The Nobel Committee has been an ideologically driven group for a long time, unashamedly predisposed to the most leftist causes and personalities. Remember Al Gore, Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, the United Nations, Le Duc Tho, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Wangari Maathai (Kenyan ecologist who claims AIDS virus is a biological weapon specifically created by a white power structure), Kofi Annan and, not to be forgotten, that particularly stellar champion of peace, Palestinian bomb-thrower and terrorist leader, Yasser Arafat.Still, few thought the Committee would be so brazen and so silly as to give the Peace Prize to Barack Obama, a guy who everyone admits hasn't done anything yet.
Except criticize his predecessor, make big promises and make an awful lot of apologies for America's ideals and actions.
It is a really bleak sign of the times.
But that Obama, with that Olympic-sized ego of his, received the prize as a natural and justly-deserved honor? Well, that's a really dangerous sign of our times as well.
Other responses?
* Peter Beinart (Daily Beast): "I like Barack Obama as much as the next liberal, but this is a farce. He’s done nothing to deserve the prize."
* The Times (U.K.) "...Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent. It was clearly seen by the Norwegian Nobel committee as a way of expressing European gratitude for an end to the Bush Administration, approval for the election of America’s first black president and hope that Washington will honour its promise to re-engage with the world.
Instead, the prize risks looking preposterous in its claims, patronising in its intentions and demeaning in its attempt to build up a man who has barely begun his period in office, let alone achieved any tangible outcome for peace."
* Siv Jensen, leader of Norway's Progress Party. "It is just too soon. It is wrong to give him the peace prize for his ambition. You should receive it for results." She said that the decision to bestow the award on the president was the most controversial she could remember and was one of a number that had moved the prize further away from the ideals of Alfred Nobel.
* Paul Mirengoff at Power Line: If it's any consolation to readers who have expressed distress, I think this award will prove to be an embarrassment to Obama, and possibly a negative for his presidency, here at home. The award is so absurd that even leftists have taken note. Ezra Klein wrote: "Obama also awarded Nobel prize in chemistry. 'He's just got great chemistry,' says Nobel Committee." Ana Marie Cox wrote: "Apparently Nobel prizes now being awarded to anyone who is not George Bush." The late-night comedians should have even more fun with this.
I think this award will seal Obama's image as vastly overrated and perhaps as president of the foreigners (Obama flirted with these images once before to his detriment; in the summer of 2008, his poll numbers sagged following his pompous foreign speeches before he had been elected president). In fact, this may well become the prevailing narrative for Obama at least until the economy improves quite substantially.
Obama seems sufficiently egomanical to welcome this award. But I wonder whether the shrewdest of his advisers do.
* John Podhoretz in a brief post at Commentary entitled "The Michael Moore of Oslo" --- "The Nobel Committee chose him wisely because he does, in fact, represent the organization’s highest ideals.
He is an American president queasy about the projection of American power. He is an American president who rejects the notion of American exceptionalism. He is an American president eagerly in pursuit of legitimacy to be granted him not by those who voted for him but by those who do not cast a vote and who chafe at American leadership. It is his devout wish that America become one of many nations, influencing the world indirectly or not influencing it at all, rather than “the indispensable nation,” as Madeleine Albright characterized it. He is the encapsulation, the representative, the wish fulfillment, the very embodiment, of the multilateralist impulse. He is, almost literally, a dream come true for the sorts of people who treasure and value the Nobel Peace Prize."
* Daniel Pipes: My prediction: The absurdity of the prize decision will harm Obama politically in the United States, contrasting his role as international celebrity with his record devoid of accomplishments. Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, notes that Obama “won’t be receiving any awards from Americans for job creation, fiscal responsibility, or backing up rhetoric with concrete action.” Expert to hear much more along those lines.
* A "key White House aide" (according to ABC News): "It's not April 1, is it?"
* And my favorite, Ramesh Ponnuru in the Washington Post: Many conservatives are mocking the Nobel Peace Prize committee's decision to give President Obama the award. They say that this recognition is premature, since his foreign policy has not yet achieved anything.
I disagree. Obama is the perfect awardee.
The function of the modern prize is not to award people for bringing about peace or advancing justice. It is to allow Western and especially European progressives to pat themselves on the back for their enlightened attitudes.
When Jimmy Carter won the prize for speaking out against the Iraq war, the committee clearly wasn't asking whether his work actually did anything to stop the war--let alone to further the cause of peace in any broader sense.
In its citation this year, the committee writes about "dialogue and negotiations," "vision," and "attitudes." The award recognizes Obama for talking, hoping, and attitudinizing. Nobody can doubt that he excels in each field.
If anything, the award comes too late. The committee should have given it to Obama last year, during the presidential campaign, when he was at his hope-and-change-iest and the award's political nature would have been most stark.
To make up for it, I propose that the award go to Obama every year from now on--regardless, needless to say, of the results of his foreign policy.
