10/9: Take That, IOC!

Conservative bloggers are blasting the Norwegian Nobel Committee for awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Pres. Obama. Michelle Malkin calls the decision "the final nail in the Nobel Peace Prize Committee's coffin," while Erick Erickson quips: "I did not realize the Nobel Peace Prize had an affirmative action quota for it." Other righty bloggers are arguing that the decision "will harm Obama politically in the United States, contrasting his role as international celebrity with his record devoid of accomplishments." On the other side of the blogosphere, the reaction from liberal bloggers is mixed. Some are offering a qualified defense of the committee's decision to give Obama the award, while others are complaining that "there are simply no meaningful 'peace' accomplishment in [Obama's] record -- at least not yet -- and there's plenty of the opposite." That said, most lefty bloggers are enjoying the "collective temper tantrum" being thrown by conservative bloggers in response to the announcement.

What else is happening in the blogosphere?

• Most liberal bloggers (Marshall, Silver, Moulitsas, Llorens, Benen) continue to express interest in a compromise approach to health care reform that would allow individual states to "opt out" of a national public option. Other lefty bloggers (McCarter, BooMan, digby) are open to the compromise but want more details. Meanwhile, a few liberal bloggers (Hamsher, Walker) are opposed to any compromise that doesn't offer a public option to every American.
• Liberal bloggers (Singiser, Singer) are promoting the new Democracy Corps poll that shows NJ Gov. Jon Corzine (D) leading ex-U.S. Atty Chris Christie (R). Meanwhile, conservative bloggers (Geraghty, Lewis) are promoting the new Washington Post poll that shows ex-AG Bob McDonnell (R) leading State Sen. Creigh Deeds (D) in the VA GOV race.
• Conservative bloggers are accusing Education Dept. official Kevin Jennings of "encourag[ing] predatory relationships between young boys and grown men." Meanwhile, liberal bloggers are blasting conservative pundits for promoting this "smear."
• Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas is calling on House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-NY) to "step down from his chairmanship until the ethics committee completes its work and issues a final report."

Finally, please check back later today for our interview with Open Left's Chris Bowers!

NOBEL: Are You Kidding Me?!?

Conservative bloggers are blasting the Norwegian Nobel Committee for awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Obama:

• RedState's Erickson: "I did not realize the Nobel Peace Prize had an affirmative action quota for it, but that is the only thing I can think of for this news."
• Malkin: "It's the final nail in the Nobel Peace Prize Committee's coffin."
• NRO's Peter Wehner: "The decision is not simply a mistake; it's also a joke. But then again, so is the Norwegian Nobel Committee."
• Dan Riehl: "Are you frickin' kidding me? What a stupid joke. What a worthless award. [...] They put weight on his WORK? For Nuclear Weapons? All he has done is TALK! This is total BS! THE MAN HASN'T DONE ANYTHING!! I can't believe this. Really, I can't. What a waste. One sensed this was just a worthless political award anymore. But this removes all doubt. If I were on the committee I'd be embarrassed. This is an absolute disgrace."
• Hot Air's Allahpundit: "This makes three times, incidentally, in just seven years that the committee's turned the Peace Prize into a 'f*** Bush' award by bestowing it on a liberal American Democrat. The Goracle got it in 2007 and [Jimmy] Carter received it in 2002, making today's announcement yet one more reason to consider The One his presidential heir."
• AmSpec Blog's John Tabin: "The Peace Prize is quite often nothing more than the vehicle through which the mandarins of transnational progressivism express their support for opponents of American hegemony in general and [George W.] Bush in particular. If Obama doesn't turn down the prize, as several commentators are urging, the signal will be that the American president is perfectly happy being a Carter-like posterboy for American weakness."
• NRO's Andy McCarthy: "The transnational progressives who pass out these accolades believe America is the problem in the world, the main threat to peace, the impediment to 'progress,' etc. The award is a symbolic statement of opposition to American exceptionalism, American might, American capitalism, American self-determinism, and American pursuit of America's interests in the world. That is why Obama could win it based on only ten days in office -- merely by capturing the White House and the levers of power, he stands to do more for the Left's 'knock America off its pedestal' program than any figure in history."

Other conservative bloggers are arguing that receiving the award will hurt Obama politically:

• NRO's Daniel Pipes: "The absurdity of the prize decision will harm Obama politically in the United States, contrasting his role as international celebrity with his record devoid of accomplishments."
• NRO's Mark Krikorian: "[T]his just reinforces the Saturday Night Live meme that Obama has done nothing. This really might be his Carter whacking-the-bunny-rabbit moment."
• NRO's Mona Charen: "If Obama needs anything now, it is a sense of modesty, a willingness to tack and accept half a loaf, and diminish his grandiosity. (Not that I want him to learn these lessons. I'd rather he overreach, but as a matter of analysis.) His self-worship has created real problems for him and this will only feed into it. His vanity is his Achilles heel. The Nobel committee actually did him no favor."
• NRO's Steve Heyward: "I'm guessing the political folks in the White House are probably tone-deaf to how this can play badly for them."

Other conservative bloggers (Reynolds, Hillyer, Coffin) are simply making fun of the decision.

NOBEL II: A Mixed Reaction From The Left

Some liberal bloggers are offering qualified defenses of the Nobel Committee's decision to award Obama the Peace Prize:

• MyDD's Jerome Armstrong: "[G]lobally, it is fair to say that Obama has created a 'new climate' and represents a 'hope' of more global cooperation. While indeed he's President, Obama would've made a great secretary of state. The prize is more a statement about hoping Obama fulfills his promise than his accomplishments to date."
• iThe Washington Monthly's Steve Benen: "The announcement will no doubt generate considerable criticism, some from conservatives who simply oppose the president reflexively, and some from those who believe the honor is premature given Obama's fairly brief tenure. An intellectually honest approach suggests the latter's concerns are not unreasonable. But the accolade is nevertheless defensible. The Nobel Peace Prize, as I understand it, is awarded to the person (or persons) who've shown great leadership in advancing the cause of international peace. President Obama has invested consider energy and political capital in doing just that -- promoting counter-proliferation, reversing policies on torture, embracing a new approach to international engagement, and recommitting the U.S. to the Middle East peace process."

Others think the award is premature:

• Salon's Glenn Greenwald: "Through no fault of his own, Obama presides over a massive war-making state that spends on its military close to what the rest of the world spends combined. The U.S. accounts for almost 70% of worldwide arms sales. We're currently occupying and waging wars in two separate Muslim countries and making clear we reserve the 'right' to attack a third. Someone who made meaningful changes to those realities would truly be a man of peace. It's unreasonable to expect that Obama would magically transform all of this in nine months, and he certainly hasn't. Instead, he presides over it and is continuing much of it. One can reasonably debate how much blame he merits for all of that, but there are simply no meaningful 'peace' accomplishment in his record -- at least not yet -- and there's plenty of the opposite. That's what makes this Prize so painfully and self-evidently ludicrous."
• Open Left's Adam Bink: "Words and good intentions are not actions, and while Obama has helped move things along in areas like re-engaging the U.S. in world diplomacy... there remains a glaring lack of significant accomplishment. [...] In the end, since it seems more important to get that kind of boost to one's credibility, stature, etc. and actually achieve some good, I'm glad he was awarded the Prize. I remain wholly skeptical of both the rationale and any real accomplishments, but progress is more important, and this furthers progress."
• Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias: "Well, here's hoping Obama snags himself a second Peace Prize after he delivers on an Israeli-Arab peace deal, and international climate agreement, and a path to normalization of relations with Cuba."

Most liberal bloggers are simply enjoying the reaction from conservatives:

• Firedoglake's Blue Texan: "President Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize, Wingnuts Throw Collective Temper Tantrum."
• Firedoglake's Peterr: "I can almost hear the screaming from Dick Cheney and the neocons as they get the news."
• Balloon Juice's John Cole: "Not sure why he was given it, other than as a repudiation of the Bush way of doing things, but man I am enjoying the freak-out from the usual suspects. Allahpundit sounds like he is about to stroke out, [Andrew] Breitbart probably won't speak for two weeks, and this is yet another opportunity for Republicans to show the entire country what assholes they can be. I'm really looking forward to it."
• Attaturk: "I guess [Charles] Krauthammer was right, the international regard for the United States has so fallen after Obama became President that they just awarded our Chief Executive the Nobel Peace Prize -- probably for not being like Charles Krauthammer."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Understanding Independents

digby:

"I was listening to all the gasbags drone on all day yesterday about how the 'independents' are all unhappy with Obama and are probably going to vote for the Republicans again when just a couple of years ago they were all unhappy with Bush and voted with the Democrats. This was interpreted as a signal that Obama needs to tack right immediately to recapture them. Does that make sense? Isn't the answer more logically that independents just habitually dislike whoever is in power and think that both parties are incompetent? Why else would they identify as independents in the first place?

I realize that the villagers think there is some sort of 'median' moderate voter who believes that the answer to all of our problems lies somewhere between the positions of the two parties. But that's not necessarily the independent's position. They don't like either party true, but it doesn't necessarily follow that they yearn to split the difference. In fact, I suspect that a large number of them are apolitical people who don't really understand politics at all and simply reject whoever is in power when things aren't going well, without regard to party. (In fact, there is great social utility in rejecting party politics and proclaiming yourself unhappy with the whole set-up. Who can't relate to that on some level?) Many independents ideologically fall far enough outside the two parties that they can't consider themselves members of either --- libertarians, greens etc.

The number of independents out there is quite large and all national politicians need to reach them in elections in order to win. But the knee jerk assumption that they are always more moderate than everyone else is probably wrong. They might just be more cranky, more cynical, more uninformed, more skeptical or more impatient. There are a lot of reasons why someone might be an independent in American politics but I suspect that ideology is at the bottom of the list."

LEST WE FORGET: Quaker Oats Canister Relabeled 'DRUGS' For Grade School Play

From The Onion:

"ABINGDON, MD -- In order to dispel any confusion regarding the contents of a 42-ounce Quaker Oats canister used in the play Drugs Stink!, Orchard Elementary School students wrapped the tin cylinder in red construction paper and wrote 'DRUGS' on it in large block letters, sources reported Tuesday. 'Here, try some of my drugs,' said third-grader Beth Carlisle, who, ensuring her grip did not obscure the canister's sinister label, spilled some imaginary narcotics into the palm of fellow cast member Samantha Drake. 'They'll make you feel real good, heh, heh, heh.' According to witnesses, the canister was later discovered by a school janitor, who determined it would make an ideal container for storing his weed."