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Nobel Peace Prize


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Basically, it'd be a better look if Obama were to receive the Prize after having left office with a successful legacy of formenting peace. Giving it to a still politically-active person is dangerous, and giving it to someone after having spent less than nine months in the job is even more so.

Yes. I dunno maybe they were really keen on that non-proliferation resolution in the UN last month, haha. He's been working on non-proliferation since he was a Senator. Granted, he wasn't a Senator very long either.

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I wonder who else was on the short list besides Obama?

Must have been a pretty weak year if they gave the award based on someone's potential decisions.

I was wondering this, too. Found this:

There were a record 205 nominations for this year's peace prize. Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Chinese dissident Hu Jia had been among the favourites.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8298580.stm

As far as it being a political choice, it is a double edged sword. They've endorsed his approach on diplomacy, climate change, non-proliferation and so forth, so this peace prize is going to always be there when he works on the above.

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Does that mean that you have read Mueller's books, or at least one of them, in order to be able to judge her?

I have to acknowledge that I have not read any of her books (though I have read some other Nobel winners). Anyway, I didn't want to critizice any particular writer, but to point out that the critteria used in the selection is not strictly literary. If we have a look to the last winners, it should be obvious:

2009, Müller: Part of a minority, repressed under Ceaucescu, exiled to Germany.

2008, Le Clezio: Expelled from Thailand for protesting against child prostitution.

2007, Lessing: Born in Iran, campaigner agains nuclear arms and apartheid, expelled from several African countries.

2006, Pamuk: Charged in Turkey to criticise the mass murder of the Armenians.

Looking at wikipedia, here's a list of authors that have not been considered worthy: Proust, James Joyce, Borges, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Émile Zola, Mark Twain. And Sartre refused it.

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And now I'm thinking about the collective apoplexy that all those Conservatives who cheered and applauded Chicago losing the Olympics are going to have.

Most on the right have long known that the Nobel Peace Prize is a joke; this is but the final confirmation, though there is some surprise being registered that the Nobel Committee would stoop even this low. Remember, Nobel nominations closed a mere two weeks after Obama took office.

If Obama was any sort of leader, he'd refuse the prize for its patent ridiculousness.

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Good to see the Nobel Committee back on the paint fumes. :thumbsup:

At this time I must point out that the Nobel Peace Price is not awarded by the same committee as any other Nobel Price. It's not even in the same country as the others.

Blame those crazy Norwegians! :leaving:

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Hey, I'm as glad as the next guy that we've got Obama in office, really I'm a big fan. But I do think this was premature.

That he won the Peace Prize for merely returning our foreign policy to its more normalized state instead of what we had the last 8 years is pretty amazing. It's great we're getting things back on track, but what we're doing now is nothing new and it shouldn't be earth-shattering.

Also, if the reason to give him the prize was because of our current efforts to normalize our foreign relations, shouldn't he maybe have shared the prize with Hillary Clinton, the one doing a lot of that heavy lifting?

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If Obama was any sort of leader

Oh good lord SYM, since when have you had anything positive to say about the man, anyway.

I laughed out loud when I saw this, just thinking about some of the conservative responses. :lol:

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Perhaps it would be relevant to the conversations on this thread to quote Alfred Nobel's will on what the prize was for. I'm including his definition of the literature prize since that's also come up on the thread:

one part to the person who shall have produced in the field of literature the most outstanding work of an idealistic tendency; and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity among nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.

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Honestly, he should've refused it. This will only benefit his opponents, and its entirely undeserved anyway.

I don't think so, about only benefiting his opponents.

As far as US politics, many conservatives already hate him and don't want to work with him anyway; whether he accepted or declined this award won't change that. A lot of people will probably be puzzled at the choice like folk in this thread, but it's still nice to see a positive reaction to your leader. We obviously haven't had a lot of that in recent years.

Anyhow, refusing has its pros and cons. I'd want him to make the shrewd choice, personally. It's not his job to deliver a rebuke to the Committee or try to salvage their reputation, which seems like it was already tarnished prior to this. If he thinks it will help drive his agenda on those items, rock on, take it, and try to prove worthy of it.

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I came to this board in the sincerest hopes that SOMEBODY would be able to say, "No, this actually makes sense. Obama did a lot behind the scenes in country X to stop the spread of violence." So, collectively, all of us Obama supporters (and Ser Scott) got nothing? So, "No We Can't" is what we are saying, huh?

Um, what? I guess the bar must have reeeeally been lowered under Bush, if all you have to do, to qualify, is be a US president who isn't a warmongering cretin.

All I can think is that the entire world just gave the bird to George Bush. That the policies of the United States under Bush were so horrifying to the world at large that THE GUY WHO REPLACED HIM, would almost by default, be a leap forward towards peace.

(The worst part? I think you could make a compelling case that George Bush's effort's to battle AIDS in Africa were actually more in line to what the Peace Prize SHOULD reward than anything Obama has done).

I really think this is "subtraction by addition" wherein you get something you completely and obviously do not deserve and by getting the award you actually come out looking less. I mean, what other crazy things is Obama going to get just for being himself? An Oscar? A Pulitzer? The Heisman? Will Martin finally get rid of the famed "Knot" he is trying to untie by simply writing "But then Obama flew in and all was well"?

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