I'm just watchin' the show

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I had to chuckle this weekend while watching Saturday Night Live. Fred Armisen was playing the part of Barack Obama, giving a state of affairs speech when he described the winning of the Nobel Peace Prize by our 44th President.

“Jimmy Carter won it for decades of trying to find solutions to international conflicts. Al Gore won it for his years of educating the U.S. about climate change. And us? Well, I won it for not being George Bush.”

This is funny, but it’s also probably mostly true. In fact, Obama (the real one) said that he viewed the award from the Norwegian Nobel Committee as “a call to action.”

This even though the Prize people said it was because of his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

Their words, not mine.

“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future.”

More of the words of someone named Thorbjorn Jagland.

It’s taken me some time to come to this conclusion, but I like President Obama. I certainly don’t envy him by any stretch, but I think he is more than a fair leader for our country. Then again, after George Bush slid the bar so far down, it’s little wonder many in America and around the world like him.

“His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population,” the Nobel Committee said.

To me, there is nothing wrong with anything he has tried to do until this point. According to the experts, the recession he inherited from the Bush regime is over. The difficulty now is trying to figure out how long the recovery is going to take.

Yeah, I’m not a big fan of all of the trillions of dollars Obama’s administration added to the national deficit, but I also can’t pretend that I know of a better solution nor heard one from anyone else, for that matter. All we can do is wait on that one and hope that the unemployment rate won’t hit 10 percent.

As far as national health care, I have to say I’m for it — but only if it includes a public option. There are a lot of you out there who don’t like this, but most polls I’ve seen show that John Q. Public is in favor of it.

The way I look at it, the government already runs Medicare and there is an insurance public option already offered — this on flood insurance.

Just think about this before you fire off an angry e-mail to me. In parts of this country, health care premiums have risen nearly 100 percent and the last time I checked, the good old U.S. of A. is tied for 33rd overall globally in quality of health care.

Yuck.

If anyone thinks things are fine just the way they are, then they are mistaken.

I think this was a good step for Obama to push for this. The rest? Well, like I said, I don’t envy him.

Dealing with illegal immigrants? I have no idea what we should do about them. Afghanistan? Ah, huh. Again, no idea.

Right now I’m content to wait and see how well Obama does for the next three years. Not in a hurry to judge his performance until we’ve seen the whole show.

If he keeps doing as he has done to this point, I think it likely I’ll call for an encore in 2012.

If not, we all have the chance to call for the curtain to come down.

T.G. Smith is the sports editor of the Morris Daily Herald. He can be reached by phone at (815) 942-3221 ext. 2027 or by e-mail at tsmith@morrisdailyherald.com.

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