Obama in Oslo

by Michael Crowley | December 10, 2009

I agree with Chait and, to offer him some fancy synonyms, think this may have been the deepest and most elegaic speech of Obama's presidency. But what a strange one it was. Obama is a man trapped amongst the contradictions created by America's awkward place in the post-Bush world. Last week, Obama's address on Afghanistan both escalated and promised an end to the war there. Today, Obama opened his Nobel Peace Price acceptance speech with a long disquisition on the nature of war and its necessity--complete with a brief survey of "just war" theory. (He even threw in a passage about the necessary role of coercion against states like Iran and North Korea that mess around with nuclear weapons.) I suppose it was the honest way to take such a prize at a time when America has about 200,000 soldiers occupying foreign countries. But it was something of a surreal exercise.

The rest of Obama's speech was movingly inspirational. Having conceded that war can't be wished away, Obama laid out a vision of human nature and progress that is fundamental to his view of the world:





Two years ago, Obama was fighting against Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries. She played the role of the hardened cynic, who believed change came incrementally, through grueling work against dishonest and vicious enemies. Obama focused on the possibility of transformative change and the highest potential of the human spirit. It was an effective campaign persona, but I think it really is how Obama thinks about the world. Even if the world doesn't often reward his vision in kind.

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