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Posts Tagged ‘Don Draper’
October 9th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
How “Mad Men” Relates to Obama’s Coronation as Prom Queen of the “Virtual World”
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This week, the fictional character Don Draper from AMC’s critically-acclaimed series Mad Men was somehow named the Most-Influential Man of 2009 by askmen.com.  That’s right – a nonexistent man is somehow the year’s most influential.

So what does this have to do with Barack Obama and his coronation as Global Prom Queen this week by the Nobel committee?  Lots.

Just as a fictional character has somehow attained the title of most-influential man, a President who has done absolutely nothing to achieve actual peace in the world has just won the Nobel Peace Prize after just nine months in office.  Indeed, last February’s Nobel nomination deadline meant that Obama was nominated no more than 11 days into office. 

French President Nicolas Sarkozy captured the essence of this absurdity last month when he mockingly referenced Obama’s “virtual world.” But as Sarkozy also pointed out, we don’t live in that virtual world – we live in the real world.  And by repeating mindless platitudes about ridding the world of nuclear weapons, Obama ignores the very real danger of nations like Iran rapidly acquiring them.  It’s possible that Obama’s Nobel will prove to be nothing but a bizarre, humorous footnote when we look back, but Sarkozy’s observation reminds us that living as if we’re in a virtual world can have dangerous implicaitons for the real world.