I am phenomenally excited that Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize. It's not that I think he's all that great; I just love watching the right-wing media have a collective aneurysm over it. Honestly, has anyone really benefited more from this decision that Limbaugh and Hannity? Just think of the hours of pissing/moaning fodder this has created.
Gore has finally ascended into the Clinton-Ted Kennedy-Streisand category of people whose very names make conservatives froth at the mouth. So kudos for that, Al. Just look at what Gore's shiny prize did to the brilliant mind of Iain Kennedy. Blinded by rage, the best this mental infant could do was a banal Guilt by Association fallacy:
Who Else Should Al Gore Share the Prize With? How about that well known peace campaigner Osama Bin Laden, who implicitly endorsed Gore's stance – and that of the Nobel committee – in his September rant from the cave.
I've tried to take in as little of it as possible, but the "This is such a travesty" shit-fits seem to focus largely on three amazingly easy-to-disassemble points.
In short, the Gore/Nobel "controversy" is a lobbed softball that plays directly into what the right wing does best in America: bitch. Bitching, bitching, and more bitching about the innumerable and egregious wrongs inflicted on wealthy, suburban white men by effete Euro-intellectual types. And the media. Oh, that liberal media.
Christina says:
What absolutely kills me is that they keep talking about giving the Nobel PEACE prize to the MILITARY. (Hannity did it too.)
Do they not see the logical disconnect in there somewhere?
Chris says:
The Republicans would win this award if it was the Nobel War Prize instead of the Nobel Peace Prize. They have far too much blood on their hands, and somehow they don't realize how this, I dunno, disqualifies them for a peace prize?!? They've killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, yep, this qualifies them for a peace prize.
Ed, on a side note, what would you think of a national popular presidential election in the US?
Brandon says:
Yeah, I saw that thing with Hannity saying that the US military should get the prize. The Kennedy quote is so goddamn ridiculous. These people seem so utterly unaware that this guilt by association tactic works just as well with conservatives. Are they not aware of or have they conveniently forgotten the US funding of the mujahideen in Afghanistan, which was started by Carter and continued under Reagan. I guess Reagan was a terrorist sympathizer, then. I've never been able to figure out why the issue of global warming sends conservatives into such fits of lunacy.