I was curious about what the right-wing pundits would have to say about Obama's Nobel speech. While some of them actually found things to praise about the speech, and the president, most found at least something to attack and sneer at.
Just about everyone, across the spectrum, thinks the award was premature, and had to be somewhat embarrassing for a president who's just escalated a war, so I won't bother with that line of criticism. Aside from that, what they did decide to criticize was interesting, for what it expresses about where they still are on the right, and the values they hold.
As a public service, and in the spirit of bridging divides through the light of understanding, here are my summaries, in no particular order, of some of the most serious philosophical criticisms (such as they are) from the right, as found on memeorandum, leaving aside the usual juvenile sniping and name calling (which as you might expect makes up most of it).
National Review:
Presidents should only praise America and never admit to any missteps, shortcomings, or failures. When they discuss the complex and difficult moral issues that face them as leaders they should keep their speeches short.
The Heritage Foundation:
There's no connection between Martin Luther King, Jr.'s nonviolent struggle for civil rights for African-Americans and the existence of the first African-American president a generation later. Only Islam is to be condemned for using religion to justify war and violence, and any mention of Christianity having done the same in the past is equivalent to treason. National security must only be considered in terms of military force, and recognizing poverty and injustice as breeders of terrorism, war, and violence is deeply inappropriate. Realism cannot possibly co-exist with idealism, and the idea of peaceful co-existence of those with conflicting interests and values is incomprehensible.
David Frum:
Bush was Good, Republicans are Good, the Iraq War was Good, and Ronald Reagan was Good, and failing to sufficiently glorify their achievements or (God forbid) criticizing them, makes Obama Bad. It's unbearably gauche for the first African-American president to imply in any way that he, personally, as an African-American, embodies any of the successes that have flowed from Martin Luther King, Jr.'s lifelong struggle for civil rights. No amount of praise for Our Glorious Military is sufficient, especially if your name is Barack Obama, and especially if you don't mention that they won the war in Iraq. A good ten months into his presidency, he still hasn't given up on diplomacy with Iran and nuked them yet. Stating any kind of equivalence between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East conflict is reminiscent of something a Nazi once said.
Glenn Reynolds:
He's just like Bush, except not as good, so why aren't the liberals bashing him the way they bashed Bush?
Just One Minute:
Some of those who opposed slavery in the Civil War did so for religious reasons, and Obama approved of them, so how can he complain that religion can lead to violence and war? (Really, I'm not making this up!)
Michelle Malkin:
Affirmative action Peace Prize for the black president. (I GOTS'A PEACE PRIZE!)
***
All pretty pathetic, confused, defensive, petty, and incoherent stuff. All they have is their hatred, their resentment over losing, and their narrow idiosyncratic views and obsessions that don't reflect the broader values of the rest of the country.
So what does it mean that the most ferocious and substantive criticism actually came from the left? Here's a good example:
Today, Obama referred to King's commitment to nonviolence as something he, as a world leader, doesn't have the luxury of pursuing. Yet all too often we forget that King had a dream beyond desegregation. He also believed that we can overcome war itself, as he hinted at in Oslo in 1964:
I believe that even amid today's mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men. I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive good will proclaim the rule of the land.
Obama, on the other hand, reflected the cynicism of today (though he specifically rejects the word in the speech), rather than what King called his "audacious faith in the future of mankind." Obama insists that war is a natural human state, which is incidentally a pretty grand departure from the archaeological evidence...
More offensive than his reference to "just war" were the moments when Obama paid lip service to the idea of rule of law...
But Obama failed to mention the disregard for rule of law shown by the previous administration, as well as his own administration's failure to correct such disregard....
[T]hough the president insisted that "America has never fought a war against a democracy," we sure have overthrown more than our fair share of other nations' democratically-elected rulers....