The Message of Obama's Nobel Speech: He Won't Back Down
Barack Obama could be forgiven for thinking that this season of peace is a silly season. The Washington storyline is that he is besieged,Vivienne Westwood Shoes, facing sagging poll numbers, relentless criticism from the right, trouble with Congress and—increasingly—impatience, skepticism, and outright hostility on his left flank. The Huffington Post sounds as screechy as National Review Online. Tom Hayden, who was consorting with radicals when Obama was in knee-pants, has let it be known that he removed the Obama bumper sticker from his car.
So what does Obama do? He goes to Oslo, to accept the Nobel Peace Prize that supporters and critics alike mocked him for winning, and delivers what may well have been the speech of his life. In just over half an hour, Obama summed up the credo that got him to the White House in the first place: an unyielding faith in the power of possibility, of reason, and—yes—of love to counter, if not always to conquer, mankind's darker impulses, and every society's eventual impulse to despair.
Obama briskly summarized the history of just war theory, and the architecture of post–World War II diplomatic and military institutions that have, for better or worse, managed to stave off a World War III. He spoke of the special irony of receiving a prize for peace as commander-in-chief of a nation in the midst of two wars, one bitterly controversial and—indeed—a big part of the reason that the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded Obama the prize. He spoke, clearly and eloquently, of the importance of upholding the highest ideals of fair play and decency in the face of enemies that reject the very concepts. "We honor those ideals by upholding them not when it's easy, but when it's hard," Obama said.And, like Martin Luther King Jr., whose life's work made his own life and career possible, Obama spoke of the curve of history, and its arc toward justice, and of the resolute refusal—in King's words—to let the "isness" of the world prevent humankind from reaching for the "oughtness" of the better world that always beckons. This is not happy talk. This is serious talk from a serious man, who knows all too well how short his own actions often fall, and yet who tries—again and again—anyway. This is what the congealing conventional wisdom—in his campaign, and now—always misses about Obama. He is a man who refuses to be licked.
"I decline to accept the end of man," William Faulkner famously said in accepting his own Nobel Prize in 1950. "I believe that man will not merely endure; he will prevail." The Nobel Committee has made the same bet about Obama, and the president's record—and his words today—suggest that it is a coldly rational bet.
Watch the full video of Obama's Nobel Prize speech.
Barack Obama could be forgiven for thinking that this season of peace is a silly season. The Washington storyline is that he is besieged,Vivienne Westwood Shoes, facing sagging poll numbers, relentless criticism from the right, trouble with Congress and—increasingly—impatience, skepticism, and outright hostility on his left flank. The Huffington Post sounds as screechy as National Review Online. Tom Hayden, who was consorting with radicals when Obama was in knee-pants, has let it be known that he removed the Obama bumper sticker from his car.
So what does Obama do? He goes to Oslo, to accept the Nobel Peace Prize that supporters and critics alike mocked him for winning, and delivers what may well have been the speech of his life. In just over half an hour, Obama summed up the credo that got him to the White House in the first place: an unyielding faith in the power of possibility, of reason, and—yes—of love to counter, if not always to conquer, mankind's darker impulses, and every society's eventual impulse to despair.
Obama briskly summarized the history of just war theory, and the architecture of post–World War II diplomatic and military institutions that have, for better or worse, managed to stave off a World War III. He spoke of the special irony of receiving a prize for peace as commander-in-chief of a nation in the midst of two wars, one bitterly controversial and—indeed—a big part of the reason that the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded Obama the prize. He spoke, clearly and eloquently, of the importance of upholding the highest ideals of fair play and decency in the face of enemies that reject the very concepts. "We honor those ideals by upholding them not when it's easy, but when it's hard," Obama said.And, like Martin Luther King Jr., whose life's work made his own life and career possible, Obama spoke of the curve of history, and its arc toward justice, and of the resolute refusal—in King's words—to let the "isness" of the world prevent humankind from reaching for the "oughtness" of the better world that always beckons. This is not happy talk. This is serious talk from a serious man, who knows all too well how short his own actions often fall, and yet who tries—again and again—anyway. This is what the congealing conventional wisdom—in his campaign, and now—always misses about Obama. He is a man who refuses to be licked.
"I decline to accept the end of man," William Faulkner famously said in accepting his own Nobel Prize in 1950. "I believe that man will not merely endure; he will prevail." The Nobel Committee has made the same bet about Obama, and the president's record—and his words today—suggest that it is a coldly rational bet.
Watch the full video of Obama's Nobel Prize speech.