially given an extremist right wing government in power in Israel - making Obama's steps an achievement that much more extraordinary(and exposes just how unwilling Cheney/Bush were at helping a people survive).
But hey! Join the flock of ignorant know-nothings looking for a scape goat: blame Obama. It's a new trend!
Previous admin gone? BLAME OBAMA!
Can't figure out who to blame? BLAME OBAMA!
You might also want to consider growing up.
I was in the UK at the same time and just as appalled at the Times coverage. It was only after reading the Times everyday for a month and wondering at what had happened to it (full of trite, smarmy stories, extreme conservative outlooks and lacking in analysis) that I remembered that good old Rupert Murdoch owns it now. It will never be the same. Too bad. I think there is real danger is allowing one person to own so many information outlets.
Especially when it is Rupert Murdoch. The WSJ is now just another right wing opinion rag, too.
What themes of leadership, Mr. Jackson? You give no examples of what Obama has done. How about his escalating the war in Afghanistan by sending 32,000 more troops there (at a cost of $32 billion a year) earlier this year? How about the fact that his leadership is now preparing another escalation of 40,000 MORE troops? How about Obama's escalation of the war to Pakistan, endangering, in Sen. Feingold's opinion, that country's stability? How about illegal renditions of Bush being continued? How about Obama doing nothing about the Patriot Act (and behind the scenes lobbying for its extension)? Howard Zinn is right: since when do we give a Nobel prize for someone making promises? In Obama's case, lots of broken promises.
Funny, very funny!!!
Why are you blaming Obama for the MESS Bush created? 7 years in office and look at the state of Afghanistan!
Leadership is about doing your own thing and showing a new way. Not about clearing up other peoples BS!!
Cancelling star wars and the clash of civilisations, to start with.
Each time someone criticizes Afghanistan, I listen to hear their practical idea of what exactly should be done! Tell me. I only became aware of the Taliban, I think, in the late 1990s when there was a report that they were demolishing Hindi statues throughout Afghannistan and treating women like sh*t. I saw photos and remember how alarming it looked.
Just a sense of fear. Clinton was in office then and I thought that this was so basically barbaric.
"They need to be stopped", I thought. Little did I think that 2001 would be so tragic.
The world need to come together and stop these babarians.
Well, The Times IS owned by Rupert Murdoch. It's not as if we should expect serious reporting from that paper.
In the case of the The Times it is worth remembering that it is a Murdoch newspaper - same stable as Fox News. (as is the Sun, News of the World, Daily Star). Most of the British Meia has an obvious agenda, and the majority a right wing agenda. The best papers for my money are the Financial Times, the Independent and the Observer.
Personally I doubt whether Cameron will become the new and exciting leader you imagine - he originally modelled himself on Blair, which is not a good sign.
Your incite into these sources of new will be of value to me and for that I'm pleased to become your 5th fan. Thanks!
sourry: ahhh duhhh that would be "insight"
The guardian is the best British newspaper.
That explains a lot.
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