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Nobel Prize for hopes and aspirations?

President Obama said he's "humbled" to be lauded as this year's winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

If he truly has any humility, he should be embarrassed, too.

This is something like an athlete being named "player of the year" a few games into the season.

It seems Obama was given the award on the basis of hopes and dreams.

Extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples?

Vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons ... that has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations?

New climate in international politics?

Strengthening democracy and human rights?

Giving hope to the people of the world for a better future?

What is the Nobel Committee seeing that I've missed? These aren't accomplishments. They're goals that might or might not be realized someday.

Where, during Obama's brief tenure, have we seen improvements in democracy and human rights? Or progress toward nuclear disarmament? It's bizarre.

I'm not belittling Obama, who's been in office less than nine months. Even for him, that's too soon to expect World Peace.

Granted, no one else has pushed the world much closer to a state of perfection lately. Finding a worthy recipient for the Peace Prize on this war-torn planet every year is probably the hardest task for the Nobel Committee.

But this is giving what's arguably humanity's highest honor to a politician who's made a lot of idealistic speeches and who might, in time, prove to be a good president and positive world leader. Or not. It's too soon to say.

In a way it's flattering to the United States that the Nobel Committee believes the president of the United States can be such a powerful force for beneficial change in the world when plenty of analysts believe this country's global influence is declining.

Yet, the Nobel Committee has so utterly exaggerated Obama's impact to date that the validity of this award seems sadly diminished.

It would have been better to wait a couple of years to see if Obama actually gets done some of the triumphs the Nobel Committee already attributes to him ... although, frankly, it's probably impossible that anyone could.

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Posted by Doug Clark on Friday, October 9, 2009 at 8:14 am

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brian444

October 9, 2009 - 11:18 am EDT

I hope the NCAA will follow the Nobel's lead and award the Tarheels another national championship in basketball--on Monday.

Doug

October 9, 2009 - 12:20 pm EDT

I like your idea, but it actually demonstrates more logical thinking than the Nobel Committee's. The Tar Heels really did win the 2009 championship and have a long record of accomplishment to justify a decision to award them the next title in advance.

brian444

October 9, 2009 - 12:52 pm EDT

It's settled, then.

Even my crazy liberal wife thought the Nobel Prize was ridiculous.

Doug

October 9, 2009 - 2:46 pm EDT

Your wife seems very level-headed.

A few liberals are.

brian444

October 9, 2009 - 5:04 pm EDT

Well, very few. And certainly not my wife. That's the wierd thing about this: even mainstream crackpot liberals are at a loss. They confess to being "bewildered" at The Nation, for pete's sake.

Connie Mack Jr

October 9, 2009 - 1:18 pm EDT

Yet, the Nobel Committee has so utterly exaggerated Obama's impact to date that the validity of this award seems sadly diminished.* Doug

Congrats Doug! The Nobel Committee has awarded you the Editorial Peace Story of the year about High Point joining the Taliban movement and giving Greensboro total peace for the next 100 years.......They want to know when they can expect the story from you?

tonymo

October 9, 2009 - 2:10 pm EDT

Firtst let me say I wonder if the nurses know that Connie Mack escaped from his restraints, and is on the loose making a fool of himself again.

Next. Doug it is even worse than you chronicled. The nominations for the award were submitted in February, just a few weeks after his Coronation. By then he had not yet brought the troops home from Iraq, stabilized Afghanistan, closed Gitmo, stopped the Rendition program, the one where they really do torture people, stopped the military tribunals, scrapped the Patriot Act, and stopped the warrantless wiretap program!

Oh, you say he still hasn't done any of those things. What the heck, the model for his presidency Jimmy Carter also "won" the award while also being humiliated by Iran. And the, apparently, peace loving terrorist leader Yassar Ghandi Arafat is another noted recipient of the "prestigious" award, and of course world renowned climate scientist, Albert Gore won the prize, and an Academy Award!

Okay Doug, fess up, this was a SNL skit wasn't it? I understand he's also a finalist for the Nobel awards for Economics, and Medicine!

Connie Mack Jr

October 9, 2009 - 11:57 pm EDT

First let me say I wonder if the nurses know that Connie Mack escaped from his restraints, and is on the loose making a fool of himself again* tonymo

Heavens no! I have a birthday tomorrow and I expect you to be my personal server at McDonald's as Ronald McDonald [The Conservative Republican Clown] of knowledge. Have you consider a new career as a Religious Teacher of Peace and Chaos with a twist of the Tea Bagger Devil in your Republican mind set?

Who Did Obama Beat to Win His Nobel Prize?

Sima Samar, women’s rights activist in Afghanistan: “With dogged persistence and at great personal risk, she kept her schools and clinics open in Afghanistan even during the most repressive days of the Taliban regime, whose laws prohibited the education of girls past the age of eight. When the Taliban fell, Samar returned to Kabul and accepted the post of Minister for Women’s Affairs.”

Ingrid Betancourt: French-Colombian ex-hostage held for six years.

Dr. Denis Mukwege: Doctor, founder and head of Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo. He has dedicated his life to helping Congolese women and girls who are victims of gang rape and brutal sexual violence.

Handicap International and Cluster Munition Coalition: “These organizations are recognized for their consistently serious efforts to clean up cluster bombs, also known as land mines. Innocent civilians are regularly killed worldwide because the unseen bombs explode when stepped upon.”

Hu Jia, a human rights activist and an outspoken critic of the Chinese government, who was sentenced last year to a three-and-a-half-year prison term for ‘inciting subversion of state power.’

Wei Jingsheng, who spent 17 years in Chinese prisons for urging reforms of China’s communist system. He now lives in the United States

Doug

October 9, 2009 - 2:36 pm EDT

The nomination deadline was in February, and Obama was one of more than 200 nominees. But the committee considered events all during the year, including Obama's fairly recent speech to the U.N. when he talked about nuclear disarmament.

Apparently they liked his speech so much they decided to give him the Peace Prize.

tonymo

October 9, 2009 - 3:04 pm EDT

Doug, do you truly believe those idiots needed a reason for this debacle. This is simply another poke in our eye by the globalist morons.

If he sends the 40,000 troops to Afghanistan does he have to return it? Why does any sane person take these people seriously? There are actually folks at MSLSD who are more believable. Okay, I'm kidding on that one!

Andrew Brod

October 9, 2009 - 3:05 pm EDT

The Nobel committee said they're giving it to him in acknowledgement of his efforts in diplomacy, and fair enough, I guess. It's their prize to give. But it sure is hard to justify this. Outside of everyone-gets-a-trophy youth programs, we're used to prizes being awarded for accomplishments, not effort.

It's worth noting that the committee for the peace prize is the only Nobel committee not populated by experts in that field. The peace-prize committee is made up, as I understand it, of retired Norwegian politicians. No wonder politicians have dominated that award. Gandhi was nominated five times and never won it.

SueP

October 9, 2009 - 3:09 pm EDT

I swear, if President Obama cured cancer, you'd find a problem with that, too. It's a day to be proud of being an American, of being proud of America and her President. --30--

Doug

October 9, 2009 - 3:18 pm EDT

So we could pretend Obama has accomplished what the Nobel Committee says he has and say, Hooray for America!

I thought I'd made clear that I wasn't faulting Obama for this. I assume he didn't lobby the committee for the award. I'm saying he hasn't earned it.

If he cured cancer, he would earn the Nobel for medicine. What exactly is his curing-cancer moment that warrants the peace prize?

Doug

October 9, 2009 - 9:44 pm EDT

Maybe this would be like winning the Nobel Prize for medicine for declaring you want to cure cancer.

Again, the problem isn't with the one setting the goal but with those making the award.

tonymo

October 9, 2009 - 4:05 pm EDT

Hey SueP, from which far planet did you recently arrive? Believe me if he found a cure for cancer no one would find fault with him. Of the many truly ludicrous statements made in this area yours is the running for the Nobel Lucdicrous Statement Prize!

Please, Sue, tell us in 10,000 words or less what you believe the community organizer has done to merit a Nobel Peace Prize! No, just tell us what he did to even be nominated, after two weeks in office! You Obama worshipers are incredible. Nothing that he has done about anything has helped this country, except make the desposts and tyrants of the UN love him! Oh he wants a nuclear free world. Anyone who doesn't want a nuclear free world raise your hand. Gee, no hands! At least most of us are not so delusional as to think we can have such a world.

The best description I've heard yet of the inept man child is from Michael Scheurer, former head of the CIA's Bin Laden unit. He said the Obama is a "perpetual adolescent who can only see the world as he'd like it to be, rather than how it is!" That IS Barack Hussein Obama, mmm,mmm,mmm! This man was created for SNL!

Andrew Clark

October 9, 2009 - 7:16 pm EDT

Though I certainly wouldn't have given him the prize, it's far from unprecedented for the prize to go to support a cause that is only just beginning, and there certainly has been a change in tone on the international stage and real progress toward eventual elimination of nuclear weapons (the UN speech wasn't the first time he's discussed it, and there have been real agreements made with Russia). Still, I'd much rather see this come as a reward for accomplishment.

The right has enjoyed pointing out that Arafat won the prize. More precisely he was awarded it together with Yitzak Rabin and Shimon Peres for the Oslo Accords. Before that is so readily mocked, please remember that Rabin paid for that act of courage with his life at the hand of one of his own people.

Dogwood

October 10, 2009 - 11:00 am EDT

I spent some time in Scandinavia. I was shocked to learn from older Norweigians that during Hitler's occupation soldiers were ordered to rape blue-eyed blonde girls. Hiltler's orders where to create a pure Aryan Supreme Race. Hitler was a madman and there are plenty of madmen leaders in the world today. Chernobyl nuclear reactor explosion (Ukraine) 23 years ago decimated the North Cape raindeer-caribu population due to nuclear ash.
Nobel was a scientist that invented liquid TNT. Does plastic explosives or IED come to mind?
Russia is the leader in creating Iranian "peacful?"nuclear energy.
Norweigians can name all the worlds 2009 madmen. USA can't graduate 1/3 of high school students. President Obama was honored by learned men and women and Rush and company are brain dead.

tonymo

October 10, 2009 - 11:29 am EDT

"learned men and women." These "learned" men and women would be speaking German if not for we "cowboys" here in the United States, and former presidents who understood that you achieve peace only through strength, not appeasement. How did the British (under MacMillan) appeasement), or the French appeasement (under deGaulle) work out! We neophytes had to save their useless butts.

Ii is truly enlightening to watch the Obama drones attempt to justify this farce. These "learned men and women" have diminished the value of this award. That's assuming it still has any value after being awarded to Yassar Arafat, the "peaceful" terrorist leader, Jimmy "the Geek" Carter, and the inventro of the Internet, and the model for Ryan O'Neal in "Love story," Albert Gore!

As the "brain dead" Rush quipped, this would be like "awarding" the next Super Bowl to the 0-4 KC Chiefs for their "sincere effort" to build a championship team!

I'm truly looking forward for the "SNL Report" concerning this "prestigious" award. Then I'll be looking forward to CNN again fact checking a comedy show, but not the recipient's brilliant record that brought this incredible award!

Dogwood

October 10, 2009 - 3:44 pm EDT

I apologize I did not comment the elderly man was thanking me for my father's Navy Service and the liberation of his country from the horrors of Hilter.

I flew into Siem Reap, Cambodia the day after the airport was bombed in 1970. I personally would love to shove liquid nitroglerine down OBL's throat wadded up in a rice ball wearing a burka hood.