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Obama's Nobel Farce - Next stop, sainthood?

• The Daily Beast
George W. Bush launched a “preemptive” war. Now the Nobel Committee is trying for “preemptive” peace. I had always thought the way these things worked was that you helped bring peace or democracy to some corner of the globe first, and then you won the Nobel Prize. But this year, the Nobel Committee has turned that logic around: It clearly likes what Obama is trying to do: on nuclear disarmament, climate change and Middle East peace—and so, in a “preemptive” strike, it’s giving him the award now, in hopes that doing so will boost his chances of success later. It’s an interesting idea. Perhaps next they’ll start giving Oscars not to the people who have made the best movies of last year, but to the people who have the best chance of making the best movies next year. After all, once you’ve already made the movie, you no longer need the encouragement.

"Perhaps next they’ll start giving Oscars not to the people who have made the best movies of last year, but to the people who have the best chance of making the best movies next year".

I like Barack Obama as much as the next liberal, but this is a farce. He’s done nothing to deserve the prize. Sure, he’s given some lovely speeches and launched some initiatives—on Iran, Israeli-Palestinian peace, climate change and nuclear disarmament—that might, if he’s really lucky and really good, make the world a more safe, more just, more peaceful world. But there’s absolutely no way to know if he’ll succeed, and by giving him the Nobel Prize as a kind of “atta boy,” the Nobel Committee is actually just highlighting the gap that conservatives have long highlighted: between Obamamania as global hype and Obama’s actual accomplishments.

Gallery: American Nobel Peace Prize Winners But Obama will survive this award. The damage to the Nobel Committee itself will be greater. They’ve clearly fallen in love with celebrity, and with the idea of shaping the course of history—in other words, they’ve fallen in love with an absurdly grandiose conception of their role. The Nobel Prize Committee should be in the business of conferring celebrity on unknown human-rights and peace activists toiling in the most god-forsaken parts of the world; the people who really need the attention (and even the money). It should be in the business of angering powerful tyrants by giving their victims a moment in the sun. Choosing Barack Obama, who practically orbits the sun already, accomplishes the exact opposite of that. Let’s hope Obama eventually deserves this award. And let’s hope the Nobel Committee’s decision meets with such a deafening chorus of chortles and jeers that it never does something this stupid again!

2009—Barack Obama
2008—Martti Ahtisaari
2007—Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Al Gore
2006—Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank
2005—International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei
2004—Wangari Maathai
2003—Shirin Ebadi
2002—Jimmy Carter
2001—United Nations, Kofi Annan
2000—Kim Dae-jung
1999—Médecins Sans Frontières
1998—John Hume, David Trimble
1997—International Campaign to Ban Landmines, Jody Williams
1996—Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, José Ramos-Horta
1995—Joseph Rotblat, Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs
1994—Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin
1993—Nelson Mandela, F.W. de Klerk
1992—Rigoberta Menchú Tum
1991—Aung San Suu Kyi
1990—Mikhail Gorbachev
1989—The 14th Dalai Lama
1988—United Nations Peacekeeping Forces
1987—Oscar Arias Sánchez
1986—Elie Wiesel
1985—International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
1984—Desmond Tutu
1983—Lech Walesa
1982—Alva Myrdal, Alfonso García Robles
1981—Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
1980—Adolfo Pérez Esquivel
1979—Mother Teresa
1978—Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin
1977—Amnesty International
1976—Betty Williams, Mairead Corrigan
1975—Andrei Sakharov
1974—Seán MacBride, Eisaku Sato
1973—Henry Kissinger, Le Duc Tho
1972—The prize money for 1972 was allocated to the Main Fund
1971—Willy Brandt
1970—Norman Borlaug
1969—International Labour Organization
1968—René Cassin
1967—The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
1966—The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1965—United Nations Children's Fund
1964—Martin Luther King Jr.
1963—International Committee of the Red Cross, League of Red Cross Societies
1962—Linus Pauling
1961—Dag Hammarskjöld
1960—Albert Lutuli
1959—Philip Noel-Baker
1958—Georges Pire
1957—Lester Bowles Pearson
1956—The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
1955—The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1954—Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
1953—George C. Marshall
1952—Albert Schweitzer
1951—Léon Jouhaux
1950—Ralph Bunche
1949—Lord Boyd Orr
1948—The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
1947—Friends Service Council, American Friends Service Committee
1946—Emily Greene Balch, John R. Mott
1945—Cordell Hull
1944—International Committee of the Red Cross
1939-‘43—The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
1938—Nansen International Office for Refugees
1937—Robert Cecil
1936—Carlos Saavedra Lamas
1935—Carl von Ossietzky
1934—Arthur Henderson
1933—Sir Norman Angell
1932—The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1931—Jane Addams, Nicholas Murray Butler
1930—Nathan Söderblom
1929—Frank B. Kellogg
1928—The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1927—Ferdinand Buisson, Ludwig Quidde
1926—Aristide Briand, Gustav Stresemann
1925—Sir Austen Chamberlain, Charles G. Dawes
1923-‘24—The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1922—Fridtjof Nansen
1921—Hjalmar Branting, Christian Lange
1920—Léon Bourgeois
1919—Woodrow Wilson
1918—The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1917—International Committee of the Red Cross
1914-‘16—The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1913—Henri La Fontaine
1912—Elihu Root
1911—Tobias Asser, Alfred Fried
1910—Permanent International Peace Bureau
1909—Auguste Beernaert, Paul Henri d'Estournelles de Constant
1908—Klas Pontus Arnoldson, Fredrik Bajer
1907—Ernesto Teodoro Moneta, Louis Renault
1906—Theodore Roosevelt
1905—Bertha von Suttner
1904—Institute of International Law
1903—Randal Cremer
1902—Élie Ducommun, Albert Gobat
1901—Henry Dunant, Frédéric Passy

2 Comments in Response to

Comment by Patrick Wood
Entered on:

Beware of the "freedom" community... this "granny" is more a "warrior" and as good as the add sounds, my experience is bigotry is in the sheep's clothing.

Comment by TheRockster
Entered on:

Carter, Gore, Obama. This "prize" has lost all credibility. Time to dynamite it.


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