Ugly Americans

Okay, rant time.
So Obama--deserving or not--just won the Nobel Peace Prize and the crazies come out to play. First of all, do I think he deserved it? Probably not...at least not yet. Do I understand why they gave it to him? Yeah, probably. Two big reasons he might have won: (1) He's not Bush and his election caused a lot of countries that were turned off by Bush's cowboy attitude to be hopeful that the greatest nation in the world finally has someone willing to talk things over instead of using "Crusade talk" and his "with us or against us" speech. (2) He voted against the wars as a Senator and chaired the Nuclear Disarmament Summit at the UN and urged the "superpower" countries to ease up on their stockpiles.

The funniest talk is that people are comparing his win to the other U.S. Presidents who have won. Nowhere in the Nobel Prize's nomination process does it state that they have to be a leader of a country to win. They most likely based this on his promises (kept or not) made during the campaign and the reaction the rest of the world had when he was elected. Anyone remember the worldwide celebration, or are we still too bitter?

Let me state again that he probably didn't deserve it, but the Mexican soap opera-style melodrama being played out by his critics is almost comical. I was actually waiting for GOP Chairman Michael Steele to interrupt Obama during his speech yesterday by grabbing the microphone and saying "Hey, Barack.....I'm gonna' let you finish in a minute.....but Martin Luther King was the BEST Nobel Peace Prize winner EVER!"

You may think I'm sticking up for Obama. Full disclosure: I voted for him...mainly out of the fear of the possibility of a Sarah Palin administration if McCain couldn't keep his heart beating. In fact, I really liked McCain back in 2000 and wanted him to beat Bush. I think Bush sealed his own fate when he got Dick Cheney to "nominate himself" for Vice President. I honestly think that McCain could have held Bush in check and things would've ended up better than they are now. Had McCain picked ANY of the "also rans" in the GOP Primary as his VP, I might have even voted for him. I kind of felt sorry for the way he was twisted into some new person once Palin entered the picture. McCain of 2000 could easily be a very popular president right now.

What I don't get, however, is how the conservatives went from calling liberals "un-American"....to celebrating the loss of a chance to host the Olympic Games and pulling their hair out over the fact that the President won some SYMBOLIC prize from a jury of 5 Norwegians. Have we really become that petty? You can really tell the people who just DON'T LIKE OBAMA as a person....or a human being for that matter. They're the ones who count how many times he says the word "I" in his speeches. They're the ones who are outraged that he went with Michelle to a Broadway show. At least he wasn't "clearing brush on a ranch." The same could be said for those who treated George Bush the same way.

It was a little unfair for those who bashed Bush for every little thing. I'm sure there are a lot of things that are good about Bush as a person, friend, or dad.....but in my opinion, he was a horrible "spokesman" for the American people. Without the 9/11 attack, I think he would've had a virtually uneventful term. But the obvious need for us to fight back gave him the opportunity to show our "ugly American" side to the rest of the world. In the month after the attack, MOST of the world was behind us....a year later, many countries DESPISED us. That is a simple fact. Most of that can't be blamed simply on Bush, though. It was the "Freedom Fries" and the "How many wars has France won" lists on talk radio. It was the use of the word "Crusade" by a Christian president in a war against Islamic radicals. Most Americans would respond to that statement with "we don't care what other countries think of us." Well, how many countries devoted some of their troops IN OUR DEFENSE against the Taliban and al Qaeda? Lots of them. They did this because they wanted to support us.

I would love for those who whine and moan about EVERY LITTLE THING "the other side" says or does in this country to view it from another country's point of view. We must seem like a nation of spoiled brats and crybabies. In the past year, we've gone from blaming Bush for lying about the need for war--to questioning our elected President's place of birth, complaining about our President joining OTHER HEADS OF STATE in trying to bring his country the Olympic games, videos of reporters rejoicing in the fact that a major US city will not receive a host of international visitors and the money they'll bring to the economy, and heated debates about the validity of a Nobel Prize. Now I know where the term "Ugly American" comes from.

Another disclosure: I love this country. We survived 8 years of 2 wars and a very shady administration and I believe we'll survive the next 4 or 8 years. The fact that we get to have major elections every two years is what makes us so great. If you don't like it, vote for a change. But in a country where only about 60% of registered voters voted in the 2008 election...what do you expect?

Okay. Rant over. My apologies to those I've offended.