Michael Hirsh: Is Obamamania Like Gorbymania?
[Michael Hirsh is also the author of At War with Ourselves: Why America Is Squandering Its Chance to Build a Better World.]
They've given the prize to terrorists (Yasir Arafat), war makers (Le Duc Tho), and frauds before, as well as many true heroes of peace (Martin Luther King Jr., Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, and on and on). But this may be the first time the Olympics committee—whoops, I meant the Nobel committee—has awarded the peace prize to an infant. I mean that metaphorically, of course: the Obama administration is just 9 months old, and while there have been many fine words from the president in that time, he hasn't done anything in the toddler stage of his tenure that comes close to the lifetime of sacrifice and courage that earned the award for such people as Lech Walesa, Andrei Sakharov, or Anwar Sadat. (Well, OK, he helped to bring the world back from the brink of another Great Depression, but if that's the reason for the award, why not give it to Ben Bernanke too?) This prize shows two things: one, the prize committee wishes to express the world's delight at being rid of George W. Bush; and two, there is still a yearning out there to have the "old America" back. (Click here to follow Michael Hirsh)
But as popular as Obama remains abroad, his career trajectory is starting to remind me more and more of another Nobel Peace Prize winner who was a major world leader. Today's Obamamania is not unlike Gorbymania. You may not remember Gorbymania—it marked a brief period of giddy enthusiasm for the last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, and ran from the late 1980s up until the dismantling of his country in late December 1991. For Westerners, the genial Gorbachev was such a stunning departure from the Soviet leaders of yore and seemed so enlightened in his attitudes—seeking to dramatically reform the Soviet Union with perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness)—that he became wildly popular across the Cold War divide. During his frequent visits to U.S. cities and other countries, people would line the streets on the off chance he might jump from his motorcade to press the flesh, which he often did, and TV producers panted to book him. Plump Gorby dolls even sold by the gross in U.S. department stores.
Gorbachev won the Nobel in 1990, at the height of his international celebrity. Then it all came abruptly to an end. It turned out that Gorbachev didn't understand a basic point: the communist system he was trying to reform was unreformable. His popularity disappeared with the Soviet Union. And he became a despised figure in post-Soviet Russia. His good nature no longer conveyed hope but weakness.
I wonder whether something reminiscent of this might be happening to Obama. Granted, the comparison is more than a little overripe, even alarmist--the United States is still the world's most powerful country, and it is in no danger of collapsing like the Soviet Union. But there are disturbing parallels. An almost giddy sense of hope accompanied Obama's inauguration, especially in other countries still quaking under the trauma of the Bush years. And Americans still line the streets just hoping to catch a glimpse of the presidential motorcade when Obama comes to town—at least in some cities. Despite the message coming from Oslo (keep at it, Barack!), those hopes are fading fast. As Obama finds himself bogged down in one nearly impossible issue after another—financial reform, health care, budget deficits, Afghanistan—while meeting with a solid wall of GOP opposition, some around the world wonder whether the America everyone used to look to for leadership is unreformable itself...
Read entire article at Newsweek
They've given the prize to terrorists (Yasir Arafat), war makers (Le Duc Tho), and frauds before, as well as many true heroes of peace (Martin Luther King Jr., Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, and on and on). But this may be the first time the Olympics committee—whoops, I meant the Nobel committee—has awarded the peace prize to an infant. I mean that metaphorically, of course: the Obama administration is just 9 months old, and while there have been many fine words from the president in that time, he hasn't done anything in the toddler stage of his tenure that comes close to the lifetime of sacrifice and courage that earned the award for such people as Lech Walesa, Andrei Sakharov, or Anwar Sadat. (Well, OK, he helped to bring the world back from the brink of another Great Depression, but if that's the reason for the award, why not give it to Ben Bernanke too?) This prize shows two things: one, the prize committee wishes to express the world's delight at being rid of George W. Bush; and two, there is still a yearning out there to have the "old America" back. (Click here to follow Michael Hirsh)
But as popular as Obama remains abroad, his career trajectory is starting to remind me more and more of another Nobel Peace Prize winner who was a major world leader. Today's Obamamania is not unlike Gorbymania. You may not remember Gorbymania—it marked a brief period of giddy enthusiasm for the last leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, and ran from the late 1980s up until the dismantling of his country in late December 1991. For Westerners, the genial Gorbachev was such a stunning departure from the Soviet leaders of yore and seemed so enlightened in his attitudes—seeking to dramatically reform the Soviet Union with perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness)—that he became wildly popular across the Cold War divide. During his frequent visits to U.S. cities and other countries, people would line the streets on the off chance he might jump from his motorcade to press the flesh, which he often did, and TV producers panted to book him. Plump Gorby dolls even sold by the gross in U.S. department stores.
Gorbachev won the Nobel in 1990, at the height of his international celebrity. Then it all came abruptly to an end. It turned out that Gorbachev didn't understand a basic point: the communist system he was trying to reform was unreformable. His popularity disappeared with the Soviet Union. And he became a despised figure in post-Soviet Russia. His good nature no longer conveyed hope but weakness.
I wonder whether something reminiscent of this might be happening to Obama. Granted, the comparison is more than a little overripe, even alarmist--the United States is still the world's most powerful country, and it is in no danger of collapsing like the Soviet Union. But there are disturbing parallels. An almost giddy sense of hope accompanied Obama's inauguration, especially in other countries still quaking under the trauma of the Bush years. And Americans still line the streets just hoping to catch a glimpse of the presidential motorcade when Obama comes to town—at least in some cities. Despite the message coming from Oslo (keep at it, Barack!), those hopes are fading fast. As Obama finds himself bogged down in one nearly impossible issue after another—financial reform, health care, budget deficits, Afghanistan—while meeting with a solid wall of GOP opposition, some around the world wonder whether the America everyone used to look to for leadership is unreformable itself...