Not Being George W. Bush Won Obama the Nobel Prize
Published in O Globo
(Brazil) on 9 October 2009
by Gilberto Scofield (link to original)
It was five am when the world got the message. The president of the United States, Barack Obama, had won the Nobel Peace Prize and it was, honestly, a big surprise. An American president winning the Nobel Peace Prize? Mark Halperin, from Time Magazine, said this morning, "It isn't quite as inexplicable as Marisa Tomei's Best Supporting Actress Oscar." Not so, guys!
Newspapers have been talking about his anti-nuclear and anti-armament policies. But what gave the prize to Obama was his support of multilateralism and diplomacy with no arrogance as opposed to the unilateralism that was a mark of the Bush administration. In other words, Obama won the Nobel Prize because he is not George W. Bush.
His concerns, publicized with a great use of new media tools, are far apart from the previous administration's priorities. The Bush administration had a warlike aura, was arrogant towards international organizations and was not concerned with global warming.
Obama is everything that Bush wasn't: he tries to reinforce negotiated solutions, which many people in the U.S. see as a weakness in leadership, he has helped to extend the global economic stage with the creation of the G-20, he seeks to extend the social care system for the U.S. by advocating health care reform and he is also pushing Congress to adopt a limitation to greenhouse gases emissions. He has also been humbled – the International Olympic Committee choose Rio de Janeiro as the site of the 2016 Olympics despite his personal address to the IOC voters in support of Chicago.
American politics have also adopted a pragmatic tone that many people see as cynical, but others defend as a powerful tool for problematic topics like the Palestinian issue, authoritarian governments and the relationship with Latin America.
Good sense increases the chance of attaining peace anywhere.
It doesn't matter if ultra-conservative Americans and populist leftists, especially Hugo Chavez and his group of decadent clowns, hate it, but the world is better with Obama as the most powerful country's president. It is as simple as that. At least the leader of the biggest economy in the world tries to act with good sense in a world full of hysteria and imbalance.
Congratulations, Obama. And good luck with your decision about Afghanistan. Can a person who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize send more soldiers to the battlefield?
Newspapers have been talking about his anti-nuclear and anti-armament policies. But what gave the prize to Obama was his support of multilateralism and diplomacy with no arrogance as opposed to the unilateralism that was a mark of the Bush administration. In other words, Obama won the Nobel Prize because he is not George W. Bush.
His concerns, publicized with a great use of new media tools, are far apart from the previous administration's priorities. The Bush administration had a warlike aura, was arrogant towards international organizations and was not concerned with global warming.
Obama is everything that Bush wasn't: he tries to reinforce negotiated solutions, which many people in the U.S. see as a weakness in leadership, he has helped to extend the global economic stage with the creation of the G-20, he seeks to extend the social care system for the U.S. by advocating health care reform and he is also pushing Congress to adopt a limitation to greenhouse gases emissions. He has also been humbled – the International Olympic Committee choose Rio de Janeiro as the site of the 2016 Olympics despite his personal address to the IOC voters in support of Chicago.
American politics have also adopted a pragmatic tone that many people see as cynical, but others defend as a powerful tool for problematic topics like the Palestinian issue, authoritarian governments and the relationship with Latin America.
Good sense increases the chance of attaining peace anywhere.
It doesn't matter if ultra-conservative Americans and populist leftists, especially Hugo Chavez and his group of decadent clowns, hate it, but the world is better with Obama as the most powerful country's president. It is as simple as that. At least the leader of the biggest economy in the world tries to act with good sense in a world full of hysteria and imbalance.
Congratulations, Obama. And good luck with your decision about Afghanistan. Can a person who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize send more soldiers to the battlefield?
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