“Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.” – Thomas Jefferson

Peace. Something we shy away from really – we act as if it’s some goal we want to achieve but our actions never quite match up – we relegate the concept to beauty pageant parody.

Peace. Seems easy enough.

“I wont hit you if you wont hit me. Agreed?” Someone asks no one in particular.

In his short 9 months President Barack Obama has had anything but peace. Between Republican tantrums and their at times fringe stonewall opposition and the tapping foot of the liberal left impatient that in his short 9 months President Barack Obama hasn’t brought about World Peace or even had the decency to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell – peace has been far from the Oval Office. Very very far…until now.

President Barack Obama just won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Not that winning a Prize from some Norwegian Nobel Committee means fast as lightning world peace – but it does signal an understanding, at least from the thinkers of the world, that there’s something to President Obama’s approach that is different and rare. Something to examine and to emulate, not because it’s popular but because it’s working.

Perhaps talking first and shooting later can work. Maybe neither side has much fight left in them and maybe the people of the world just want their parental leaders to work it out. Give peace a chance for a change.

Amid all the media babble and political news jockeying it’s easy to miss what’s really changed in the world since President Obama took office. The stories of peace are not nearly as interesting as angry right wing citizens at town halls screaming and fighting with the angry left wing citizens at town halls. The stories of peace are not nearly as sensational as spreading and then denouncing the rumors about Death Panels, Birth Certficates and Beer with Cops and Professors. Peace stories are not nearly as interesting as race stories.

So they get missed.

In the last 9 months:

North Korea released two U.S. Journalists,

North Korea then opened it’s border allowing families from the North and South to meet after fifty years of separation,

Cuba wants to talk peace,

Iran’s election proved to put a serious dent in the iron clad Iranian leadership

Russia and the U.S. stood together on sanctions for Iran’s Nuclear mis-steps and deceits – a first for the country formerly the center of the Soviet Union.

Iran now wants to talk,

The United States is out of combat operations in Iraq

and

President Obama and his administration is attempting to bring the Palestinians and Israeli’s to the peace table once again.

Not all of this is because of President Obama but as the Nobel committee indicated – he’s set a tone and acted as a catalyst for another form of climate change – the global cooling of international tension.

Maybe we can finally take the concept of peace seriously, begin a dialog and act as if it’s a real goal rather than just a safe answer.

Although odd that he wins this prize the same day we’re attacking the moon. But that’s another story…

NEWS LINK:
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President Barack Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize according to CNN.