Jamie Weinstein

Thank God Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize.

I know what you are thinking. “What are you talking about, Jamie? Didn’t you say that it was absurd for Obama to receive it? Didn’t you call it the ‘I Hate George W. Bush’ award?”

Getting it right.

You betcha. To claim that Obama deserved the award after his first year, much less 11 days in office was ludicrous. No one who is intellectually honest could sincerely claim otherwise.

As was necessary, Obama’s acceptance speech began with the recognition that he has yet to accomplish what many of the recipients of the award had accomplished when they received the prize. Moreover, Obama recognized, he also has not suffered for freedom and peace like some of the other recipients.

“I cannot argue with those who find these men and women – some known, some obscure to all but those they help – to be far more deserving of this honor than I,” he said.

Then, profoundly, Obama recognized the elephant in the room. He noted that he accepts this peace prize at a time he is a commander in chief at war, “responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land.”

Specifying the enormity of this responsibility — a responsibility that no doubt weighs heavily upon the president in the stillness of the night — Obama declared somberly, “Some will kill.  Some will be killed.  And so I come here with an acute sense of the cost of armed conflict – filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.”

With this in mind, Obama said that while the non-violent examples of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi were inspirational and important, he as president must “face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people.”

He continued by noting the reality “evil does exist in the world” and that “a non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies” nor can “negotiations” today “convince Al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms.”

“To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism,” he said, connecting the dots, “it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.”

Unlike previous Obama speeches on the world stage, there weren’t any apologies in this speech. This was not a post-American speech as some commentators have said of previous Obama orations. Indeed, this speech was a firm defense of America on the world stage.

“[T]he world must remember that it was not simply international institutions – not just treaties and declarations – that brought stability to a post-World War II world,” he declared. “Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: the United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms.”

Not only is this true, it is something that needed to be said in a room full of world elites.

Indeed, littered throughout Obama’s speech were truths that many lefties, like those who awarded Obama the prize, probably didn’t like to hear.

“I – like any head of state – reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend my nation,” President Obama said.

“I understand why war is not popular. But I also know this: The belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it. Peace requires responsibility. Peace entails sacrifice,” Obama declared, exuding understanding that words alone do not bring about peace.

“[P]eace is not merely the absence of visible conflict,” the president said, expressing an important truth that most fail to appreciate.

“Only a just peace based upon the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting,” the president commented, standing on important values that America and the Western world believe in.

There was so much that was good in this speech and it was delivered so well that it is hard to imagine how any conservative could find serious fault with it. Any criticism would simply be nitpicking.

It is also a reminder that we conservatives need to evaluate the president more seriously than some of us have previously. A Maoist could not have made this speech, Glenn Beck. An acolyte of Bill Ayers and Reverend Jeremiah Wright could not have made this speech, fellow conservatives.

Let us hope that the president’s words are matched with action, like they already have been in Afghanistan. When he sees Iranians being brutalized in the streets the next time, let us hope that he now speaks up sooner and more robustly. Let us hope that when he travels to totalitarian countries in the future, the president remembers to speak up for the oppressed.

But what we heard today deserves praise. Few could have delivered such an important speech—and certainly no one with as much authority as the American president. It was a speech befitting the leader of the free world.

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