President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, citing his outreach to the Muslim world and attempts to curb nuclear proliferation.
I realize this is supposed to be two parts encouragement and one part {Norwegian for "fuck"} George W. Bush. But it's an extraordinary back-handed compliment to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for doing the standard things that have long been done by US Presidents (immediate predecessor excepted, of course). I mean, hell, was the committee tempted to give Nixon the Peace Prize back in 1969 for going along with SALT?
I believe your porportions slightly askew and reversed:
ReplyDelete9 parts ficken sie GW Bush to one part big sigh of relief.
and a spash of vermouth
ReplyDeleteI was shocked too. Then I remembered that the Nobel Peace Prize is inherently political selection. It has more to do with cmtes desire to make a statement by recognizing a person who fits with that statement. Who "fits" is entirely biased by the opinion of the cmte. There is no objective std for evaluating who "earned it".
ReplyDeleteObama was recognized because Nobel cmte likes hope and cooperation and disarmament.
I think it causes more of a political problem for Obama...another distraction in the American political dialogue..shedding no new light, but keeping us from focusing on solving our own domestic problems. In this, the cmte was tone deaf to the implications of their choice to current US political dialogue. People outside US can be excited about new direction in US foreign policy, but they need to realize that the future of foreign policy is intertwined with our ability to address fundamental problems domestically.