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October 11, 2009

Raining on the Obama Parade

By Eugene Elander

The Republican National Committee chairman was petty, spiteful, and malicious in his remarks upon the awarding of this year's Nobel peace prize to President Barack Obama.

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The Republican National Committee chairman can be counted upon to lose no opportunity to rain on President Obama's parade. Take, for a recent example, the awarding of this year's Nobel Peace Medal to Barack Obama. The Nobel Committee's statement in making the award made clear that it was given in recognition of our new President's new style of diplomacy, which is open, multilateral, and profoundly different from the stone age style which preceded his term for the previous eight years. Nobody, least of all Barack Obama himself, claimed he had yet earned the Nobel distinction, but it does constitute the "audacity of hope."

The RNC chair dependably blasted the Nobel award, and the President as well, while managing to repeat the Republican litany of everything they think Barack Obama has done wrong: increasing the Federal deficit (far less than they increased it under his predecessor); proposing new health care options (the present options having given us the worst quality of health care among developed nations); and not resolving the two wars which his predecessor unwisely first entered and then escalated.

None of these criticisms, of course, have much to do with the Nobel award; only the last one is even tangentially related, and even so it is very unfair to blame Barack Obama for not yet being unable to undo the damage of the eight year nightmare produced by Bush and Cheney. Here was an opportunity for the RNC Chair to display statesmanlike conduct, to recognize an honor when it was given to the President, even to congratulate him on receiving that honor with humility and hope. Instead, the RNC chair was petty, spiteful, and malicious -- none of which is surprising, as he has been petty, spiteful, and malicious ever since he took over his present post. Shame on him, and on the RNC.



Authors Bio:

Author's Biography

Eugene Elander has been a progressive social and political activist for decades. As an author, he won the Young Poets Award at 16 from the Dayton Poets Guild for his poem, The Vision. He was chosen Poet Laureate of Pownal, Vermont for his poem Pownal People. His three new verses for America the Beautiful:September 11, 2001 were widely acclaimed and read into the Congressional Record by U.S. Senator Chris Dodd.
Dr. Elander has authored four volumes of poetry: The Right Click, The World Click, Journeyings, and Philosophy over Fika, all written from 2004 to now, in the U.S. and Sweden -- as well as two published novels: The Goat of God, and Turning the Tides, both available via Signalman Publishing on Amazon.com in Kindle and electronic pdf editions. A self-help book titled Empowerment:Taking Charge of your Life was recently completed and is available via Amazon.com KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing.
Dr. Elander is a freelance columnist who published a newspaper for ten years in New London, CT. He is an economist and college lecturer, and has been an agency executive director, emergency management consultant, investigator; and former animal control officer, deputy code enforcement and health officer for Farmington, New Hampshire. He and his wife Birgit, who co-authored The World Click, divide their time between Georgia and her homeland, Gotland, Sweden.
Several other books are underway, including a sequel to The Goat of God, and a public version of his doctoral dissertation on Cooperatism, a new economic system he developed which includes all stakeholders (workers, consumers, and the public as well as stockholders) in crucial decision making. Dr. Elander has been a member of the Stonepile Writers group in Georgia and the Poetry Society of New Hampshire. He is president of his own Elander Press.


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