So the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded Obama the Peace Prize for 2009. Their reasoning according to the Washington Times is;
…for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said. “Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,” the committee said. “His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.”
In other words,”Obama is not George Bush”. He hasn’t actually accomplished anything, but he campaigns well. So much for any bit of credibility the prize might have had after awarding it to Yassir Arafat or Al Gore. I guess this is the committee weighing in on troops increases in Afghanistan.
I’ll bet Bill Clinton is angier than anyone else on the planet about this though. Clinton actually campaigned for the medal. Like everything else, Barack Obama has won it for doing nothing more than talking.
What could make this even more stupid? Nominations for the prize closed in February. Theodore Roosevelt was awarded the prize because he brokered peace between Russia and Japan. Woodrow Wilson was awarded the prize because he established the League of Nations. Barack Obama wins because he had an Inauguration.
Least I be called unpatriotic by some smarmy liberal, at least it didn’t go to some third-world dictator.
… or did it?
What did he do to deserve this? Seriously?
Soooo. . . Let me get this correct. I don’t have to actually accomplish anything. All I have to do is try REAL HARD.
Sounds like they’ve gone totally Socialist. Equality of results. Where can I pick up my award?
I guess the prize committee got more than a tingle when they heard the one speak.
Arafat, Carter, Obama…….common thread? Oh ya, they stick up for Isreal, Ahmadinnerjacket ought to be a shoe in.
/do I actually need to tag this?
This is the second time that Not-Bush wins, Carter also got it that way. The prize committee really has shifted from recognizing accomplishment to wanting to participate in making policy. Doing it this way shields them from ever having to answer to anyone except their own little circle. They don’t have a clue how ridiculous they appear.
“The prize committee really has shifted from recognizing accomplishment to wanting to participate in making policy.”
Do you think they are trying to influence Obama’s decision on Afghanistan? How is it going to look if Obama is given the Nobel Peace Prize and then he turns around and sends more combat troops into a warzone.
The upside of this is that now they can’t give it to Obama in 2012 to try to get him a second term.
“Woodrow Wilson was awarded the prize because he established the League of Nations.”
Worst…President…EVER!! Man had 666 on his scalp, IMO.
Here is my question. Doesn’t the nobel prize winner get a cash award? I thought I heard 1 million??
Could this be a “legal” way to pay the man for some favors??
But at least it gives our side another punchline for the next three years.
It’s a good thing I was at a dead stop in traffic or I might have had an accident when this came over the news.
Like Old Tanker said, he joins a fine line of awardees. Arafat, Carter, Obama.
Sad.
I can check out, now, because I have seen everything. This clinched it.
Are we positive this just isnt the IG Nobel????? Please let it be……
I just can’t wrap my mind around this one.
Time to pull out of NATO and let Europe pay for their own National Defense.
VTWoody, Yes there is a cash prise, its over 1.5 mil.
What a crock of feces, and as Old Trooper sez, we’ve seen it all now.
How in hell could anyone ever, anywhere, claim that the Nobel bunch has any credibility.
As a kid I believe I learned that Dr. Jonas Salk had won it. That would have been a feather in his cap- then. Now? Just another badge for the phony soldiers to put on their chests along with their other worthless medals, (worthless being in the position that they wear them, not the medal meaning itself.).
Obummer wins the Nobel prize, what a joke.
“Learned all I need to know about Islam on 9?11!”
I am rarely speechless, but this comes close. I was hoping, when I first heard this, that it was another ONION parody.
Sadly, it isn’t.
During my time in the research lab I planned some really good experiments. I wonder if I could have won the Nobel Prize in Physics for planning an experiment. It appears that plans are more important than results at least for the Nobel committee.
The Times Online calls it:
“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.”
Couldn’t have said it, ahem, cleaner, myself.
I’m with AW1 Tim. Rarely am I speechless. About the only thing I can say to this right now is in agreement with others above – zero credibility to the Peace Prize. Zero.
Well, that’s liberalism for you-outcomes mean nothing, it’s the intentions that count.
I’m with Bohica,
Think McCrystal is gonna get any more troops?
Wait. Wait. Wait. People still take the Nobel Peace Prize seriously?
I find his waiting to answer McChrystal completely correlative with the timing of this joke of an award.
Next you’ll see Al Gore bowing to an arab … so he can receive another ‘ignoble’ prize
I wonder if Neville Chamberlain ever received one?
The unofficial ferry riders poll this morning had 60%-you’re kidding, 38%-for what, and 2%-blank stares of incomprehension due to coffee deficiency.
Well, I guess this removes all doubt … the Nobel Peace prize has become nothing more than very expensive toilet paper.
Wyatt,
Neville was nominated in ’39 for the Munich accords. According to the Oct 10, 1938 issue of Time it was a lock he would win it that year (although he couldn’t because he was not nominated in ’38).
“Nearly the whole world last week undertook to pass judgment in one form or another on Britain’s Prime Minister. That Neville Chamberlain will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize was taken for granted by the Norwegian press. The influential Aftenposten went on to urge that, without waiting for the next scheduled date for the Nobel award—December 10, anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel—the committee should “immediately” give Mr. Chamberlain the prize (about $40.000). Norwegian joy at the peace was such that all Oslo school children were given a holiday.”
So time line…
Sept ’38 — Munich Accord
Feb ’39 — Nominations due for ’39
Mar ’39 — Hitler takes remainder of Czech
Sept ’39 — Hitler Invades Poland
Oct ’39 — Peace Prize selected (based on current schedule)
Dec ’39 — Peace Prize given
So close and yet so far.
The Nobel Prize committee keeps their nominations secret for 50 years, lets see who else were nominated between 1901 and 1951.
Mussolini (1935, by a French law professor, and by the law faculty at a German university);
Stalin (1948, by a Czech professor)(also, 1945 by a former Norweign foreign minister, although the minister only wrote that Stalin was qualified for the prize, and did not formally nominate him);
Kaiser Wilhelm II (1911, by the President of UC Berkeley; 1917, by a German professor and by a Turkish law faculty);
Hitler (1939, by a member of the Swedish parliament, although the nomination was withdrawn before the Committee considered it);
Alfred Ploetz (the founder of racial hygiene in Germany; 1936 by a Norwegian parliamentarian, for warning that war would harm biological reproduction);
…”for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee said.
Should read, “for his extraordinary efforts to kiss the asses of international diplomats, while apologizing profusely for the actions of the United Stated for being a successful nation.”
I am going back to bed. When I wake up again the world will not be completely insane. I know the Nobel began its downward sprial into insignificance when it went to Arafat – a man who’s PLO brought misery wherever it went, but this just takes the cake.
You know Gen. McC has to be spitting nails.
Let’s see, Arafat, Carter, Algore, Mohamed El Baradei, The UN and Kofi Annan, Mandela, Gorbachev, UN Peacekeepers. Yeah, Obama is in great company with that crowd. The new, improved Eleven and one half day wonder. Nominations closed eleven and a half days after his corornation, er, inauguration.
In further News, President Obama has won the Oscar for best Actor for his intention to make a video for AFV, and was awarded the Heisman Trophy for watching College football on TV 3 Saturdays in a row.
I was shocked when I first saw that Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. Like others, I couldn’t find any accomplishments to justify the award. But when I thought about the eight years of agony that I’ve had to suffer under President Bush, it all became very clear.
It’s clear to me too. Clearly bullshit.
Just got released from those FEMA camps, did ya John D?
Nah Sparky, he just woke up from his self-induced coma. Went in in 2000 and just woke up.
Yeah, Obama won because he is a breath of fresh air form the Bush years. It clearly demonstrates how throughly Bush and the conservatives destroyed our image around the world. Many contributors to this sight subscribe to the “America can do no wrong” school of thought, a thinly veiled form of narcissism. I would not expect a narcissistic person to comprehend that other people detest him, much less care. To care, one would have to experience empathy, a trait in very short supply on this website.
Wazza matter, Joe? DU getting too conservative for you? Destruction of our “image”? Short memory you have, m’boy.
Obama hasn’t done anything to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize at this point. Even Jimmy Carter did more than Obama has done so far. At least Carter forged something lasting between Israel and Egypt. What has Obama done thus far besides talk? Nothing.
And for Joe, I have one question. Which US president destroyed America’s image in the eyes of the Serbs?
Geez, Fred, you made it so tough on the lefty. I’d bet he’s still googling serb, and trying to figure what, exactly, you’re talking about.
I read the “qualifications” for the Nobel, and I can’t find “breath of fresh air” anywhere in there. And Joe, W was not a conservative, not fiscally, anyway. Anymore than 0 is a “centrist”.