Peace be with you, but not for Obama

Well we've all seen the news and experienced the surprise of a sitting president, namely President Obama, being awarded the Nobel Prize for peace. Granted the man is serious about nuclear proliferation and ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as re-establishing the Middle East peace talks, but this award is only partially about the fact that Obama has captured the imagination of the world with such grand ideas. Surely the Nobel award is just as much about providing momentum for peace as it is about celebrating it, but in this case the award also signifies the complete disdain the rest of the world had for President Bush and his policies.

What is less surprising than Obama being named the Nobel recipient is the reaction by American conservatives, which is ironically more severe than the reactions had by the Taliban and Hamas. Can you imagine that? Well, you don't have to imagine. It was less than a year ago we were being told to support our president and be patriotic in a time of war or be labelled a traitor. Now that the shoe is on the other foot we get a first-hand view of hypocrisy at it's finest. These same people cheered when Chicago was eliminated from consideration to host the summer Olympics in 2016. These people who preach "country first" are happy America lost just so they can imagine in their own little minds that the president has a political "black eye" from it all. It is reminiscent of the Texas schoolchildren who applauded when informed of President Kennedy's assassination. One has to wonder what they had been taught and how they had been conditioned to react in such a manner? I guess Kennedy got what was coming to him for calling them "nuts" in the first place. That'll learn him.

Apparently American politics has become so divisive that something that should make every American citizen step back and be proud, to once again accept our role on the world stage as the great nation of diplomacy and leadership, would instead decay into partisan bickering and downright hatred for your political opponents first and foremost over consideration for cause and country. Perhaps our own ignorance as a populace is to blame? Perhaps we cannot move past the debates about who's side is right, and we cannot individually and collectively" advance beyond the notion of "our side" versus them (liberals, conservatives, communists, fascists, populists, anarchists, dog lovers, cat lovers, or whatever the fuck you are not that really sucks ass). Maybe American stupidity and selfishness have become so entrenched into our daily lives that it has rendered us completely ineffective at self governance? We can no longer agree on anything, including agreeing on the fact that we cannot agree. That would require too much of a concession from either side.