Two Medals for Public Service

I’d like to propose two prizes for public service.

One, a Nobel Peace Prize goes to Vice President Gore for avoiding nation-crushing confrontation in the mis-election of 2000. If he had contested the results, our union would be in worse shape.

Ivory Coast demonstrates the negative Power of One. President Gbagbo egotistically refuses to accept the electoral results and cynically uses his membership in the Bété community to drive a deep and permanent wedge between ethnicities.

We should all remember that, whatever our creed, we are Americans and that we have to live together.

The second prize, maybe a Medal of Freedom, should go to Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin for highlighting the mean-spiritedness of the Republican party and for throwing millions of public servants into the Democratic column—in time for the 2012 reelection of President Obama.

Governor Walker’s misdeeds are good for our planet, too, as the Republican party is anti-climate science. If the Republicans have their way, we will perish as weather systems intensify and we continue to drive our SUVs with the windows rolled up.