For a man who was so brilliant during the campaign, President Obama sure seems to have a tin ear now that he’s in office:
Obama Snubs the King
by Katarina AnderssonFinally some Europeans are angry with Obama—the very ones who are awarding him his Nobel. Katarina Andersson on the president’s decision to decline lunch with King Harald and skip his own Nobel exhibit.
A day before President Obama receives his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, the president’s treatment of his Norwegian hosts has become hot news across Scandinavia.
News outlets across the region are calling Obama arrogant for slashing some of the prize winners’ traditional duties from his schedule. “Everybody wants to visit the Peace Center except Obama,” sniped the Norwegian daily Aftenposten, amid reports the president would snub his own exhibition at the Nobel Peace Center. “A bit arrogant—a bit bad,” proclaimed another Aftenposten headline.
“It’s very sad,” said Nobel Peace Center Director Bente Erichsen of the news that Obama would skip the peace center exhibit. Prize winners traditionally open the exhibitions about their work that accompany the Nobel festivities. “I totally understand why the Norwegian public is upset. If I could get a few minutes with the president, I’d say, ‘To walk through the exhibition wouldn’t take long, and I’m sure you would love the show. You have no idea what you are missing.’”
Of course, I wonder just how well the Europeans are going to receive the President, given that he is in Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize nine days after he announced the troop escalation in Afghanistan. Yeah, he made the case that it is just plain necessary to win against al Qaeda and the Taliban, and I agree with him on that, but there are a lot of people who don’t, perhaps more in Europe than here.
When the Nobel committee awarded te Peace Prize to President Obama, he really hadn’t done much. He had campaigned on ending the war in Iraq, but he hasn’t done that. He also promised, during his campaign, to fight the right war, in Afghanistan, and his escalation is in line with his promise. It’s a good thing that the Nobel committee apparently understood that there are times when yes, you do have to fight — I assume here that the Nobel committee understood President Obama’s campaign promises — but I do wonder how the people of Europe feel about this.
Dana said, “When the Nobel committee awarded te Peace Prize to President Obama, he really hadn’t done much.”
What goes around comes around. The Nobel committed simply repeated the same mistake American voters did when they elected this horribly flawed, arrogant pretender.
We bought a pig in a poke and so did they, and now the ungrateful swine from Chicago is showing his appreciation for the racism of fools by rubbing their collective noses in his excrement.
You “wonder how the people of Europe feel about this…” Well, they feel about the same way the people of America feel, it stinks.
Unfortunately The Aftenposten (Evening Post) stopped it’s English web version in Nov. ’08 as a cost cuttin measure. It was an interesting paper.
Here’s an English site:
http://www.norwaypost.no/content/blogsection/1/26/
And this:
http://www.norwaypost.no/content/view/22880/26/
And remember, BO said he would make things better with other countries. This is hardly making us look good, or is it his intention to snub his hosts? He seems to be making this a habit.
I don’t know if this is an intentional strategy or not, but it’s actually fairly clever if it is. He knows he’s going to take crap for the escalation in Afghanistan, so he creates a non-issue like this King thing as a diversion so he can dismiss his critics as being obsessed with image over substance. It was the practical effect of the insanely stupid bow story in Asia – why not recreate that environment intentionally when he’s doing something controversial?
Realistically, of course, this isn’t planned and he’s probably just bumbling into a good situation here. But this sort of baloney “snub” is exactly what I would have done intentionally. Better to be lambasted for something superficial than for something substantive.
This universe: Stupid Obama insults foreign dignitary!
Alternate universe: Stupid Obama kisses foreign king’s butt!
Jeff said, “Better to be lambasted for something superficial than for something substantive.”
Indeed! But, our affirmative action President and serial miserable failure can’t seem to distinguish between the superficial and the substantive.
Obama’s superficial attempts to revive the economy prove the point. TARP failed, Stimulus failed, Cash for Clunkers failed. Global Whoring is sinking faster than Obama’s approval polls, and his shabby performance in Norway accepting an unearned Nobel Prize only shows him for the ungrateful whelp and ill mannered rube he surely is.
Perhaps Mr Insubstantial could use some time tested advice on how to get our country up and running again: It’s Tax Cuts!
Tax cuts are way to put America on the road to prosperity, tax cuts worked for Democrats when JFK did it, and tax cuts worked for Ronald Reagan after Jimmy the Obtuse drove us to 18% interest rates before the voters send that dim bulb back to Plains to wallow in his peanuts and self pity.
We’re stuck with Obama the Insubstantial, so the best thing we can do now is point the way out of darkness and into the light. How long he continues to refuse to see the obvious solution is the measure of his stupidity.
Tax cuts. People aren’t spending, banks aren’t lending, companies are laying off, money isn’t moving.
So the government should stop all spending, too. That way everything comes to a halt. The small relief on taxes will be shoved into bank accounts and mattresses, not new jobs. Not R&D. Businesses will use it to close American plants and open foreign ones. This will complete the Republican plan of dismantling the middle class and leaving only the ultra rich core in a nation of uneducated, malleable serfs, that will hoot and wave their little flags and obey.
Some moron left Obama a burning house, and now everyone’s crying about water conservation and putting kinks in his hose while he’s trying to save our lives.
“This will complete the Republican plan of dismantling the middle class and leaving only the ultra rich core in a nation of uneducated, malleable serfs, that will hoot and wave their little flags and obey.”
Yep, that’s just what the mean old Republicans want. They need to be put in re-education camps or better yet gulags.
“Some moron left Obama a burning house, and now everyone’s crying about water conservation and putting kinks in his hose while he’s trying to save our lives.”
Yep, some moron did and his name is Barney Frank. He almost single handedly ruined our economy and has yet to be held accountable. Sorry, he’s a fag Democrat so he’s exempt.
Nangleator wrote:
I’m going to treat this as a serious statement of what you believe. Now, does it make sense? After all, if that were truly the goal of Republicans, you’d think that we’d be both very much of a minority party, and that we’d be very stupid: why would we want a population comprised of people who couldn’t buy our products and make us richer?
Dana Pico, you are speaking rational thought to an emotional reactionary. Can’t be done. The education industrial complex has successfully turned half the adult men in America into feminist wussies.
I think I heard Nangleator on Rush today. He had a whining, patronizing voice toward Rush. (Good thing this dude didn’t call Mark Levin because Rush was very restrained but Mark would’ve gone off on the idiot.)
Now, I’ve seen comment after comment from Nangleator but no comment worthy of serious debate. It’s all snark, whining, patronizing, better than thou eye-poking. Nothing serious ever comes out of the kb of Nangleator.
JohnC.: Frank does seem to be a tool of the banks, but I wouldn’t say he’s solely to blame for our economic woes. And the name calling is a little juvenile.
Dana: Some of my statements here are serious, most are sarcasm or parody. And, unless you’re a billionaire, you’re not a part of the people I was really discussing. You may vote for them, but you’ll never be a part of them.
JohnC.: More name calling? Yes, I’d say I’m a feminist. But you probably meant ‘effeminate’?
John Hitchcock: I couldn’t bear to listen to more than a few seconds of that person. I certainly wouldn’t call in to his show. “…snark, whining, patronizing…” Yep, I freely admit to that. I started reading this blog because I had been spending some time on liberal blogs and wanted to see the right’s reaction to the events discussed by the left. Unfortunately, you almost never cover the same stories, but it’s fun to snark a little, anyway. But when I ask serious questions here, like what does victory mean in the Afghan war, my comments become invisible to you.
I can see why you think I never get serious.
“I’m going to treat this as a serious statement of what you believe.”
Actually, I don’t think anyone sane has this as an actual plan, but the aggregate effect of Republican financial theory, political plans, and simple, thoughtless corporate greed adds up to the same thing.
Sorry nangleator, I was not trying to insult you personally. I was observing that there is a segment of our male society which seems to respond emotionally to problems rather than critically. And that segment seems to be getting larger as time goes on. I just think both sexes have important roles in society and if we keep telling males to listen to their “feminine side” soon all we have are feminine citizens. I just don’t think that’s really a good thing. I could be wrong.
Not me. It’s simply too loony. It doesn’t even rise to the level of caricature, so nutty is that statement.
It feeds into a notion I’ve had for a long time. Conservatives understand liberals, they just don’t agree with them, whereas liberals don’t understand conservatives at all and have at best a cartoon version view of who we are.