When I woke up this morning I headed to my computer and logged on, just as I do every morning. I was flabbergasted when I saw the headline on MSNBC.com that Barack Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize. I was stunned and frankly a little confused. But I quickly recovered and began reading the news story and then the Tweets. I was thrilled about the honor for President Obama, a little delighted by the White House's apparently genuine surprise and more than a little curious as to the back story on how this came about.
After about an hour of reading and thinking the rationale behind this award became very clear to me. You see, I always saw how George Bush embarrassed us in front of the world. I knew that people the world over (except maybe Australia) held him in contempt and, as time passed, held all of us in contempt because of him. I knew his swagger and bravado made him (and by extension, us) look unsophisticated. And I certainly knew his policies--on Iraq, on climate change, on the U.N. and on other world issues was anathema to the rest of the world.
Yeah, I remembered that they had grown to hate us but I hadn't thought about how they must fear us. We have the largest, best armed military in the history of the world. In eight years time we attacked two countries--one with provocation and the other because our President felt like it. We threatened unstable countries (North Korea)and stood by while they worked to obtain very dangerous weapons. We abdicated our responsibilities as leaders of the free world in the very dangerous mideast as though benign neglect would lead to peace between Israelis and Arabs.
And these actions along with President Bush's bellicose swagger made the world more dangerous and made people afraid. We're the one with stockpiles of nuclear weapons and missiles. We're the ones with bombs that will fly down chimneys and find their way through corridors until they find their target. We have the unmanned weapons that can kill without putting American soldiers at risk. The world had grown more afraid because the biggest baddest guy on the block had started acting like an ass-hole.
And then we had a campaign and we didn't elect the guy who sang 'bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran'. We elected the tall, elegant, thoughtful man who didn't react emotionally. We chose the man who said 'We choose to negotiate'. Hundreds of thousands of us went to rallies to cheer for the man who believed you needed to talk to your enemies. We elected the black man in direct defiance of our own ugly history.
And he stood up and denounced torture. He started attending international conferences and acting in a respectful way towards other countries and cultures. He reached out directly to Muslims. He organized talks with Iran.
And the world is less scary. People are less afraid. Yeah, I get why they chose him and I couldn't be more proud than if I'd won the prize myself.
Thank you for letting me say this out loud to someone. I'm just bursting with emotion.