by MARK STEYN
Investor’s Business Daily
October 9, 2009
The most popular headline at the Real Clear Politics website the other day was: “Is Obama Becoming A Joke?” With brilliant comedic timing, the very next morning the Norwegians gave him the Nobel Peace Prize.
Up next: His stunning victory in this year’s Miss World contest. December 12th, Johannesburg. You read it here first.
For what, exactly, did he win the Nobel? As the president himself put it: “When you look at my record, it’s very clear what I have done so far. And that is nothing. Almost one year and nothing to show for it. You don’t believe me? You think I’m making it up? Take a look at this checklist.”
And up popped his record of accomplishment, reassuringly blank.
Oh, no, wait. That wasn’t the real President Obama. That was a comedian playing President Obama on “Saturday Night Live.” And, for impressionable types who find it hard to tell the difference, CNN — in a broadcast first that should surely have its own category at the Emmys — performed an in-depth “reality check” of the SNL sketch.
That’s right: They fact-checked the jokes. Seriously. “How much truth is behind all the laughs? Stand by for our reality check,” promised Wolf Blitzer, introducing his in-depth report with all the plonking earnestness so cherished by those hapless Americans stuck at Gate 73 for four hours with nothing to watch but the CNN airport channel…
…Obama took office on January 20th. Gosh, it’s so long ago now. What “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy” did he make in those first 12 days? Bowing to the Saudi King? Giving the British Prime Minister the Wal-Mart discount box of “Twenty Classic Movies You’ve Seen A Thousand Times?”
“Er, Barack, I’ve already seen these.” “That’s okay. They won’t work in your DVD player anyway.”
For these and other “extraordinary efforts” in “cooperation between peoples,” President Obama is now the fastest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in history. Alas, the extraordinary efforts of those first 12 days are already ancient history.
Reflecting the new harmony of US-world relations since the administration hit the “reset” button, The Times of London declared the award “preposterous” and Svenska Freds (the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society) called it “shameful.”…
…Obama’s priorities lie not in the Hindu Kush but in America: Why squander your presidency on trying to turn an economically moribund feudal backwater into a functioning nation state when you can turn a functioning nation state into an economically moribund feudal backwater?…
Steyn’s entire article is here.
