Noemie Emery takes aim at the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, which has made a habit of awarding Not-George-Bush figures its prize. Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, and now Barack Obama were in large part decorated for repudiating all that the international elite despised about George W. Bush — from his prosecution of the Iraq war to his “cowboy” diplomacy (although he never told Honduras which president to select; neither did he try to engineer the ousting of an Israeli prime minister). He was everything the Oslo set loathed.

There is a downside, however, this time around. The committee set itself up for much ridicule: “It fired at Bush, but hit itself and Obama, whose life it has made much more difficult. It blew itself up in frenzy of loathing. Whom the gods destroy, they first make mad, goes the old saying. Or at least, mad at George W. Bush.”

But isn’t the same true of Obama himself? He’s made Not-George-Bush the cornerstone of his presidency and it hasn’t exactly worked out as planned. In the opening days of his presidency, Obama declared that he would be closing Guantanamo — to recapture our moral standing. Well, it turned out Guantanamo was a very comfy place and no one (including the American people) wanted these dangerous people moved. So, like the Nobel Committee, Obama aimed at Bush and shot himself.

Then there were the string of attacks on the CIA and Bush-era interrogation policies. Releasing the detainee-abuse photos and some (but not all, of course) of the CIA interrogation memos. Handcuff the CIA interrogators. And then debate Dick Cheney. All of this was the continuation of the war against Bush. How did it turn out? Not well. The public likes the idea that the CIA will extract life-saving information from Islamic terrorists. Dick Cheney’s poll numbers went up; support waned for Obama.

Now we have Afghanistan. Obama campaigned on “Bush didn’t focus on Afghanistan” and is now trying to avoid the implications of his own stated policy. Unlike Bush, who was told to listen to the generals, Obama is, we are told, looking at the bigger picture. He’s a big-picture president, unlike his predecessor, is the implication. The result? Voters overwhelmingly favor generals over Obama to decide the direction of the war, and liberals and conservatives alike are squirming over Obama’s public agonizing. Again, “Not Bush” has been a morass for Obama.

We’ve never had such a juvenile display of contrarianism by an American president, who decided to do the opposite of his predecessor – while reminding us of his rationale at every turn. It has, one senses, distorted the administration’s judgment and blinded them to obvious flaws in their own policies. It remains to be seen whether the Obama team will, like the Nobel Committee, blow themselves up in a “frenzy of loathing.” But so far, their Bush obsession hasn’t done them any good.

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