Re: Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize
Not only that, but it completely denigrates the value of what people have done in the past who have made tangible contributions to our goal of world peace.
Is someone really going to argue that President Obama has made contributions on the same level of Elie Wiesel, Lech Walesa, Nelson Mandela or the Dalai Lama? I mean, the selection of Jimmy Carter was politicized enough, but he at least had something to point to: the Camp David Accords. So we’re basically saying that President Obama, in giving a speech before the UN (“The Committee has attached special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons”) and a speech in Cairo which basically said nothing (“for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”), these two speeches are on the level as suffering from the Holocaust and fighting against anti-Semitism; fighting against the Soviets and finally uniting Poland to overthrow that tyranny; spending years in prison and overthrowing apartheid in South Africa; and fighting against Chinese brutality in Tibet and being a voice of peace in the world.
These sacrifices and life-long fights for world peace are on the same plane as two vacuous speeches? Really Nobel Prize Committee? Really?!
Also, giving the prize to President Obama insults people who deserve recognition for their efforts in trying to achieve world peace, who actually work to improve people’s lives throughout the world: people who are starving, suffering from diseases and ailments, or constant conflict. Raising taxes and attempting to thrust socialized medicine upon a very wealthy country doesn’t really count. Sorry.
UPDATE: Some people being tossed around as most likely nominees who were beat out by President Obama: Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, a Colombian senator and a Chinese dissident, along with an Afghan woman’s rights activist. So the Nobel Prize Committee believed that President Obama’s actions in the first 12 days in office were far greater than fighting against Mugabe’s dictatorship, fighting to end the drug wars in Colombia, working for rights for minorities oppressed in China, and striving for women’s rights in Afghanistan? That’s just absurd.
Remember: the two previous sitting presidents to win the Peace Prize were Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. TR ended a war and Wilson established the League of Nations. Clearly, the selection of President Obama for the prize is so politicized, it makes the prize itself risible and without credibility.
