Bono Defends Obama's Nobel*
“We will support the Millennium Development Goals, and approach next year’s summit with a global plan to make them a reality. And we will set our sights on the eradication of extreme poverty in our time.”
They’re not my words, they’re your president’s. . . .
These new steps — and those 36 words — remind the world that America is not just a country but an idea, a great idea about opportunity for all and responsibility to your fellow man. . . .
I will venture to say that in the farthest corners of the globe, the president’s words are more than a pop song people want to hear on the radio. They are lifelines. . . .
Mr. Obama has put together a team of people who believe in this equation. . . . From a development perspective, you couldn’t dream up a better dream team to pursue peace in this way, to rebrand America. . . .
Americans are like singers — we just a little bit, kind of like to be loved. The British want to be admired; the Russians, feared; the French, envied. (The Irish, we just want to be listened to.) But the idea of America, from the very start, was supposed to be contagious enough to sweep up and enthrall the world.
And it is. The world wants to believe in America again because the world needs to believe in America again. We need your ideas — your idea — at a time when the rest of the world is running out of them.
Rebranding America
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*Say that 5 times as fast as you can.
posted by Degolar @ 2:27 PM
3 Comments:
I'm a fan of Obama, but I don't think he deserved a Nobel. Maybe, in several years, when his words have produced actions with some notable effect, but not now, when they're just words. It's basically a prize for not being Bush. Not being Bush, while admirable, is hardly prize-worthy.
Eh, as Jon Stewart said, they gave one to Arafat. The Nobel Peace Prize seems to have about as much credence as the Daytime Emmy's...
dinerpa: half of a ma and pa diner franchise.
I'm excited about the affirmation of his approach from "the world" at large and think they see more change/accomplishment than we do, but also feel bad that he might have been given the award instead of someone who's been at it longer and done more. I see it as a kind of positive reinforcement message for the country, trying to reward good behavior in the hopes of encouraging more. Unfortunately, like so much of the self-esteem movement, if it doesn't feel deserved it just makes people cynical about the whole thing.
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