Is This a Joke?

When my sweetie woke me up this morning with the ominous words, "There have been some overnight developments," I had no idea. He said, "President Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize."

I kind of snorted and said, "Yeah, right."

He said, "That was my first reaction, too. I read it on Yahoo, and I had to check the header to make sure I hadn't accidentally gone to The Onion."

I was still kind of sleepy, so I said, "It's not true. Someone has made a mistake or something."

He said, "No, it's true," and he turned on NPR. Steve Inskeeep was in the middle of saying, "...this prize will be controversial to many who do not feel his accomplishments have merited it..."

I was awake then. "For what?" I sorta shrieked. "What has he actually done?"

"Apparently," said my sweetie, "it's for bringing hope to the world and promising to work with other nations. They actually decided it just a couple of weeks after he took office."

"So he gets the Nobel Peace Prize for running for president?" I snapped (as though it were sweetie's fault--he gets to take a lot of my irritation with public figures). "He gets a Nobel Peace Prize for campaign promises?"

Sweetie nodded glumly. "I feel like I've fallen into Wonderland."

He's not the only one. This article, from the Times, says pretty much the same thing. The headline reads: Absurd Decision on Obama Makes a Mockery of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Ya think?



The award of this year’s Nobel peace prize to President Obama will be met with widespread incredulity, consternation in many capitals and probably deep embarrassment by the President himself.

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.




I can only hope that the president will be embarrassed by this. If he has any class, and integrity, he will decline this award and express his intention to earn it at a later date. I don't have any confidence that he will do that, though, especially after reading this from ABC News:



The president will travel to Oslo in December to accept the prize in person, the White House confirmed.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, who woke the president to tell him the news, said Obama was "humbled."

White House press aides said they had heard from news reports weeks ago that the president was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize but they do not believe Obama himself knew of his nomination. The deadline for nominations is Feb. 1, meaning the president was nominated after being in office for just 11 days.



Has everything lost meaning? The Committee guy told Diane Sawyer today:



"President Obama has changed very dramatically international politics," Lundestad told "GMA's" Diane Sawyer today. "We feel he has emphasized multilateral diplomacy, he has addressed international institutions, dialogue negotiations. He has inspired the world with his vision of a world without nuclear arms. He has changed the U.S. policy dramatically. There's a whole list."



So, he's getting a Nobel Peace Prize for not being George Bush. Wow, I'm not George Bush, either, do I get one next?