Obama, the poison chalice, and…
…Danny Kaye.
Yes, you got that right: Obama, the poison chalice, and Danny Kaye.
Bob Schieffer wondered on the CBS Early Show whether there will be negative fallout for President Obama from his Peace Prize:
…[O]ne European commentator…said ”˜will this become a poison chalice?’ In other words, is this going to hurt the President rather than help him?…is this going to widen the…partisan divide rather than bring people together?
Oh how I love that phrase “poison chalice”—because it puts me in mind of one of my favorite childhood movies, “The Court Jester.”
So let’s have a look. And remember, the vessel with the pestle has—whatever:
He appears to have won a prize for basically doing the same thing that most Miss America Beauty Pageant winners have done; making speeches about wishing for World Peace.
Just WHAT has he actually accomplished, beyond getting elected.
The Nobel committee has already greatly devalued the prize with some of its’ previous choices.
This one merely lowers the value to zero.
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Ann Althouse’s response is so good that I can’t even feel right about stealing it: He won the Nobel Peace Prize rather than the Nobel Prize for Literature because he’s actually written two books.
And remember, Noe, the pellet with the poison’s in the flagon with the dragon, not the vessel with the pestle. The chalice from the palace has the brew that is true.
Does the Nobel Committee understand they have turned the prize into a joke? Probably not. It wouldn’t occur to them in the rarefied heights, which these international lefties occupy.
But what fun to see the clip of “The Court Jester.”
I always loved Danny Kaye’s movies. He was a master comic. Had the honor to have him on one of my flights once. He was a pilot himself and visited us in the cockpit before the flight began. We did a bit of “hangar flying” and he told us some good jokes. Good memories.
Even Joe Klein gets it:
There is the sense that [Obama] has won simply by not being George W. Bush. Effete Europe is congratulating rowdy America for cleaning up its act and not bringing guns to the dinner table.
Well, I’m as relieved as anybody that the Bushian gunslingers have been given the gate and, as regular readers know, I’m a big fan of patient, rigorous diplomacy…but let’s face it: this prize is premature to the point of ridiculousness. It continues a pattern that holds some peril for Obama: he is celebrated for who he is not, and for who he might potentially be, rather than for what he has actually done. If he doesn’t provide results that justify the award, this Nobel will prove a millstone come election time.
I love that movie too. My dad and I were huge Danny Kaye fans, for knuckle draggers, anyhow….
To steal a comment from another site (not verbatim):
This shows a sever mental illness in Western Civilization’s ruling elite.
I have never felt so shaken in my … well … the commonness of humanity?
I just find it unfathomable that anyone could think that giving the Nobel Prize to someone who has done nothing was correct and right.
Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize! Not only surprising but a call for me to wake up and smell the Jello. I thought he was seriously making the world more dangerous. Silly me.
The Danny Kaye clip was the perfect foil for my depression. I forgot how very funny it is, and timeless.
The Court Jester is one of our favorite movies, ever. We own it on DVD and regularly trot it out when things get grim and we need a laugh.
My favorite bit is when Mildred Natwick’s sorceress hypnotizes Danny Kaye and has him intone “I am craven, and thou art my master!” We often use that phrase to describe knee-jerk left-wing reactions…
For my money, the climactic sword fight between Kaye and Basil Rathbone is one of the funniest ever – I believe Rob Reiner must have called on his memories of it in his film The Princess Bride.
The way is clear…
Now anyone can can receive the Nobel Peace Price…
Just suck up Lefitst tropes.
While agreeing with the general tenor of the previous sentiments I have to say we all sound a bit petty in our attempts to diminish the awarding of this year’s peace prize. In truth, it has been diminished by the prize committee far beyond our poor power to do so — let’s leave it at that, wish him well, and remember how much this prize improved the stature of Jimmy Carter — not at all. F
I have to say we all sound a bit petty in our attempts to diminish the awarding of this year’s peace prize.
“OUR” attempts?
With all due respect. it is the Nobel committee that has diminished the awarding of their prize.
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His winning the Nobel Peace Prize will increase the odds that ∅bama will back down in Agshanistan. After all, he wants peace, and he now has a reputation to uphold.The easiest path to peace is surrender.
Interesting that even CodePink decided that unilateral withdrawal from Afghanistan wasn’t a good idea.
In sympathy to ∅bama and the choices on Afghanistan, Pakistan has been playing us for fools for the last 8 years- granted to varying degrees. With the supply lines running through Pakistan, the Pakistanis are at our throats. I like the idea of splitting off Baluchistan, after we do away with Mullah Omar in Qetta, and running supply lines through there.
Fiendishly clever was the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.
Who does this remind you of?
“Munich’s lesson (the convention one) is a fraud. Chamberlain knew he was not bringing ‘Peace in Our Time’. His performance was a charade to deceive an unsuspecting public. What is the real lesson. Beware of the duplicity of our leaders. Those magical PR icons–Munich, Appeasement, and the newer ones, Humanitarian Intervention, Ethnic Cleansing–should alert us that they are used to get public support for dubious activities.”
From a customer review on Amazon.com – In Our Time: The Chamberlain-Hitler Collusion (Paperback)
by Clement Leibovitz
Clement Leibovitz (Author)
More “Who does this remind you of?” fun:
“Manipulating public opinion was constant. During September 1938 Chamberlain had three meetings with Hitler, each lasting several days. Two days before the last meeting in Munich he announced the distribution of gas masks and the digging of trenches. These orders had no military value but were designed to induce support for a deal.
In fact, everything was subordinated to this goal. When reports of ‘Kristallnacht’ (the pogrom against the Jews) reached Chamberlain he exclaimed: “Oh, what tedious people these Germans can be! Just when we were beginning to make a little progress”. Like Austria or Czechoslovakia it was not the Jews he was concerned for but that it would make an alliance more difficult to forge.”
From Socialism Today (1999)
http://www.socialismtoday.org/37/chamberlain37.html
Why would Norway give him a pizza, we have plenty of pizza in America. Everyone is so upset. I don’t understand, pizza is delicious. It’s good for ya. It’s round and wholesome…..
OH…Peace Prize
NEVERMIND… I thought you said a Pizza Prize.
[shades of Emily Lattela SNL]
i love danny kaye..
even if you didnt post the clip i would know the flagon with the dragon, and so forth.
it was a poor copy of whose on first from years back… that skit wasnt done justice to till much later in i think naked gun. where they did a bank skit…
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Since moving to Israel, we rely on my parents’ DVD collection to expose our kids to movie classics – and the English language.
When my father offered the kids The Court Jester, I was skeptical. It was packaged as a “classic” and they’d barely sat through some MGM musicals and other “classic” fare…
WOW!
They were laughing out loud, and doing shtick from the movie for weeks afterward.