More Disappointment From Obama

Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize earlier today.

His nomination for the award was shrouded in controversy from the day it was announced. What had he done to deserve such an honor? Was it an example of people being blinded by Obama’s magnetic, rock-star persona? Did the Nobel committee choose Obama to reward America for getting rid of George W. Bush?

The Norwegian Nominating Committee did not reassure critics by claiming “Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future” as a major reason for his selection.

Skeptics of Obama’s reception of one of the world’s most prestigious honors had to be frustrated as he used his acceptance speech to justify war as a moral imperative.

In the course of his address, Obama praised Martin Luther King and Ghandi but said “I cannot be guided by their examples alone” and proceeded to praise America’s history of military intervention.

Reminding the audience that “the United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms,” Obama went on to call war “at some level an expression of human feelings” and described the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan as “just wars.”

This are the statements of someone worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize? How is this reasoning different from George W. Bush?

You can add Obama’s Nobel speech to a growing list of disappointments that includes his financial policies, less than robust commitment to climate change, continuation of the Patriot Act, and overall inability or unwillingness to produce the Change he campaigned on.