My curiosity having been piqued by President Obama becoming the latest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, I turned to my beloved Wikipedia to find out how many other U.S. presidents have won this prestigious award. Jimmy Carter won it in 2002 for his diplomatic work, but only two other sitting presidents have won the Peace Prize: Teddy Roosevelt in 1909 for helping to end the Russo-Japanese War, and Woodrow Wilson in 1919 for establishing the League of Nations.
While reading up about Carter, I found this great photo of all five living presidents taken in early January of 2009 before Obama’s inauguration. It reminds me of a school club photo:
The first thing I noticed is that Obama, Clinton, and Carter all look genuinely happy, while the Bushes are barely able to contain their disappointment. The photographer seems to have positioned everyone oddly. Carter is standing off to one side and looks like a dwarf compared to the rest of them. Not only does Bush the Younger have that “take the goddamn picture” look on his face, he seems to be physically repelled by Clinton. He’s also doing an “aw shucks” school boy gesture with his feet, as well as slightly upstaging Obama.
The awkwardness is definitely palpable here.
Recently:
- Not everyone is a winner, you know…
- I am Jill’s totally neglected blog
- Special U.S. Geography Lesson: Weird Town Names (with commentary)
- America
- Lost Luggage Update: The Claim
- And apparently, the heavy snow season hasn’t even started yet.
- I’m feeling a bit poetic today
- It’s so much worse in Sweden
- Lost Luggage in Los Angeles
- Cat Physics 101
Comments
This entry was posted on Sunday, October 11th, 2009 at 1:54 pm and is filed under Amusement, News and Current Events, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
You are mistaken when you say the photo was taken before Obama’s nomination, which would precede his election. If taken in January, 2009, it would have been taken after the election, which the Republicans lost and the Democrats won, and would go a long way toward explaining the grins and frowns.
Right you are. I wrote nomination when I meant to write inauguration. Error corrected. Thanks for pointing it out.
Funny post! And it looks like Obama is leaning slightly away from G.W., perhaps muttering something like, “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.”