Having for several weeks subjected my readers to relentless criticism
of President Barack Obama’s domestic and foreign policy, I may shock with
my assertion that his speech in Oslo accepting the Nobel Peace Prize was
unexpectedly good, generous, occasionally eloquent, properly self-deprecatory,
unprecedentedly (for him) expansive in its understanding of history, genuinely
above usual partisanship, and except for one paragraph, reasonably accurate
in its general take on issues and events.

Let me get that one faulty paragraph out of the way at the outset. Mr. Obama
called for action on so-called climate control issues, asserting one more time,
as proponents of this issue have done with almost hysterical singlemindedness,
that the scientific community is agreed on it, and on what must be done.
Other than the reality that the northern polar caps have been warming and
melting in recent years, there is in fact no indisputable proof of what has caused
this, if it is ultimately detrimental or more than a short cycle, what if any
human-made action will reverse it, and even if human-made activities are
responsible for it. Recent disclosures of deliberate falsifications of data
by pro-climate control advocates are only, if you will excuse the expression,
the tip of a full disclosure iceberg. I don’t know why Mr. Obama felt it necessary
to include this issue in his speech, but I feel it was a mistake.

I am one of those who feel the lavish hyper-praise of Mr. Obama’s previous
speeches was unwarranted. Admittedly, I have not often agreed with some of his
premises and conclusions, and that no doubt diminished his remarks for me.
As a literary writer, I am perhaps overly demanding for the adjective “eloquent”
to be used so loosely. Nevertheless, I have been at a loss to understand so much
commentators’ excessive enthusiasm for his spoken prose. In his Oslo speech,
however, I saw for the first time a verbal and analytical level of speech that
reaches for and sometimes achieves mountaintops.

Already, many critics of Mr. Obama are attacking the speech, but I suggest that
every reader read it for himself or herself before making any conclusions. The “I
am living proof” quotation is already being used to focus on Mr. Obama’s hitherto
frequent narcissistic self-references. In this case, however, he was modestly
paying tribute to Martin Luther King, a previous Nobel Peace Prize winner and an
authentic American icon. Mr. Obama also spent a paragraph on an unsparingly
listing of reasons why he should not have received the prize, and acknowledging
the known and unknown heroes in the world who deserved it more than he did.

Mr. Obama said, “Make no mistake, there is evil in the world.” He was clearly
identifying that evil as the forces of islamofascism, terrorism and regional
totalitarian aggression. When President George W. Bush said essentially the same
thing, he was excoriated in the media and by many in the rest of the world.
Let’s see how those same folks treat what President Obama said.

The president also acknowledged the pivotal role that Richard Nixon played in
creating new relations with China, that Pope John Paul II played in freeing
central Europe from totalitarian Soviet Marxism, and that Ronald Reagan (yes,
Ronald Reagan!) played in ending the Cold War. These references and a general
tone lacking the we’re-right-you’re-wrong rhetoric of the 2008 campaign and the
early days of his administration elevated Mr. Obama’s speech beyond the kind of
self-satisfied partisan mood he has exhibited so often before.

Most of all, President Obama took the opportunity of his Nobel Pace Prize speech
to acknowledge the timeless presence of war in human experience, and the
necessity to fight wars to protect those who are attacked, persecuted and
intimidated. At one point, Mr. Obama said that as president he reserved the
right to act unilaterally to protect the United States. Again, he echoed what Mr.
Bush asserted as a principle. Let’s see how this statement is treated in the
American and world press. Quoting the Old Testament, the president restated
the idea that peace is not merely the absence of war, and made a strong case
for the role of the United States in the past 100 years in not only acting in its
self interest, but protecting freedom and defending the undefended throughout
the world.

I don’t think this was the speech the Norwegian Nobel committee thought he
would make, nor one America’s adversaries will like. President Obama’s
pacifist, non-interventionist supporters in the U.S. and international far left
cannot be pleased by it, especially if they believe he means what he says.

I don’t know if he means it, but for his sake, and for the world’s sake, I hope
he does.