Already a mockery

Today's London Times declares that the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to BO makes a mockery of the Nobel Prize. They have a point. The cutoff for nominations for this year's awards was February 1, at which point BO had occupied the White House for less than two weeks. Thus it seems that the very act of campaigning, reading soaring oratory from a teleprompter, being successful enough at self promotion to get elected, surviving the horrific poetry readings at the inauguration, and unpacking his stuff in the White House was enough to merit the Nobel Peace Prize. In the few months since then, he has talked about closing Gitmo, sent more troops to Afghanistan, ignored Iraq, given wimpy speeches around the world apologizing for America, thrown our closest allies under the bus, overlooked threats from Iran and North Korea, hobnobbed with dictators, bowed to the Saudi prince, declared America to be one of the biggest Muslim nations, and capitulated to terrorists.

But on deeper inspection, awarding BO the Nobel Peace Prize despite his complete lack of tangible accomplishments was not responsible for making a mockery of the Nobel Prize. That was already accomplished years ago, when the same award was bestowed on Yassir Arafat, the hapless Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, Anwar Sadat, Mohamed ElBaradei, Gorbachev, and Henry Kissinger.

Alfred Nobel, a great man, established the Nobel Prize to honor “champions of peace” who genuinely contributed to peace in the world. He deplored the “absurd and futile efforts of windbags who are capable of thwarting the best of aims.” But Oslo's Nobel Committee, made up of five Norwegians nominated by Norway's left-wing Storting consistently bases their decisions on politics rather than rewarding real accomplishments of resolving conflict and promoting justice.

The Nobel Prize was a joke long before they added BO to the lineup alongside terrorists, dictators, and frauds. This is just another punchline.