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Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize

October 9th, 2009

Interesting: the last two Democrats elected president have been awarded Nobel Peace Prizes. Three of the last four, in fact, Clinton being the exception.

I haven’t even looked yet, but I bet the right-wing blogosphere and media operations must be going utterly berserk right about now. What a letdown for America to have its leader win such an esteemed award, especially after the sweet, gleeful news that American had lost its bid to host the 2016 Olympics. Damn the Nobel Committee!

Of course, the predictable complaint will be that Obama hasn’t done anything yet. That’s true in one way, but not in another. (Many have already guessed that the prize is for beating McCain and replacing Bush–which might be true in a small, contrastive way.) No, he hasn’t brokered peace treaties or any of the usual things that people do to get the prize. However, he has stood as a rather potent symbol to the world, bringing hope to more than are usually noted in the right-wing U.S. media (they’re too busy covering tea-baggers, death panels, and the Michael Jackson saga to pay much attention to what fer’ners think and feel). Like it or not, he has had a terrific impact on international diplomacy and cooperation. And the committee made it clear that part of this prize is to lend him whatever legitimacy and stature they can add to the pile to help him achieve goals such as nuclear disarmament:

Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.

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. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.

For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world’s leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama’s appeal that “Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.”

The only real question is, how long will it take for which right-wing pundit to insinuate that Obama’s Nobel Prize is nothing but Affirmative Action, that he got it for being black. My bet is on Rush Limbaugh, and it should happen six seconds after he goes on the air next.

Three… two….

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  1. stevetv
    October 9th, 2009 at 23:29 | #1

    If you think the only ones who will complain at this decision are right-wing bloggers, then you underestimate the wide spectrum of public opinion. It is an absolutely silly choice. It’s not that he hasn’t done “the usual things” to win the prize. It’s that he’s only been in office for nine months, and we haven’t seen the end result of his work yet.

    Frankly, I don’t think any American president should be entitled to the award so long as we have hundreds of thousands of troops stationed in other people’s countries all over the world (and so long as we have the death penalty, but that’s another story). And right now, the Commander in Chief is helping to oversee three of the most destructive wars. On human rights, he’s proving to be no improvement over Bush. I’m glad that he’s actively diplomatic, far more so than Bush has ever been. But what is the purpose of diplomacy? It’s a method to promote American interests, as it is with any country. It’s not used to promote worldwide peace. True, the end result could be worldwide peace, and if that happens, Obama should take all the credit. But whatever he’s done now is because he as the president has the power to do so. It’s not like he’s presented any innovative solutions.

    He’s giving a speech in about five minutes. I would love to see him decline it.

  2. Luis
    October 10th, 2009 at 01:46 | #2

    Steve:

    Actually, his time in office is not necessarily relevant. Nobel mandated that the prize should go “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” As much as you may disagree, Obama has done a great deal in this regard. His Cairo speech is an excellent example of this, despite the usual right-wing bashing. Hannity, Beck, and Limbaugh may rear back in disgust when an American president speaks humbly (despite Bush 43 having claimed in 2000 that humility is the best way for a president to act), but for the rest of the world, it was a rather dazzling display. Do not discount the contrast with Bush being an important factor: Bush mightily angered, disrespected, and destabilized unity between nations, and for the world’s leading superpower to do so was a shock indeed. The peace prize is not decided based upon the partisan impressions of U.S. conservatives, it comes from a more international perspective–and from that perspective, Obama positively shines. His becoming president has meant a great deal to a great many people. Wingnuts may gnash their teeth at “Hope,” but many in the world have been starved for it.

    Not to mention that while he has not been in office long, and no major peace accords have been accomplished, Obama has clearly excelled in one way: he has drastically altered the direction of the world’s greatest power. He has changed an isolationist policy hostile to other nations into a conciliatory and open stance; he has upset the Bush juggernaut for nuclear domination and set us on a course for nuclear disarmament; he has gone from a saber-rattling arrogance waged by a political faction which saw diplomacy as a weakness to a power seeking to form bridges and promote cross-cultural understanding. Sneer all you might, these are grand changes with powerful significance.

    Another factor: this is not a prize that gets awarded only if there is a stellar candidate; it is a relative matter. It may very well be that there were simply no candidates more outstanding. Aside from Obama, another front-runner was France’s Nicolas Sarkozy. Wouldn’t that be ironic, if the French-hating right-wingers would have rather seen him win the prize.

    And let’s not also forget that for Obama to turn down that prize would be a slap in the face to those trying their hardest to encourage this new direction amongst all nations.

    Opposition to this may reflect a provincial attitude to the grand world stage.

  3. soopedup
    October 10th, 2009 at 14:18 | #3

    Alot of wonderful people won it. It does seem kinda much for 2 months of work, but then again. Who is controlling all this stuff?
    Two Voices | Two Guys

  4. SOUSA-POZA
    October 10th, 2009 at 15:38 | #4

    I agree with Luis: I find Steve’s position “radical”. To me, it suffices that the Nobel committee considered Obama the best candidate. Whether the prize is premature or not, who cares! If my memory doesn’t fail me, once upon a time Churchill got the Nobel prize … for literature. For openers, Obama is an inspiration to the world. Whether he delivers or not, we will have to wait and see. The problem with radicals is that oftentimes they are holier that thou.

  5. Luis
    October 10th, 2009 at 16:29 | #5

    Soopedup: Not two months. The nominators can nominate anyone for whatever reason; that’s the decision made at the time to which you refer. The Nobel Committee, on the other hand, may consider events up to the last minute. At the earliest, they decided based upon what had happened by mid-September. Source.

  6. Kitty
    October 11th, 2009 at 02:27 | #6

    RedState wins the race to “Affirmative Action” charge.

    http://mediamatters.org/blog/200910090008

  7. Luis
    October 11th, 2009 at 03:50 | #7

    Wow. Limbaugh was the favorite by a mile–bashing “negroes” as nothing but Affirmative Action whores is his bag. Instead he seems to have taken a different tack, saying that the Nobel Committee are nothing but left-wing sell-outs and that Reagan and Bush deserved those Peace Prizes. Yeah, whatever.

    Still, it was a dead lock that some conservative out there would play the A.A. card. Erickson got there first. Thanks for the heads up, Kitty!

  8. Anonymous
    October 11th, 2009 at 15:07 | #8

    Some refreshingly good comments. First, I’m not an Obama fan, mostly because I’m a conservative and disagree with his big government is best philosophy. Second, I think Reagan should have gotten the Nobel Peace Prize for winning the cold war without a shot. If you don’t think that was a big deal, read or re-read “Red Storm Rising” by Tom Clancy. Moscow took down the wall because of Reagan and the Pope; they deserve the prize not a Russian. It’s like crediting the end of WWII to Donitz and Tojo because they surrendered. Third, I think the Nobel committee should have waited for results before awarding the prize to President Obama. Talking nice is nice, but the world still has people who don’t play fair or use dialogue as a subterfuge to mask their intentions until they strike from another direction. It takes two to dialogue. The Jews and others (Chamberlain for example) tried dialoging with Hitler. I think we all know that worked out.

    It seems the Nobel committee praised President Obama’s change in this country’s approach to the rest of the world, because it they and President Obama think all the world’s problems can be solved by folks sitting around chatting and agreeing to get along. Unfortunately, that’s dangerously naive. (Can Catholics and gays sit around and chat and agree on gay marriage? Can oil company execs and environmentalists sit around and chat and agree on drilling in the North Slope of AK? Can NOW and Sarah Palin sit around and chat and agree on the role(s) of women in society, opportunities for women and how well they’ve been able to attain them?

    I don’t think the change in US policy is correct or realistic. Be nice to others and they’ll be nice to you is nice, but naive. (Frankly, it’s nice to be liked, but it’s much better, and more useful to be respected). President Obama’s foreign policy of apologizing for being good at what you do is extremely dangerous and naive. I hope I’m wrong. Only time will tell.

    In short, it seems the Nobel committee wanted to praise President Obama for his efforts towards nuclear disarmament, and world peace (the US being less “I’m right you’re wrong” and more conversational) and condemn the policies of President Bush. Time will tell if reality conforms better to the policies of Bush or Obama and if the Nobel committee was premature in praising attempts versus results.

  9. Luis
    October 11th, 2009 at 19:46 | #9

    I think Reagan should have gotten the Nobel Peace Prize for winning the cold war without a shot. If you don’t think that was a big deal, read or re-read “Red Storm Rising” by Tom Clancy. Moscow took down the wall because of Reagan and the Pope; they deserve the prize not a Russian.

    Sorry if I am more confrontational than otherwise possible, but I really do take issue with these assertions. First of all, if you base your political thinking at all on Clancy’s writing, you are already on very shaky ground. Clancy, for all of his background, was a right-wing fantasy writer; using “Red Dawn” as grounds for awarding the Nobel to Reagan would have been just as reasonable.

    The fact is, Reagan no more brought down the USSR than did Carter; both proposed explosive military budgets–in fact, Reagan raised military spending less than what Carter called for. But to think that the USSR fell because Reagan gave a speech calling for Gorbachev to “tear down this wall” is simplistic at best. The downfall of the Soviet Union began a long time ago, before WWII, when the nation set its agricultural and economic policies. The abuses that followed forged the internal mindset for the eventual fall. By the time Afghanistan started to bleed them dry, they were already dead on their feet; we could have had two terms of Carter and two more of Mondale and the USSR would have fallen all the same.

    If anything, Reagan might well have made the Soviets harden and retrench for a few more years than they otherwise would have–if you recall, Andropov was elected after Brezhnev died–not exactly a sign of backing down. Had Andropov not died so quickly, the Soviet Union probably would have stood up for several years more before their inevitable fall. Reagan lucked out with Gorbachev, and equating Gorbachev to Tojo is truly blind to the realities of what he brought to happen. The fall of the Soviet Union could have been much, much more bloody than it was, taking a great deal more time, and could have been prolonged by a direct or a proxy war with the U.S.

    The idea that Reagan beat the Soviet Union is little more than Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc reasoning, an attempt to rationalize the apotheosis of the right wing’s incipient Lord and Savior.

    Talking nice is nice, but…

    So, Reagan took down the Soviet union “without a shot” but with Obama, “talking is nice, but”?

    The Jews and others (Chamberlain for example) tried dialoging with Hitler.

    There’s a huge difference between being willing to talk and appeasing. Comparing Obama to Chamberlain is just as facetious as comparing him to Hitler.

    It seems the Nobel committee praised President Obama’s change in this country’s approach to the rest of the world, because it they and President Obama think all the world’s problems can be solved by folks sitting around chatting and agreeing to get along. Unfortunately, that’s dangerously naive.

    The change from “you’re either with us or against us,” violating international treaties right and left, starting illegal wars and legitimizing torture, to a humble attitude which wins hearts and minds and changes the international mindset to one of peaceful negotiations might seem naive to you, but it makes a great difference in the real world.

    If you think that Obama thinks that all he has to do is appease everyone and there will be peace than you are sadly mistaken–it is a favorite view amongst those on the right that Obama is such a simpleton, but it is a pipe dream with no basis in reality. Obama is not naive, nor is he hoping for a few kind words to lead to unicorns and rainbows.

    Tell me, what has he given away so far? Under Bush, there was aggressive rhetoric–and we got as a result North Korea and Iran going full drive to arm themselves with nuclear weapons, with Pakistan giving them the know-how. Yeah, that worked.

    Obama is not a magical wizard who will bring peace with a good speech and a kind attitude. He is light-years ahead of Bush and the neocons in terms of knowing what will actually work to make the world a safer place–and he has already moved a great deal in that direction, while the previous administration took eight years to drive us into a deep hole.

  10. SOUSA-POZA
    October 11th, 2009 at 22:07 | #10

    For Christ’s sake, Anomymo! One doesn’t have to be an Obama fan and it is fine being a conservative. Actually, one doesn’t have to be a conservative to disagree with big government -precisely one of the loable conservative tenets that Bush made a mockery of. But suggesting whether Bush’ policies conform to reality is really over the top. Bush’ policies had no salvage value: they belong in the dustbin of history.

  11. SOUSA-POZA
    October 11th, 2009 at 22:32 | #11

    Further, I agree with Luis that crediting Reagan for the fall of the Soviet Union doesn’t stand a superficial analysis. However, I have no big problem with it, “after a fashion”: it happened in his watch. Napoleon required of his generals being lucky. Reagan was lucky -and that is fine.

  12. Luis
    October 11th, 2009 at 22:33 | #12

    Well, technically, it happened on Bush 41’s watch.

  13. SOUSA-POZA
    October 11th, 2009 at 23:30 | #13

    Luis, “technically”, it was Elcano and not Magellan the first man who sailed around the world.

  14. stevetv
    October 14th, 2009 at 08:55 | #14

    I take back what I said about declining the award. That was made in the spur of the moment. It would have looked bad and it would’ve been constrewed as an insult. But I stand by everything else.

    Luis :Steve:
    Actually, his time in office is not necessarily relevant. Nobel mandated that the prize should go “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”

    Well, let’s look at this. Fraternity between nations, or as you say later “Bush… destabilized unity between nations.” Which nations? Fraternity among nations really hasn’t changed all that much. The nations that love each other still love each other, and the ones that hate each other still hate each other. The only change is America and everyone else, and while that’s very nice, how dramatic is that really in the grand scheme of things? Everyone knew Bush was going to be temporary, and eventually there would be someone else who they could cotton to more readily. It wasn’t like South Africa (which you reference in another post) or the Soviet Union, which had many decades of a repressive mono-power with no conceivable alternative in sight. America is a pendulum. It swings one way and then the other way. If the nations didn’t like who was in power at a given point in time, they knew well enough to wait. In the meantime, we lost no allies, and we have goodwill again. That was an inevitability. It has more to do with Obama’s impact than his actions. I honestly don’t think worldwide opinion of the country (as opposed to Bush) changed. It just lay dormant for a few years.

    I don’t see any reduction of standing armies. I see a lot a lot of shifting instead. No, Obama didn’t (as you say later) “start illegal wars”, but he’s doing nothing to wind them down, and indeed is escalating the one in Afghanistan, with potential for Iran and Pakistan to get theirs next. As far as I’m concerned, war doesn’t promote any kind of fraternity of nations – at least not any healthy fraternity – and it negates any sort of peace conferences Obama may have participated in, although I don’t have any memory of those either.

    Another factor: this is not a prize that gets awarded only if there is a stellar candidate; it is a relative matter. It may very well be that there were simply no candidates more outstanding.

    I find that to be a curious statement. So long as there are stellar people in this world, there will always be stellar candidates.

    But the truth is, there have been many years when the Committee has declined to give the award. The reasons could be anything. Looking over the years not given, it would appear that sometimes the reason was out of protest whenever a major war was taking place. But it may very well be they didn’t think any of the candidates were deserving during particular years. (I think it’s more likely the Committee was stalemated, in which case there was no candidate that could get a sufficient majority that year, but that’s not exactly the same thing. In any event, they are not obligated to give the award every single year.)

    But yes, there are plenty of outstanding people deserving of the Nobel Prize, and Obama could have waited a few years before them just as they have waited for years. Look into them, and see if you think none of them were as outstanding as Obama. There’s, first and definitely foremost, Chinese human rights activist Hu Jia, Afghan women’s rights activist Sima Samar, 80 year old Bhuddist activist Thich Quang Do, and the likewise 80 year old Abdul Sattar Edhi who did what the Pakistani government was unable to do and built hundreds and hundreds of hospitals all over the nation. And then there’s organizations such as the Musalaha project in Israel and the Panzi Hospital in the Congo. If you insist the prize must be given to someone “of the moment”, meaning someome who made the greatest difference in the world in the past year (although there’s always Time Magazine’s “Man of the Year” award for that), Sri Lanka finally defeated the Tamil Tigers organization after nearly 35 years of civil war. Is there no one to honor in that part of the world? If you insist the prize must be given to a newly elected national leader, there’s always Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. All of these people have committed decades of their lives promoting peace. Many have been imprisoned and survived) assassination attempts. I don’t see how Obama is “more outstanding” than all whom I’ve just named, although one day he might be. But he hasn’t accomplished it yet.

    Opposition to this may reflect a provincial attitude to the grand world stage.

    And there’s another interesting statement that’s best answered in the second post you wrote up above. But I have to stop for tonight.

  15. stevetv
    October 14th, 2009 at 08:58 | #15

    SOUSA-POZA :I agree with Luis: I find Steve’s position “radical”. To me, it suffices that the Nobel committee considered Obama the best candidate. Whether the prize is premature or not, who cares! If my memory doesn’t fail me, once upon a time Churchill got the Nobel prize … for literature.

    And?

    Not only is that an entirely different committee, the members are from an entirely different country.

  16. stevetv
    October 14th, 2009 at 09:14 | #16

    Second, I think Reagan should have gotten the Nobel Peace Prize for winning the cold war without a shot. If you don’t think that was a big deal, read or re-read “Red Storm Rising” by Tom Clancy. Moscow took down the wall because of Reagan and the Pope; they deserve the prize not a Russian. It’s like crediting the end of WWII to Donitz and Tojo because they surrendered.

    Even if we accept your premise as true, Reagan still illegally funded the Contras. That was the window where his Nobel Prize prospects went bye-bye.

  17. SOUSA-POZA
    October 14th, 2009 at 12:45 | #17

    “And?” And nothing, Steve. Of course it was an entirely different committe. The point is that particularly prizes in fields like peace or literature are highly subjective: Gandhi never got his Nobel Peace prize.

  18. SOUSA-POZA
    October 14th, 2009 at 13:02 | #18

    By the way, just the day before yesterday a columnist in the New York Times presented the case for Obama having declined the Nobel prize and end up smelling like a rose: very convincing. The Europeans would not get insulted: perhaps some of the members of the Nobel committe. Who cares!

    Further, one thing is bending yourself over backwards in order not to offend anybody, and another is bending yourself out of shape to please the Europeans. Perhaps Obama is “too nice”.

    Steve, you protest too much.

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