Classy. Rush Limbaugh isn’t easily rendered speechless, but the conservative radio host took a few tries to get going this afternoon on his radio show. “Folks, there aren’t words for this,” said Limbaugh before pausing for a long moment. “Can you imagine, folks, how big Obama’s head is today?” he tried again. “I think it’s getting so big that his ears actually fit.” Ba-dum-bum.
Once Limbaugh got going, he was off on two tracks in criticizing the Nobel Committee’s decision. The first was that Obama didn’t deserve the Peace Prize, the second that no red-blooded American should want the award in the first place because it’s a “straitjacket” that locks the winner into pursuing only pacifist strategies forevermore. Sprinkled throughout, of course, was a big dash of scorn for the liberal European elites (redundant?) on the Nobel Committee.
A sampling:
- “Folks, I think the people who used to run the election board for Saddam Hussein’s government were hired by the Nobel people here to tally the votes.”
- “Obama’s not only the first post-racial president, he’s also the first post-accomplishment president. He’s now judged on wishful thinking.”
- “Obama gives speeches trashing his own country and he gets a prize for it.”
- “I think Obama’s the second Kenyan to win.”
- “The elites of the world are urging him not to do the surge in Afghanistan, not to take on Iran. How can he now send 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan after that cotton candy speech he just gave this morning?”
- “You are destroying your country as a superpower–keep it up, bud. These are the accomplishments they’re looking for. He’s basically emasculating this country and they love it.”
- “He goes out there and admits he’s not qualified!” [followed by clip of Obama saying: “To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize.”]
- “The Nobel Peace Prize is almost a straitjacket for Obama. That means he’s gotta be a man of peace. The way the left defines a man of peace is, everybody else can go to war but we won’t. Even if we’re attacked, first we’re going to try to find out why they don’t like us.”
- “It really is insidious. The intent of the committee is to neuter the United States of America. They’ve done it by rewarding a pacifist.”
I think Rush is thinking about this all the wrong way. After all, what better way to free a president to pursue a hawkish foreign policy than to award him the Nobel Peace Prize before his first year is even over? Obama doesn’t have to spend the next three or seven years chasing that Holy Grail of global statesmen and diplomats–he’s been there, done that. Heck, he could invade Canada if he wanted to. What’s the committee going to do–take back the prize? So, cheer up, Rush.