Nobel Peace Prize Feeds Into Obama Parodies

News early Friday that the Nobel Peace Prize would go to President Obama shook the journalistic establishment. Perhaps it was a spoof, just like the Saturday Night Liveparody last weekend that made fun of Obama for his meager record compared with his grandiose campaign promises. The right will make it seem like a kids' trophy for soccer participation, rather than accomplishment. That's overly harsh, but correct in the sense that the award is more aspirational in recognizing what this gifted young president can do than about concrete achievements. (Click here to follow Eleanor Clift)

Obama needs to be humble in his tone and content, accepting this honor for all Americans. Coming as it does so soon after his failure to win the Olympics for Chicago gives it the whiff of a consolation prize. It also points up the gulf between how Obama's conservative critics shape the debate in this country, and how much of the world looks at Obama. The change from Bush unilateralism to an America newly engaged with its allies and reaching out to its enemies is a huge shift and filled with possibility on everything from war and peace issues to climate change.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee was driven by a belief in Obama's potential, along with a rejection of Bush-era policies. Coming just eight and a half months into Obama's first term, the prize is far from an unalloyed blessing. It creates expectations that a single human being, even the leader of the Western world, is unlikely to fulfill. And rather than dispel the unfortunate narrative advanced by SNL, it is likely to feed into it.

The parody wouldn't be funny if there wasn't an element of truth. That's why the White House is bearing down on health-care reform. Obama will get a bill he can sign, but it won't be pretty. His critics will feast on the giveaways and the taxes and the millions of people still left uncovered. And when voters go to the polls in November a year from now, they are unlikely to see any material difference in their lives. Legislation of this magnitude takes years to implement, which is why the caricature of Obama as a politician who makes grand promises but doesn't deliver is so corrosive.

If Chicago had gotten the Olympics, or if Obama hadn't made the fateful trip, SNL wouldn't have had the goods to deliver that searing parody. On these happenstances, history hangs. I was reminded of that over the weekend at a memorial service for Jody Powell, President Carter's press secretary, who died last month of a heart attack at 65. Powell was a favorite among reporters because he knew Carter so well, plus he was quotable and irreverent. Those attributes served the president well, but there was one lapse where Carter confessed he never forgave Powell. It was the "killer rabbit" metaphor that in Carter's words portrayed "a bunny rabbit attacking a cowardly president."

Carter included in his otherwise loving eulogy a request for a show of hands if anyone among the several hundred people present wasn't familiar with the "killer rabbit" story. Amid the knowing laughter, not a single hand went up. The incident occurred in the spring of 1979 when Carter was in a rowboat fishing alone in a pond in Plains, Ga., when a rabbit swam toward him and tried to enter the boat. Reporters stationed nearby saw the Secret Service race to the scene and heard the furious splashing as Carter beat off the creature with an oar. But Carter was never in danger, and the story might have ended there—except that when Carter told his staff later what had happened, they were disbelieving and not sure rabbits could even swim. Carter went into great detail about the hissing rabbit with its teeth bared. A photo of the distraught creature swimming away confirmed the incident.

Still, the press was none the wiser, and even so, this might not have been big news except for the summer of woe that followed. Americans had to wait in long lines for gas, and in July, Carter gave what we remember as his "malaise" speech. He said a "crisis of confidence" was eroding the country's unity of purpose and steering Americans toward "self-indulgence and consumption." An excerpt is featured in Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story, with Moore dubbing the dour Carter "Debbie Downer."

Flash-forward (or backward) to Aug. 28, 1979, and Jody is sitting around shooting the breeze in Plains with reporters. Drinking sweet tea or maybe something stronger, Powell regales the group with the rabbit tale. It's unclear who used the phrase "killer rabbit"; Powell maintained it wasn't him. But it didn't matter. The Washington Post headline read, "President Attacked by Rabbit," and the incident became the enduring metaphor for a president beset by problems he could not control.

Obama doesn't strike me as someone who will easily dismiss what the comedic elites are saying about him. The truth stings even when it's packaged in laughs.