As to your entry on the scene, suffice it to say that people will give you several chances here before they write you off completely. Some really worked at it to get there and then like Limbaugh with his racial comments arrived wondering how they got there.

Welcome

Political discussions are difficult because of polarization in political debate today. I understand that many of you think I’m a Glen Beck-style rabble rouser because I identified myself as a conservative, a Republican and a Christian. That’s understandable; you have only a short article to judge me on, and with the recent and often unfair criticisms of the President, my mild criticisms seem like more of the same.

About the “intro”: Donkelphant likes new posters to write a short intro and pre-pend it to their first post. Many of you have commented that I should have made that intro more consistent with the tenor of the post, and that’s a fair criticism. I think the intro signaled that you may have reason to be offended. That wasn’t the intent of the intro, of course, but I did want to warn you that my views do not always fit into the conservative-Republican-Christian category. Thankfully, I don’t have to have an introduction on every post.

I will probably make other grammatical errors, and perhaps a spelling error or two (“judgement” is incorrect, as people have pointed out).

A couple of you have mentioned that Donklephant is not a place for “opinion”, a comment that truly surprises me. I think Donklephant has a lot of opinion, and most of it is from a center-left perspective. So I’m not sure how to incorporate that idea to help in the future.

There is an old saying in marketing – talk about my grass, not your grass seed. It’s a shame you tried starting on a light note to put yourself in perspective, and it completely skewed my view of your post! The rather sad part is, drawing so many lines you were thinking you were showing me how complex your thinking is. The truth is that I read that realized that the only people that are proud of pissing people off are typically grumpy old men who talk in complete BS while trying to convince everyone around them they have some special insight or secret data others do not.

I’m sure if Justin put you here that is not the case for you, and I hope that is true. But know I for one am hyper sensitive towards that group of people. They have infected the news. Fox is of course the biggest employer of grumpy old men but most TV/Cable programs seems to have their Jack Cafferty, Keith Olbermann, Lou Dobbs… wow, I just realized how long of a list I could create here.

That list of people have completely destroyed the credibility of ALL broadcast journalists for me; everything on the tube is suspect now. That is why I turned to places like here. And truly Donklephant has been a breath of fresh air. A place people can talk about their views and reconcile their differences.

So please, just talk about my grass. If your seed contains a little religion, a little conservatism, that’s perfectly fine. If it works, I’d go for it.

Just read that last one to my wife, I thought it was so good! You have perfectly described what is passing for “American Conservatism” 2009.

So yeah, I read that to my wife.

“You know why you like that? You like that because it’s one big, pimply metaphor.. and you love metaphors!”

“I know,” I replied. “Plus, it fits like a GLOVE!”

“It fits like a what?”

[damnit...]

And on queue, the right insists we throw away American leverage and prestige (along with the Olympics and anything that the “enemy” touches) because it’s not all about them. I seriously do not think the people representing the bulk of the political right have our country’s best interest in mind. I don’t. When their leaders try to act sensibly, they eat ‘em: (Lindsay Graham). It’s shocking. I can’t help but think that the GOP is going through the political equivalent of a white head. An infection has been laying under the surface for years and now with a little pressure from within, it’s pimpling up. (And, BTW, like teenagers, they refuse admit a mistake, blame others for everything, know it all, don’t do their homework, bully, and throw tantrums when they don’t get their way.) It’s ugly to look at now (the pimple, I mean); but it will be so much better for them and for us when it finally pops. I guess we have to take mom’s advise and not rush it, but damn i just want to squeeze it so bad…. I know, I know…

When it happens, just stand back cuz it’s a whopper.

That’s just a sentence construction issue. Next time you’d write, *Ego is one of the core character traits of any world leader, and some have noted, to put it mildly, that our President is in possession of one himself.* You’d want to place it immediately following the portion of the sentence it modifies. I’m prone to dropping parenthetical thoughts into my writing, so I’d probably have written something like, *Ego is one of the core character traits of any world leader, and some have noted (to put it mildly!) that our President is in possession of one himself.* I think those constructions are still awkward — I’d probably characterize those noting the ego as detractors — but at least they’re grammatically correct.

Also, the preferred spelling is still judgment I believe. Considering the teevee ads for Saw VI spell it judgement, this must be one of those areas where our language’s remaining quirks are being ironed out to conform to common, erroneous usage. Hardly a high crime.

No one need read the post more closely, Justin. Why continue to ignore the fact that the premise of the entry, which emerges suddenly and unexpectedly halfway through, echoes a popular Right Wing meme? From there it’s a string of seemingly random thoughts (Fox news feud, says I and Me a lot in speeches, Apology Tour hoho, Nobel+AfPak=?, The Box!) strung together, like Larry King without the ellipses. It might have made more sense to begin the piece with the ego line and proceeded from there, with a bit more meat on the bones of course.

Opinion pieces aren’t typically this blog’s specialty. I expect they’ll get better?

Yes, we all have an ego and in some instances serves us well. The point that I was obliquely trying to make was:

Large ego does not equal arrogance
Large ego can sometimes equal leadership

Ego is a part of the whole and, unless an entirely dominant trait, cannot by itself define the individual.

MikeA – I am possession of an ego, and it serves me well. It is also a potential weakness. I recognize that, and hope the President does as well. Darn! Maybe I should have made that point in the original!

the Word – re-read the sentence … “to put it mildly” refers back to the phrase “some have noted” that Obama has an ego. I know I hid the phrase in the beginning of the sentence. Next time I’ll try to over-type the letters on each other to put them closer. For the record, I also believe the President is in possession of a large ego like, as I said, every world leader is; as others have noted, it is almost a prerequisite. I also believe surgeons, attorneys and CEOs have large egos, and for the same reasons. It is important to note it as a potential weakness, which could have been part of the original point …

One other point, while I’m always ready to discuss the theological implications of “thou shalt not judge” off-line or in a more appropriate forum, I always find it amusing that a *judgement* is made that I’m a person who judges and therefore … what, a “judger”? Suffice it to say that noting a personality trait hardly qualifies as the “judgement” Christians are prohibited from doing. If you disagree with me, you are going to hell (oh, darn, I just “judged” … scratch that last sentence … that’s a judgement only God can make. Get it?)

Stimulating conversations … thank you all! I hope you catch the friendly ribbing nature above. No offense intended. I will be traveling all day tomorrow, but will be able to log back on either tomorrow night or Friday morning. I’m not ignoring anyone who has a comment in the interim.

————–
As for the Nobel I sincerely doubt it will affect Obama’s behavior much. As Frank pointed out all politicians are inherently arrogant. They think what they think is the best course for everyone. So he’ll figure that (eventually) the world will come along to his view even if he sends 40,000 more troops.

It will be very helpful to him in the Middle East conflict. Apparently he’s hopping mad at Netanyahu, and bringing Bibi to heel will be slightly easier now that he’s got a Peace Prize. Not much easier, but hey.

The Palestinian side is actually more troublesome for him right now. It’s divided, and apparently the Fatah-aligned Palestinian Authority urged the Israelis to bomb the crap out of Hamas-run Gaza even if it would “result in thousands of civilian casualties.”

He’s gonna need every bit of stature he can get to get those three groups around a negotiating table, speaking in good faith. The Nobel can’t hurt.

As I mentioned even before he commented and affirmed it, Frank’s main intention with this post was to hope that Obama does not allow the Nobel Peace Prize to influence his decisions about Afghanistan. And, like it or not, that is a HEAVY thing to have happen to you. If you don’t think it could have at least some effect, you’re kidding yourself.

Also, whoever tries to compare egos in this discussion is missing the point…big time. Frank said that it’s a core trait of EVERY world leader and so his comment covers EVERYBODY. Basically, if you’re bemoaning the fact that he didn’t bring up other folks in his discussion, please read the post closer next time.

Last, but certainly not least, Frank ran http://www.politetalk.com/ before he decided to fold up shop. So, given that he has spent a considerable amount of time dedicated to having reasonable discussions, afford him the courtesy of not piling on.

I find the idea that Obama would do anything that ran counter to his concept of U.S. interests, simply to please or placate the Nobel committee, to be laughable. I mean, seriously.

Hell, f**k the box! The more I read this, the more I like the idea of using it in negotiations. Take that medal, mount it on one of these, and wear it out when he goes to see Ahmadinejad or Kim.

“Know what this says, b!tch? It says ‘I talk, and you listen!’ “ :p

There will be an escalation in the conflict not because fighting insurgents in Afghanistan is a good or a bad idea, but because $80 billion a month in military spending can’t just be turned off. The greedy and socio-pathic splattered throughout the DOD won’t allow it. That ship sailed years ago, the problem in Iraq and the “Stans” is now a hydra with a will of it’s own – it will take years to fix if that’s even possible. Kennedy and Johnson both relied on military advisors regarding Vietnam and look where that got us.

I find the Republican party and those on the right truly ridiclous, as if their opinions even matter anymore. They spent the last 30 plus years lighting fires in virtually every facet of our society (political, social, economic, international) and then claim righteous indignation when the fire department shows up to put out their handiwork. There are no solutions coming from that side of the aisle, there never were.

It’s now called the “NoBush” Peace Prize. In all seriousness, even liberals seem to have underestimated the disdain that much of the world held for George W. Bush. Actually, it was not even disdain–it was despair. The United States is still irreplaceable in world affairs and when it, in effect, becomes a rogue nation, then it’s an enormous problem for the world. Obama’s determination to restore the United States to the political and moral center of the family of nations earned him this prize.

I’ve been mulling this whole NPP thing over for almost a week now, and I like some of the theories popping around here. Besides the “Free Pen Theory” and the “Calling Card Theory” referred to by the Word, there’s something else that’s crossed my mind…

[as we drift to the edge...]

There’s some interesting history and peculiarities behind Alf Nobel and all his prizes–according to the Wikipedia stuff, at least. To summarize…

* There’s a tightly-run calendar on all this. Nominees are accepted in the early part of the year, awards are announced in early October, you pick up your prize in December.

* Posthumous awards are never given. The award-winner must be alive when their name is announced in October. Yes, there have been one or two rare instances when somebody was announced in October, and then they died before the December ceremony.

* Self-nominations are immediately disqualified.

* If you are reading this, you probably can’t just fire off an email or letter and nominate somebody for the NPP. Only certain people get to do that.

* You can’t be considered if you haven’t been nominated.

* The selection committees for each award cannot nominate people, or consider those who have not been nominated. This, for me, is the most likely reason that Andrew Sullivan’s wish didn’t come true this year. Same goes for Elaine Lafferty.

* Lots of rumors are spread about who was nominated. The official lists are sealed for 50 years. So, if this is still bugging you in 2059, and you still happen to be here (and there’s still a “here” for you to “be” in)… well, have at it.

[Nearing the edge, the sound of falling water getting louder and louder...]

There is one really glaring omission on the list of NPP laureates. I have to admit, when I read about Gandhi’s 1947 statement on war (and subsequent backpedaling?), it made me think of President Obama stepping up activity in Afghanistan. Had Obama escalated the Afghan campaign earlier–say, in late September–would he have been dropped from the short list of NPP candidates?

The bottom line is, Gandhi was shot before the Nobel folks could award the NPP to him. The committee decided to leave the space blank for that year, not awarding the NPP to any one person or organization, as a kind of “silent homage” to Gandhi.

I don’t think they want to do that again.

[Here I go... over the edge!]

We have, now, the very first Black president in the White House. Certain segments of the American population have serious reservations about this. A lot of these same folks have been stocking up on guns and ammo… so much so that firearms dealers have empty shelves.

I can’t help but wonder, then, if the Nobel committee didn’t feel the pressure of time and history. I can’t help but wonder if they didn’t award the NPP to President Obama this year because, well… he’s still walking around above ground.

Please wait until the ride comes to a complete stop before pushing up on the lap bar and unfastening your safety harness. Please exit the ride to your… left.

Agnostick
agnostick@excite.com

Here are places that I thought were snarky

reflected the general feeling that the Nobel Peace Prize award was, at best, premature.

So pray tell What was it at it’s worst?

Ego … to put it mildly.

The Fox News spat BS (with the gem) crossing a line not even the ego-mania of President Nixon would breach: shooting downhill.

…his “World Apology Tour” found him apologizing on our behalf.

The most even handed assessment I read on the Peace Prize came from here http://oratoricalanimal.typepad.com/

*The committee used the word “daring” and focused on the future. Obviously, this is not the usual Nobel Prize. They gave this award for some of the same reasons they give the Peace Prize to human rights activists: It is meant to increase Obama’s leverage. He can carry that (symbolically, I hope) into the room with the president of Iran or Russia or the prime minister of Israel or Kent Conrad, for that matter, and drop that sucker onto the table. It’s not everything. But every little bit helps.

I think that was perceptive, it covers the it was too early and the why aspect done with a lot more value than I got from the above article.

The last two paragraphs of Frank’s article had some food for thought. Unfortunately, by the time I got there I had no interest in pursuing them with him.