Humility, Obama-Style

After Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize, members of the media used Obama's "humble" speech to defend him from conservative criticism that he'd done nothing to deserve it. MSNBC's David Shuster even went so far as to call conservative critics "un-American" because hey, Obama acknowledged he didn't deserve it and that settled the issue.

As it turns out, that humility? Words, just words.

Apart from the clue that he’s going to skip over to Oslo to pick up the gong personally (great opportunity for a wonderful speech), consider the emails his White House is sending out. No opportunity to shoehorn in a mention of the Nobel prize is being missed.

Yesterday, it was: “Earlier today, President Obama spoke with President Felipe Calderon of Mexico, President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica, and President Alvaro Uribe of Colombia. In addition to thanking each for their respective calls regarding the Nobel Peace Prize, the President…”

The day before it was: “Late Saturday morning, President Obama returned Indian Prime Minister Singh’s phone call. Prime Minister Singh had called President Obama on Friday to congratulate him on having won the Nobel Peace Prize. The President expressed his appreciation for the call and congratulations. He noted that he was humbled and grateful for having received the Nobel, and that he saw it as a call to collective action on shared challenges.”

Harnden's last question in that post kind of answers itself, doesn't it?

posted by Slublog at 09:27 AM

| Access Comments