Button Up Your Overcoat Today ... Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize

Better make that your rain slicker, for the Flying Monkeys of the Right Wing Freak Show will be in DefCon 5, full Warp speed overdrive, with flinging their feces around

The stunner news-of-the-day;

In Surprise, Nobel Peace Prize to Obama for Diplomacy

Of course, the NYT couldn't let it go by, with urging a little feces-flinging;

For Mr. Obama, the award could, in a strange way, prove a political liability. As he traveled overseas during his campaign for the presidency, he was subjected to criticism from Republicans who argued he was too much the international celebrity. Winning the Nobel at such an early stage in his presidency could further that kind of criticism, especially in Washington’s hyperpartisan political environment.

Here's the official statement from The Norwegian Nobel Committee



Yeah, maybe it was a bit slow-going on the Nobel Prize front this year, after all, peace hasn't exactly been breaking out all over the place.

Obama becomes only the third, sitting U.S. President to win the award, the first since Woodrow Wilson (the other, Teddy Roosevelt), and of the avalanche of posts (so far this morning), Josh Marshall, at TPM, seems to have the real deal on it;

This is an odd award. You'd expect it to come later in Obama's presidency and tied to some particular event or accomplishment. But the unmistakable message of the award is one of the consequences of a period in which the most powerful country in the world, the 'hyper-power' as the French have it, became the focus of destabilization and in real if limited ways lawlessness. A harsh judgment, yes. But a dark period. And Obama has begun, if fitfully and very imperfectly to many of his supporters, to steer the ship of state in a different direction. If that seems like a meager accomplishment to many of the usual Washington types it's a profound reflection of their own enablement of the Bush era and how compromised they are by it, how much they perpetuated the belief that it was 'normal history' rather than dark aberration.

Some other angles;

Nathan Hodge, at the Danger Room;

Finally, expect the Nobel Prize award to turn the spotlight on internal disagreements within the administration over the future of the nuclear weapons stockpile. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, for instance has said in the past that United States needs the Reliable Replacement Warhead, a new nuclear weapon design, if it is to maintain a moratorium on nuclear weapons testing while reducing stockpiles. It will be interesting to see if this prize changes the debate about re-sizing the nuclear arsenal.

Renard Sexton, on FiveThirtyEight.Com;

In the US realm, this is a great boost for the Obama foreign agenda - which certainly played into the decision by the Nobel folks. While the US political scene is often quite skeptical of the international community, the Peace Prize is a quite lauded affair. Even major Obama detractors will have a bit of hard time criticizing his win, especially after their poorly received revelry of Chicago's olympic demise. For Obama liberal supporters, it is a bittersweet moment --many have criticized the administration's foreign policy for moving to the center, particularly on war issues, and the Peace Prize designation takes a great deal of air out of that balloon.

Perhaps the happiest people in the US on this one will be the centrists - and those who wanted Obama to reshape the US image abroad. Whether the award is warranted (too soon? too uncertain?) or relevant (peace prize as we're discussing escalation in Afghanistan?, for the leader of the largest and most powerful military force in the world to be awarded a prize for peace and diplomacy is quite an interesting development.

Steve Clemons;

Forget the Chicago Olympics foul up. Barack Obama has just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize -- the first sitting US President to win the Prize since Woodrow Wilson.

[snip]

But the reality is that this Prize puts some air back in the Obama Bubble -- and this is good for the country and world as the challenges in the international system are enormous today.

Obama's efforts to talk the world into a better place have indeed created opportunities that were hard to imagine during the Bush administration -- but now a lot of heavy lifting and deal-making are required, and the Nobel Prize will give Obama a boost in these efforts.

ABC reports that a few White House staffers thought they were being punked, when the news came in early this morning.

Line of the morning goes to Robert Farley, over on Lawyers, Guns and Money;

Next: Barack Obama, AL Cy Young winner?

And, those Flying Monkeys ...

From David Kurtz, at TPM;

A TPM commenter wonders if this isn't a bit premature:

Isn't it a little soon for this? Maybe after he brokers an Israeli-Palestinian agreement or something like that. It sounds like the, 'boy is the world relieved you guys didn't choose McCain' award

Bob Cesca has how Morning Joke was dissing it, and more;

When asked whether the Nobel Peace Prize will negate the Copenhagen thing, White House correspondent Savannah Guthrie replied, "Well. I don't know." I don't know? The Nobel Prize doesn't supersede a ridiculous story about the Olympics? Please. The last sitting president to be selected was Woodrow Wilson. The only prize George W. Bush received was yanked out of a box of Froot Loops.

Peter Friday, on Firedoglake - "I can almost hear the screaming from Dick Cheney and the neocons as they get the news."

Prairie Weather, with "Poisoned chalice";

NPR speculated that awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama is like handing him a poisoned chalice. The poison is the inevitable the reaction of the political opposition in this country to the prize. The Nobel committee is seen as heaving a great sigh of relief that Bush/Cheney are off the scene.

We all have to pitch in to get Ta-Nehisi Coates some television;

My Lord. I wish I had cable, so I could watch Fox News flip the fuck out over this one. Rush is gonna be all-world today, Glenn Beck is gonna be all-universe.

And the Big Cheese Flying Monkeys are locked-and-loaded with their feces.

Michelle "Staklin" Malkin harumps that it is an award for his symbolism, while Mona Charen, at the big Flying Monkey perch, wants to keep that "Pal'n around with terrorists" meme going;

Before they break out the champagne at the White House, they may want to pause over the fact that Obama now shares this honor with Mohammed el-Baradei, Yasser Arafat, and flagrant liar Rigoberta Menchu Tum.

Meredith Jessup, at Flying Monkey Perch Townhall has the headline "Apologies Apparently Accepted: President Obama Awarded Nobel Peace Prize";

So correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this essentially mean Obama received this award for making some good speeches? Sure nothing he says has actually been accomplished, but it all sounds good!

Sure the Nobel Prize lost a lot of luster after they awarded one to Al Gore, but c'mon! This is just more evidence the "messiah" mentality has reached the world stage...

MediaMatters catches RedStates Eric Erickson ringing in the the racial meme for the Flying Monkeys, with "RedState's Erickson smears Obama's Nobel Peace Prize as "an affirmative action quota"

And, Flying Monkey Dan, at Riehl World View, at the end of his feces-flinging, predicts Obama winning the Nobel Prize will actually bring about his demise;

Unfortunately, this inexperienced, indecisive, ineffectual jerk doesn't seem to speak for America. And that's his real problem in the end. At this rate, the man is going to become reviled by a majority of the American people in four years.

I don't think Tweedledee and Tweedledum (Limbaugh and Beck) come to work until later in the day, so you can expect a second wave of Flying Monkey feces flinging well into the night.

Oh yeah, keep watch of the wire services today, to see when (if) Shadow President Dick Cheney is rushed to the hospital with heart trouble.