The Hollywood Liberal

More Obama Talk From the Nobel Jury
All but one of the five judges who picked President Barack Obama as the recipient of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize sounded off on Tuesday about their decision, noting Obama’s less-than-jubilant initial reaction to the announcement and shedding more light on the reasons behind their choice, which one judge reported was unanimous.  —KA AP via Google News: Even the most seasoned Nobel watchers were surprised by Obama’s Nobel — they hadn’t expected the U.S. president, who took office barely two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline, to be seriously considered until at least next year. Jagland said that was never an issue for the Nobel committee, which followed the guidelines set forth by Alfred Nobel, the Swedish industrialist and inventor of dynamite who established the prize in his 1895 will. “Alfred Nobel wrote that the prize should go to the person who has contributed most to the development of peace in the previous year,” Jagland said. “Who has done more for that than Barack Obama?” Aagot Valle, a left-wing Norwegian politician who joined the Nobel panel this year, also dismissed suggestions that Obama was undeserving of the honor. “Don’t you think that comments like that patronize Obama? Where do these people come from?” Valle said from the coastal city of Bergen. “Well, of course, all arguments have to be considered seriously. I’m not afraid of a debate on the Peace Prize decision. That’s fine.” Read more READ THE WHOLE ITEM

All but one of the five judges who picked President Barack Obama as the recipient of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize sounded off on Tuesday about their decision, noting Obama’s less-than-jubilant initial reaction to the announcement and shedding more light on the reasons behind their choice, which one judge reported was unanimous.? —KA

AP via Google News:

Even the most seasoned Nobel watchers were surprised by Obama’s Nobel — they hadn’t expected the U.S. president, who took office barely two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline, to be seriously considered until at least next year.

Jagland said that was never an issue for the Nobel committee, which followed the guidelines set forth by Alfred Nobel, the Swedish industrialist and inventor of dynamite who established the prize in his 1895 will.

“Alfred Nobel wrote that the prize should go to the person who has contributed most to the development of peace in the previous year,” Jagland said.

“Who has done more for that than Barack Obama?”

Aagot Valle, a left-wing Norwegian politician who joined the Nobel panel this year, also dismissed suggestions that Obama was undeserving of the honor.

“Don’t you think that comments like that patronize Obama? Where do these people come from?” Valle said from the coastal city of Bergen. “Well, of course, all arguments have to be considered seriously. I’m not afraid of a debate on the Peace Prize decision. That’s fine.”

Read more

READ THE WHOLE ITEM

Related Entries

• October 13, 2009 In Search of Great Men
• October 13, 2009 Snowe Helps Baucus Bill Pass Committee Hurdle
• October 12, 2009 Bribe, Vote, Repeat
• October 12, 2009 We’ll Need 70 Percent More Food
• October 12, 2009 The Poor Will Have to Wait for Health Care Help

Jeffrey Smith: Vilsack Mistakenly Pitched “GMOs-Feed-The-World” to an Audience of Experts–Oops
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was getting lots of appreciative applause and head nods from the packed hall at the Community Food Security Coalition conference…

Michael Moore: Pilots on Food Stamps
You know, maybe it’s just me, but the two occupations whose workers shouldn’t be humpin’ a second job are brain surgeons and airline pilots. Call me crazy.

Most Democrats Undecided In Illinois Senate Primary: Hoffman Poll
Most Illinois Democrats have yet to make up their mind whom they intend to vote for in the 2010 U.S. Senate primary, a new poll…

Jonathan Kim: The Nobel Prize Wasn’t for Obama — It Was for the American People. Do We Deserve It?
That means it’s our responsibility to force Obama and other electeds to recognize our priorities and pick up the pace. So call your representative and your senator, and let them know how you feel.

Allison Kilkenny: Media Decides Tasered Grandmother Was Asking For It
Kathryn Winkfein, a 72-year-old great-grandmother, is better known as the woman who became the target of an officer’s taser after she was pulled over for…

Fox News accuses Obama of delaying troop deployment to win Nobel Peace Prize

Fox News personalities have reacted to President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize by accusing Obama of — in the words of Fox News contributor Dick Morris — “delaying the decision to commit troops to Afghanistan” in order to “win this prize.” Responding to initial reports that Obama was awarded the peace prize, Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade said he was “wondering” whether the Nobel charter “has anything to do with the delay of the deployment of 40,000 troops in Afghanistan,” adding, “If you add forces to a war, you can’t win.”

Fox News personalities accuse Obama of withholding troops to secure Nobel Peace Prize

Morris: Obama “delaying the decision to commit troops to Afghanistan … because he wanted this prize.” During an appearance on the October 12 edition of Hannity, Morris stated, “I think the reason that Obama was delaying the decision to commit troops to Afghanistan is because he wanted this prize, and he probably knew he was nominated for it, he knew roughly when the decision is being made, and I don’t think he’s going to send troops until after that award is safely in his pocket.” [Fox News’ Hannity, 10/12/09]

Kilmeade: “I’m wondering, does [the Nobel Peace Prize charter] have anything to do with the delay of the deployment of 40,000 troops in Afghanistan?” Responding to initial reports that Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Kilmeade stated, “I’m looking at the charter — and we’re just getting this now — but this guy, Alfred Nobel, stipulated the peace prize should go to the person who will have done the most or the best work of the fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses. I’m wondering, does that have anything to do with the delay of the deployment of 40,000 troops in Afghanistan, because that was his big postulization over the last week or so. ‘Should I put more troops in?’ ” Kilmeade went on to say, “If you add forces to a war, you can’t win.” [Fox News’ Fox & Friends, 10/9/09]

Musician: Rehberg Didn’t Seem Drunk On Night Of Boat Crash
A musician who says he saw Rep. Denny Rehberg in Lakeside, MT, shortly before a boat crash that left five injured has come forward to say that Rehberg did not seem drunk that night.

Presented By:

Failing Upward: Many SECers Who Failed To Catch Madoff Haven’t Paid A Price
Many of the SEC officials who missed Bernie Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme have landed lucrative private sector jobs, or been promoted within the agency.

Health insurance companies make a case for public option
Excerpt: In a last-ditch effort to derail a vote for health care reform in the Senate Finance Committee, the health care insurance industry, ironically, made a case for a public option. Over the weekend, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) circulated a study it commissioned from PriceWaterhouseCoopers. According to the president of AHIP, Karen Ignagni, also a […]

Christie Barely Hangs On To Lead
A new Quinnipiac poll in New Jersey finds Chris Christie (R) leads Gov. Jon Corzine (D) by just one point, 41% to 40%, with independent Christopher Daggett at 14%.

Just two weeks ago, Christie held a four point lead.

Said pollster Maurice Carroll: “It’s still a nail-biter. Christopher Christie has never given up the lead, but it’s been getting slimmer and now it’s a dead heat.”

A PPP survey yesterday also showed Christie with a one point edge.

Daily Pulse: Merging the Health Care Bills
“Senators are wasting no time in launching negotiations to merge the Finance Committee’s $829 billion health care overhaul bill — passed Tuesday on a 14-9 vote — with competing legislation approved by the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, with hard bargaining expected to begin Wednesday,” Roll Call reports.

President Obama and Senate Democratic leaders “now face the arduous task of crafting a bill that can garner 60 votes, without dismantling the Finance bill’s signature achievement: a Congressional Budget Office analysis projecting that the legislation will extend health coverage to millions of Americans without adding to the federal deficit.”

“Fresh off a victorious committee vote over a year in the making, Baucus signaled his intent to forcefully protect his bill in the merger negotiations.”

Politico notes Democrats “are headed toward an intraparty battle” that even President Obama “will struggle to mediate.”

The Fix lists the winners and losers from yesterday’s vote.

Meanwhile, The Hill reports that with the legislation heading to the Senate floor, interest groups “have unleashed a torrent of spending and grassroots activity to influence the Senate healthcare debate.”

Wexler to Step Down
Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL), “a self-described ‘fire-breathing liberal,’ defender of Israel and friend of both President Barack Obama and Gov. Charlie Crist, is quitting Congress to head a think tank seeking peace in the Middle East,” the Miami Herald reports.

CQ Politics: “Wexler’s 19th Congressional District is safe Democratic territory and there will no doubt be a long line of interested candidates running in a special election to fill the vacancy.”

CNN Can’t Have It Both Ways: It Can Either Broadcast Hateful Lou Dobbs or Have a Latino Audience

Latinos across America are intensely concerned about CNN's hypocrisy: broadcasting Dobbs' anti-immigrant extremism while running a Latinos in America special series.

Ridiculous Study Blames Feminism for Non-Existent ‘Happiness Gap’ Between Men and Women

Much-discussed study claims that women are more depressed relative to men in recent decades, when it actually suggests that neither marriage nor children make women happy.

Judge Finds Abusive Gitmo Interrogations Yield False Confessions, Bad Info

A judge's recently-released opinion opens a window on Gitmo's harsh interrogation techniques, and the bad intel they yield.

Won’t You Please Come to Chicago?
The elites hate to acknowledge it, but when large numbers of ordinary people are moved to action, it changes the narrow political world where the elites call the shots. Inside accounts reveal the extent to which Johnson and Nixon’s conduct…


Sponsored Topics: Richard Nixon – United States – Barack Obama – Business – Nixon

Obama’s Disarmament Prize
My first reaction was “how can a guy who’s only been in office for nine months win the Nobel Peace Prize?” But once I woke up and thought about it for a few minutes I realized that the honor being…


Sponsored Topics: Nobel Peace Prize – Warfare and Conflict – Weapons – Nuclear – Barack Obama

O?Reilly And Hume Claim Fox News Covered ?All The Bad News That Came Out Of Iraq?
Yesterday, former Special Report anchor Brit Hume helped lead the Fox News pushback against the White House’s charge that the network is “opinion journalism masquerading as news” and “often operates as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.” “If Fox News really were a GOP mouth piece, the White House […]

Yesterday, former Special Report anchor Brit Hume helped lead the Fox News pushback against the White House’s charge that the network is “opinion journalism masquerading as news” and “often operates as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.” “If Fox News really were a GOP mouth piece, the White House would not be attacking it,” said Hume in a Special Report commentary. “It would feel no need to.”

Later that night, Hume joined Bill O’Reilly to continue defending the network’s news coverage. O’Reilly and Hume agreed that Fox “routinely hammered President Bush on Iraq” and was “very faithful about covering all the bad news that came out of Iraq”:

O’REILLY: Now you and I came up in the old school, where we were taught as a reporter you should be skeptical of everybody. I mean, that’s your job as a reporter.

HUME: Right.

O’REILLY: To be skeptical, skeptical of the Democrats, skeptical of the Republicans. It doesn’t really matter. And I have to say that when President Bush was in trouble in Iraq, this network and this program and your program, as well, routinely, routinely hammered President Bush on Iraq.

HUME: Well, we certainly — we were very faithful about covering all the bad news that came out of Iraq.

O’REILLY: Absolutely.

“There was no cheerleading of President Bush on this network when his administration ran into trouble,” claimed O’Reilly. Watch it:

O’Reilly and Hume appear to have a selective memory when it comes to their cheerleading of the Bush administration. When Hume stepped down from the Special Report anchor chair, he marveled that Bush had put America on “an amazing” foreign policy “path.” During his time at Fox, Hume repeatedly spun bad news for Bush and pushed misleading information that bolstered the Bush administration’s faulty case for invading Iraq. Perhaps this is one reason why a 2003 study found that 80 percent of those who primarily relied on Fox News believed falsehoods about why we went into Iraq.

When it came to Iraq war coverage, O’Reilly explained his philosophy on his radio show in June 2007 after the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that Fox covered the war less than CNN and MSNBC. Claiming that Fox’s competitors were reporting on violence “because they want to embarrass the Bush administration,” O’Reilly said, “Do you care if another bomb went off in Tikrit? Does it mean anything? No!” “There’s little news value in broadcasting daily bombings,” O’Reilly added on his Fox show.

Transcript:

O’REILLY: Now you and I came up in the old school, where we were taught as a reporter you should be skeptical of everybody. I mean, that’s your job as a reporter.

HUME: Right.

O’REILLY: To be skeptical, skeptical of the Democrats, skeptical of the Republicans. It doesn’t really matter. And I have to say that when President Bush was in trouble in Iraq, this network and this program and your program, as well, routinely, routinely hammered President Bush on Iraq.

HUME: Well, we certainly — we were very faithful about covering all the bad news that came out of Iraq.

O’REILLY: Absolutely.

HUME: .for a very long period of time. The criticisms were made of him were reported and discussed at length on FOX News. Now, he had his defenders. The war had its defenders.

O’REILLY: But there was no cheerleading.

HUME: There were commentators.

O’REILLY: There was no cheerleading of President Bush on this network when his administration ran into trouble. There was no cheerleading, you know. It was skeptical coverage. Iraq’s going south. When the economy started to wobble last September, we were right on that.

Now, what has changed, in your opinion, from when you and I came up in the journalistic ranks and we were told — taught in school and then told by our bosses you be skeptical of those in power. Doesn’t matter where they are, what party they are. That does not in many quarters take place anymore.

HUME: Well.

O’REILLY: We mentioned NBC and CNN. And certainly those networks are dramatically favorable to Barack Obama. What is happening.

HUME: Well, I think that – well, I think what happened in this particular case — look, it has been universally recognized for a long period of time and survey after survey has shown it that most reporters vote Democrat, particularly in presidential elections. The journalists who inhabit Washington, and I think it’s fair to say the key spots in the network headquarters and newspaper headquarters in New York with very few exceptions are Democrats, or at least they vote Democratic. They tend to be liberal in their outlook. That was true for a long time.

The level of discipline, exercised by the conventions of journalism on them have weakened.

Unpopular in Virginia, Pelosi Becoming a Campaign Target
Heading into his first re-election battle, Rep. Tom Periello (D-Va.) may spend most of next year answering questions about Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), not President Obama.

Latin Music Is Honored at White House
Fifteen minutes into the show and Marc Anthony was crooning with his shirt halfway open. The salsa icon was in the back yard of the White House on Tuesday night, delivering a riveting version of “Tu Amor Me Hace Bien” (“Your Love Makes Me Feel Good”). The environs might have been stately, but…

Featured Advertiser

President Obama Delivers Remarks After Senate Finance Committee Passes Health-Care Bill
SPEAKER: PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA [*] OBAMA: Good afternoon. Today we reached a critical milestone in our effort to reform our health care system. After many months of thoughtful deliberation, the fifth and final committee responsible for health care reform has passed a proposal that has both De…