Reagan Reincarnated in Oslo!

Two months ago, the world got to enjoy an unexpected guffaw when the Nobel Prize Committee, clearly after a night of overdosing on especially powerful weed, awarded the Peace Prize to none other than Barack Hussein Obama.  While it's not unprecedented for a President of the United States to collect this gong, normally one has to hold that office for longer than a fortnight to qualify.  Not The One!

No, the Nobellers considered Obama's mere rhetoric - his oratory, his speechifying, his uplifting turn of phrase - to be of such transcendent profundity as to entitle him to this august honor for good intentions alone.  "But what has he actually accomplished?"  Even the great one himself had no answer.  Ours not to reason why.

Yet a funny thing happened on the way to Norway.  Barack Obama accepted the award notification, Barack Obama gave the press conference, Barack Obama rode Air Force One at vast carbon-expense across the pond.

When it came time for the official acceptance speech, however, it was none other than Ronald Wilson Reagan who strode to the podium at Oslo City Hall.

After the obligatory honorifics, and acknowledging the transparently obvious fact of his notable lack of concrete accomplishments to date, the President swung into the heart of his speech:

We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations - acting individually or in concert - will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified...

I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince Al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism - it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason...

...The world must remember that it was not simply international institutions - not just treaties and declarations - that brought stability to a post-World War II world. Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: the United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms.

The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest - because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if other peoples' children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity.

So yes, the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace.

Wow.

Just... wow.

Of all times, in all places, for Barack Obama to come out and boldly proclaim the plain and simply truth that America is a force for good in the world!  We recall his speech in Berlin, when he said

People of the world - look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one.

... as if the armies of America had nothing to do with it!  The wall fell, and history proved, all of its own accord!

But that was a different man.  That was Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois and darling of the far, far, loony left.

Today, we have President Obama, the man with his finger on the nuclear button.  The man who, directly, personally, bears the full political and moral authority for the very lives of three hundred millions American citizens, and indirectly for six billions souls worldwide.

The view looks just a bit different from up there, and HopeyChangey rainbows and unicorns no longer suffice in the thin air of that stratospheric height.

Only a firm anchor in the greatness of the nation, people, history, and strength of this country can hope to save both us and him from a precipitous fall.  Just last week, with his self-contradictory and confounding "decision" on Afghanistan, that long and painful descent looked to be well under way.

The ghosts of the Oval Office must have had a busy weekend.  Here's hoping the spectres of Reagan, Roosevelt, Lincoln, Washington, and all the rest continue to haunt our President - not for one night, but for three more years.  Three more years of speeches like this one (or at least its first half), and the actions to back them up, and Barack Obama really will deserve the Nobel Peace Prize.

Of course, if that actually happened, the Nobel Committee would revoke the one he just got.