The Audacity of Hope

...is what a caller into Brian Lehrer's show on WNYC today, termed the decision by the Nobel Prize Committee to award the Nobel Peace Prize to President Barak Obama. Personally, I think the decision is premature and may even hamper the President's efforts to implement some very difficult decisions. For example, I do not think that President Obama can possibly be expected to resolve the Afghan situation without enlarging the military effort. That's hardly peaceful, as future critics of the Nobel Committee's decisions will justifiably point out, but right now peacemongering will not gain anyone the upper hand militarily on the bad guys. Otherwise, it will be back to public executions at Kabul's stadium. Poor President Obama. From gung-ho politician he has been kicked upstairs, unwilling, horrified, bemused, into the statesman-saint club of unpopular (but incredibly decent) presidents and vice-presidents.