Obama + Nobel Peace Prize = Aspiration

My first thought this morning on hearing that Barack Obama is this year's Nobel Peace Prize recipient was, "But he's just getting started!" My second was: please don't tell me this is a giant Good Conduct Award to the US for finally electing a person of color, which would be sort of a backslap to Obama and the US at the same time. Then, hearing the actual announcement it became clear: the prize is for changing the discourse, particularly internationally. It's also, I think, a bit of a carrot: don't forget, every time you respond to an international crisis, every time something happens that tempts you to send in the troops, that we've tapped you as an instrument of peace. Aspire.

Bet the Fox talking heads are going to have seizures over this.

ETA: Rachel Maddow with her take on why this all makes sense...and on the Conservative right's "Obama Detachment Syndrome."

In Other News

Well, I've got the end of the book sketched in (which is to say, the last three chapters are written; there are some scenes I have to write in the beginning of this section, and then I have to go back and knit it all together).

Right now it sucks with a big, unpleasant suck. I have to believe this will improve with effort.