Most liked posts in thread: Nobel Peace Prize - Farce or Good for US

This may surprise you

but I do get some input from conservatives. Just not hack blow hards like Rush.

Matt

 

Jealous.

 

Paul, excuse Matt. He is trying to reconcile his data driven logical thinking against his irrational admiration for my good looks and a certain Je ne sais quoi and it is clouding his mind. Just remember, he did make that cool convertible auto thingie that we've been waiting for 4 years now.

 

An SNL skit on the topic:

Watch Saturday Night Live Obama Address - Online Video Guide

 

I have nothing but love and respect for Matt. It's his misguided worldview that I call into question. JUST KIDDING. Not Really. Well, sortof. :lol:

Since Matt didn't like Hanson, we'll try Hitchens.
Nobel Peace Prize: Underqualified for the Overrate | Newsweek Politics | Newsweek.com

 

I'm nominating all the contributing authors to our library on here for Pulitzer prizes, sure they haven't really written anything groundbreaking or earth changing yet but it's that they represent writing and the possibilities of MINI related humanitarian journalism.

 

Rock on brother, rock on. :cornut:

 

Now that was worth reading...

I guess that says that the Peace Prize committe screwed the pooch so bad that Obama should have said "I am not (yet) worthy" and declined. There is some merit to that position.

Matt

 

I think that would have been brilliant politics, say "I'm honored, but I prefer to be judged on my actions, not my vision" - but that's not what he did.

 

Pot stirring of the day: Is a sitting President accepting such an award unconstitutional?

George Washington might have thought so. Certainly Alexander Hamilton thought it should be, given what he wrote in Federalist 22.

Foreign meddling behind Nobel Peace Prize ignored by Obama | Washington Examiner

 

yep... the US military is one of the greatest forces for peace in the history of the world... IMHO.

 

Couple of thoughts...

the argument about influence doesn't hold much water to me. Seems that the lobbying is done by the act of awarding, not dependant on whether it's accepted or not. At least one can argue this, pretty convincingly I think. Also, I've read pretty much every one of Douthats columns, and I gotta say that I now hold hope that some day I too can use C- logical constructs to get a job writing editoral content for the times. I really can't see why that guy gets a paycheck. Independant of if I agree with him or not, if I were his professor in college, none of his arguments have structure that hold up to any sort of scrutiny. (BTW, one of the best classes I took in college was Symbolic Logic, while not a good way to meet ladies and get laid, it sure did provide a formal framework to look at and examine the structure of argument. In this area Douthat fails pretty much every week.)

The NY Times article sounds good, and there's a lot I agree with, but peacekeeping isn't what the committee awarded the prize for. I think I actually agree with a previous post that saying "thanks, but no thanks" was the best thing Obama could have done. Now he's cursed cause if he does decline, it will be derided as pandering cause he didn't do it right away. If he doesn't decline it, he'll still get reamed for not doing so.

Friedman got it right by saying the Nobel Committee did Obama no favors.

Matt

 

Farce, or good for the US?

Farce. But then, I really don't care what the Norwegians think.

 

Matt does. Deeply.
:devil:

He's thinking of changing his name to Mattvik Richterstad.

 

shouldn't there be an umlat or anccent mark somewhere?

 

Yeah. But I'm not smart / motivated / anal / committed enough to type those.

 

I don't think he'll have any problem getting congressional approval to accept the award but that does bring up an interesting point that the 1.4million is technically the property of the United States. It'll still probably wind up going to a charity of some sort but will have to go through some finance committee red tape and Obama won't get the tax benefit of donating it. Overall I think the article has a lot of valid points but it changes nothing.

 

I will have to check with my CPA wife but that just does not sound right. In order to take that deduction and write off the $1.4 million donation he would first need to claim it as income, so it would be a wash in the end. I hate it when talking heads start throwing around half truths and misconceptions.