What a joke — former President Obama will receive the Kennedy Library's Profile in Courage award

© 2017 Peter Free

 

03 March 2017

 

 

So far beyond just bad taste

 

Spare a moment to read this:

 

 

Former U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday was named this year's winner of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library's "Profile in Courage" award, an annual honor for leaders who stand up to political opponents.

 

"President Obama has embodied the definition of courage that my grandfather cites in the opening lines of 'Profiles in Courage': grace under pressure," Jack Schlossberg, the slain U.S. president's grandson, said in a statement.

 

"Throughout his two terms in office, he represented all Americans with decency, integrity, and an unshakeable commitment to the greater good."

 

© 2017 Scott Malone and Jeffrey Benkoe, Kennedy Library picks Obama for 'Profiles in Courage' award, Reuters (02 March 2017) (excerpts)

 

 

Irony

 

Our latest "profile in courage" is the same guy who won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize without having done much of anything in office — and then went on to vigorously expand President George W. Bush's maniacally murderous scorching of the Middle East.

 

This is the same (allegedly integrity-laden) Barack Obama, who unshakeably:

 

 

knuckled under to virtually every one of the Plutocratic Establishment's institution-seizing demands

 

 

courageously ignored all aspects of African-Americans' continuing plight

 

 

and

 

 

heroically increased the economic subjugation of America's 99 Percent.

 

 

Perverse prize standard

 

The Kennedy Library seems to think that occasionally brawny political infighting is somehow the index of meaningful accomplishments in governance.

 

Whatever happened to (a) admirable content and (b) its successful delivery — as measures of difference-making political courage?

 

 

The moral? — Our first African-American president was no "profile in courage"

 

Gifted politician, oligarchical suck-up, dishonorable token-ist and hypocritical deceiver?

 

Yes.

 

(But he did look and sound so darn good. And he did sometimes stand up to political opponents.)

 

Too bad that there is not a Committee for Truth in History to counter such ridiculous prizes and the silly institutions that foster them.

 

We could call this pretend Committee's annually accorded award, "The CFTH" — pronounced "Sift-ah" — or "The Bogus Barack."