Can you stand just a little more Nobel Peace Prize talk?

Deserving Nobel Peace Prize Winner

Matt Taibbi has a great post up about Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize.

It’s hard to believe, but there have been sillier moments in the history of the Nobel Peace Prize than this recent fiasco involving Barack Obama — it’s just so hard to remember them when you’re rolling around on the ground and spitting up greenish foam in a state of shock, as most of us were this past weekend as the news of Obama’s amazing award rolled over the airwaves.

The Nobel Peace Prize long ago ceased to be an award given to people who really spend their whole careers agitating for peace. Like most awards the Prize has evolved into a kind of maraschino cherry for hardcore careerists to place atop their resumes, a reward not for dissidence but on the contrary for gamely upholding the values of Western society as it perceives itself, for putting a good face on things (in Obama’s place, literally so).

“Putting a good face on things.” Could there be a better description of what Obama is all about? Basically, he was put in the White House to carry on George W. Bush’s policies, but make it seem like they aren’t as bad as when Bush was pushing them.

With Obama, it’s all about looking good–reality is irrelevant. All that matters is surface appearance. Congress spends months debating “health care reform,” and comes up with a bill that doesn’t reform health care in the slightest and instead promises to further enrich the health insurance companies.

Truthfully, no one really knows what will be in the bill, but it has been presented as “reform,” along with all kinds of promises about what it will do. The fact that it won’t really do any of those things doesn’t matter. Obama has created the *appearance* of health care reform, and many Americans who haven’t been paying close attention have the *impression* that we are going to get health care “reform.” By the time they find out that they’re really getting royally screwed, Obama will be well into his second term and approaching lame duck status.