US President Barack Obama’s conservative foes pounced on his Nobel Prize win on Friday as an opportunity to lambast his record and alleged celebrity status overseas.
The prize may have placed Obama alongside Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King, but it did little to stem a flood of acrimonious political debate that courses through Washington.
Meanwhile, a US official said Obama will give his US$1.4 million reward for the prize to charity.
No decision has been made yet on which organizations will benefit, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
Republicans and conservatives derided the Nobel committee’s decision to award its venerated peace prize to the 48-year-old president as “unfortunate” and an “embarrassment.”
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele accused Obama of having celebrity status but no “real achievements” that merited the award.
“The real question Americans are asking is, ‘what has President Obama actually accomplished?’” Steele said in a statement.
“It is unfortunate that the president’s star power has outshined tireless advocates who have made real achievements working towards peace and human rights,” Steele said.
“One thing is certain — President Obama won’t be receiving any awards from Americans for job creation, fiscal responsibility, or backing up rhetoric with concrete action,” Steele said.
Republican Representative Gresham Barrett was also critical.
“I’m not sure what the international community loved best: his waffling on Afghanistan, pulling defense missiles out of Eastern Europe, turning his back on freedom fighters in Honduras, coddling Castro, siding with Palestinians against Israel, or almost getting tough on Iran,” he said.
“Hopefully, this surprise award will give the President cause to re-evaluate his current course,” he said.
The announcement, which came in the early hours of Friday in Washington, also dominated conservative media chatter.
Radio host Rush Limbaugh, who attracts millions with his trademark brand of right-wing invective, said the win “fully exposes the illusion that is Barack Obama.”
“They love a weakened, neutered US and this is their way of promoting that concept,” he said in an e-mail to Politico.com.
Fellow conservative commentator Glenn Beck, host of a popular show on Fox News, posted his response to Obama’s win on Twitter.
“Nobel Prize committee awards its 1st ‘participation’ trophy,” he tweeted.
Some moderate Republicans lauded the win.
Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and one-time candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, cautioned his conservative colleagues against “right-wing whining,” while taking a swing at Obama.
“There will be an outcry from those on the right who will say that Obama’s nomination, made two weeks into his presidency, is impossible to justify, but I think such an outcry will sound like right-wing whining,” he wrote in a blog post.
“The better response is simply to allow those on the left to explain what he did in his first two weeks as president that merited such recognition,” he wrote.
‘NO SECURITY RISK’: The Railway Bureau reassured the public that the technicians’ activities were limited to technical guidance and did not involve sensitive systems The Railway Bureau yesterday said it had invited eight Chinese technicians to assist with an airport MRT construction project. The bureau issued the confirmation after an Internet user said Chinese nationals had entered the construction zone of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport’s Terminal 3 project. They asked why “individuals from an enemy state” were allowed access to such a major national infrastructure project, which raised serious concerns over Taiwan’s industrial safety, sensitive systems and information security. The bureau’s Northern Region Engineering Branch Office said subcontractor Taiwan Handle Industrial Co (台灣手把工業) of the Taoyuan airport MRT’s “Contract No. CU05 Project A14 Station Civil, MEP &
The National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology yesterday showcased its locally developed variants of the Vision 60 robotic patrol dog, which it plans to deploy on the nation’s outlying territories in the South China Sea. The variants were produced under the Joint Lab project — created by the institute and domestic companies — and assembled with domestically produced motors, lenses and artificial intelligence (AI) systems alongside licensed tech from the US, Missile and Rocket Systems Research Division deputy director Jen Kuo-kang (任國光) told the media event at a military base in Taipei’s Dazhi (大直) area. Taiwan has built up its strengths
TIT-FOR-TAT: The US allegedly revoked the visa of a Chinese national working at Xinhua News Agency in the US in response to Beijing’s expulsion of Vivian Wang The Presidential Office yesterday condemned China for expelling a New York Times correspondent from Beijing following the newspaper’s interview with President William Lai (賴清德), saying the move highlighted Beijing’s suppression of press freedom and its threat to international news media. Taiwan has noted a series of recent incidents in which Beijing used similar tactics to “threaten and pressure international media outlets and journalists,” Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said in a statement. “This concerns not only press freedom and freedom of expression, but also the safety of journalists, and Taiwan and relevant partners are paying close attention to the situation,” she
NOT IMMEDIATE: Taiwan has a chance to appeal the proposed 10 percent tariff before it starts, while other countries face a 12.5 percent tariff from the trade office Taiwan is among 60 economies determined by the US to have failed to impose or enforce a ban on the importation of goods produced with forced labor, according to a notice released on Tuesday by the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), which proposed imposing an additional 10 percent or more tariff on them. The USTR in a statement said that following an investigation, it had determined under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 that the failure of the 60 economies to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor is
RSS