Will Obama's Peace Prize hurt him politically?
There has been so much commentary about the ridiculousness of the Nobel Peace Prize award to Barack Obama that one searches in vain for a different angle to consider. How about this one; will the award hurt him politically in America? Even his ardent supporters on the left are incredulous. He won't win any more support than he already has from his deluded and besotted admirers on the left. They will - and have - rejoiced at this morning's announcement because they, like him, adore Euro-elites.
But what of those more moderate supporters? They seem incredulous and a bit embarrassed - as if the award is now a sign that their own adulation of him has reached its hypertrophic and terminal state when he wins a prize for nothing. The award makes their own ardent support seem a bit ridiculous- - ust a matter of degree of absurdity..
But what about the great shifting center?
Independents are already moving away from their prior support of Barack Obama. These are often the same type of people who are skeptical of international organizations and skeptical about European elites. They must realize that Obama won because he denigrated America in front of the world with his denial of American exceptionalism, his fetish for apologizing for America, his unstinting praise for other nations and peoples. This prize will just make Americans more sensitive to Obama's own inclination to admire other nations while trash-talking our own.
Recall how John Kerry was routinely skewered for his affectations; the French-sounding haughty Senator from Massachusetts.
Now Obama has been blessed by the same type of European elites that many in America feel disdain us. Will Americans just come to see Obama as more a plaything of European snobs than an American grounded in our values? An internationalist instead of an American? The equivalent of the same type of American celebrity who moves to Europe because they are embarrassed (or at least were under George Bush) to be an American?
Time will tell.