October 9, 2009
Pro-American = Anti-Nobel Peace Prize

Posted at 1:36 pm, in: Foreign Relations
Tags: Barack Obama, Roger Kimball, Yasser Arafat

While everybody else was busy being shocked by Obama receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, I wasn’t. What do you expect? If Yasser Arafat could get one, Obama might as well. Anyway, Roger Kimbal sums it up pretty well:

So Barack Obama just picked up the imprimatur and nihil obstat from Oslo’s Nobel Prize Committee for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people.”
Yes, that’s right, this year’s Nobel “Peace” Prize goes to Barack Obama. What’s the appropriate response: incredulity? Nah: the Nobel Peace Prize is a thoroughly discredited politically-correct coefficient of liberal transnational socialism. Barack Obama was tailor-made for this dubious honor, just as Yasser Arafat was. No, the appropriate response should be a compound of contempt and irritation, contempt for the bloviating Norwegians who once again have distinguished themselves by their sanctimonious fatuousness (”Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future . . . .”), irritation at the fact that this pseudo distinction will, in the eyes of the credulous, tend to legitimate the actions of the most anti-American and incompetent President in history.

The Times (no, not The New York Times, which is purring with pleasure at the news, but the London Times) is correct:

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.

Bottom line: this action is less the awarding of a prize than a kick in the teeth aimed at traditional American power and prestige.

As usual, Andy McCarthy cuts to the chase:

I’m not all for Americans winning international prizes, especially the Nobel Peace Prize. In fact, I’m vigorously against it. The transnational progressives who pass out these accolades believe America is the problem in the world, the main threat to peace, the impediment to “progress,” etc. The award is a symbolic statement of opposition to American exceptionalism, American might, American capitalism, American self-determinism, and American pursuit of America’s interests in the world.

Exactly. If you are pro-American, you must be anti-the Nobel Peace. I am pro-American, ergo, etc. And Andy is to be commended, too, for his suggestion that we rebaptize this discreditable faux-honor with a more suitable name:

After a number of years, the NFL renamed its Super Bowl trophy after its most fitting recipient — it’s now called the Vince Lombardi Trophy. I’d like to see the Nobel Foundation follow suit. If today’s headlines said, “Barack Obama Wins Yasser Arafat Prize,” that would be perfect.

[UPDATE: a friend reminds me that this year's Nobel Peace Laureate, B. Obama, has just refused to meet last year's Nobel Peace Laureate, the Dalai Lama: what do you make of that?]

Since I’m pro-American, I’m obviously anti-Nobel Peace Prize. Who really cares who wins it? It doesn’t mean anything. In fact, I would be insulted if I got it.

UPDATE: More from Jimmy Bise over at the Sundries Shack:

This has to be a disappointing award for people who are actually working toward a more peaceful world where people can live free and unmolested by petty tyrants. Not only has President Obama accomplished absolutely nothing toward peace (though he is giving the doctrine of “peace in our time” a new life) but the Nobel committee seems to have broken, or at least severely bent, its own rules for the award. The deadline for nominations in February 1, which means the President had only been in office ten days before he was nominated. The committee works through February and March to whittle the list of a couple hundred nominees down to a “short list” from which it picks a winner.

Now, what had President Obama done to that point to advance his “vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons” and how had he “powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations”? All that powerful stimulation, which occurred from the podium of the UN, happened last month. He hasn’t brokered a single disarmament deal. In fact, he’s not openened any “arms control negotiations” at all. Oh, he wants to open some with Russia, which is why he sold the Poles and Czechs down the river a couple of weeks ago, but there aren’t any talks going on, just talks about talks. Ditto Iran, where the President allowed the Mullahs to slaughter peaceful protesters in the streets with barely a discouraging word in order to keep the possibility of talks open. But that’s all stuff that happened well after March. He didn’t begin his Obamessiah World Tour until late July.