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Nobel Prize: Weight Around Obama’s Neck?

Posted by SWARAAJ CHAUHAN, International Columnist in Arts & Entertainment, Economy, International, Media, Miscellaneous, Places, Politics, Science & Technology, Society, War.
Oct 10th, 2009 | Comments

US president Barack Obama’s predicament (on hearing about Nobel Peace Prize) seems similar to that of a dashing man who comes face-to-face with a fawning socialite in public who gushes: “Darling I love you from the bottom of my heart.” The media is having a field day revelling in this hot/sexy topic that has landed in their lap.

This element of surprise (after the award’s announcement) has happened before…when the media/public was not sure whether to congratulate the winner, or had wondered how to react. Nobel Peace Prize was earlier awarded to Henry Kissinger and Yasser Arafat. Funnily, Mahatma Gandhi, described as the “real apostle of peace and non-violence”, never got this award.

Some recent Obama news excerpts: (Slate): “The award has essentially been given for the president’s speech-making ability, which means his political handlers made the right call by sending him to Berlin during last year’s election… To a wordsmith who came to office promising to embrace the globe…

“…Pundits win because the Nobel committee has validated the idea that speeches and atmospherics are really important…” See here…

” (Huffington Post) Obviously, the award is based on the hope that Obama will achieve real progress in advancing diplomacy rather than confrontation around the globe. To some degree, he already has. American relations with Europe are vastly improved. He is focusing on global warming. Negotiations are underway with Iran.

“So are nuclear arms reductions talks with Russia. Leading conservatives such as George Shultz are calling for immediately ending sanctions on Cuba and restoring relations with it, as was emphasized at a New American Foundation event on the presidential Sequoia yacht hosted by Steve Clemons in Washington, D.C. last night. In short, the moment is ripe for real change. So Obama needs to do more.” Read more here…

” (Times of India) Peace Nobel has a history of sparking controversies…The Nobel peace going to Barack Obama has got tongues wagging about whether a debutante leader should be put on par with global political heavyweights. But this isn’t the first time the prize has caused controversy. Here are a few:

“Theodore Roosevelt (1905): Became the first politician to win the prize for his mediation in the Russo-Japanese war. However, he was well known for his bellicose posture. In the 1898 Spanish American war he led a US regiment in Cuba
and in later years used military to establish US supremacy in the Caribbean.

“Woodrow Wilson (1919): The Peace Prize was awarded to the US president for his crucial role in establishing the League of Nations. The league however was part of the Treaty of Versailles which later laid the seeds of Nazism…

“…Henry Kissinger (1973): US national security adviser and secretary of state Kissinger was awarded the prize with North Vietnamese leader Le Duc Tho for a 1973 agreement to bring ceasefire and withdrawal of US forces. Two of the prize committee members quit, Tho declined the Nobel and Kissinger did not come to Oslo to receive it…”

More here…

” (India Syndicate) On Friday, US President Barack Obama was selected as the winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for striving to get the world rid of nuclear weapons and this has set public social networks, especially Twitter, on fire…” See here…

The Los Angeles Times article gives an interesting peep into the predicament of poor Barack Obama…

” (LA Times) The gold medallion given to recipients of the Nobel Prize doesn’t come with a ribbon, but the award could still end up being a weight around President Obama’s neck.

“Intended to honor Obama for altering the nation’s diplomatic direction, the award is likely to call attention to how much of the administration’s agenda — including closing Guantanamo Bay and winding down the war in Iraq — remains undone, and to the problematic nature of the American presence in Afghanistan…” More here…

” (AFP) China’s dissidents are voicing unease about President Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, saying that the award could have been effective in promoting human rights in their country.

“Some in China’s democracy movement are outraged at what they see as a weak stance on rights by Obama, who the same week as Friday’s announcement avoided a meeting with Tibet’s exiled Dalai Lama that would have upset Beijing.

“Chinese activists had been tipped as Nobel contenders on this year of anniversaries, when China marked 60 years of communist rule, 50 years since the Dalai Lama’s flight and 20 years since the crushing of the Tiananmen Square democracy uprising.

“Potential laureates included Hu Jia, locked up since December 2007 after exposing government abuses and the plight of China’s AIDS sufferers, and Wei Jingsheng, a onetime electrician who spent 18 years in prison after brazenly challenging former leader Deng Xiaoping to bring democracy…” See here…

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NOOn

There's already a lot of commentary about it on the web, but basically, he has done very little to advance peace in the world. He has been given the prize, I think, because the Nobel committee is very liberal, and this is there way of saying they approve of our election, and that they are counting on him to advance peace. Maybe they think this will push him to withdraw from Afghanistan. I don't know. I generally stopped paying attention to who had a Nobel Peace Prize when Gore got one.

mlhradio

A very interesting point - with very few exceptions, the frothy-mouthed idiots that are deriding and decrying Obama's Nobel prize are the republican commentators and noisemakers -- (http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/10/are-...) -- NOT the republican elected officials.

I noticed the same was true with the Olympics nonsense - the republicans expressing hatred of America and glee over America's failure were almost entirely the republican talk show hosts and bloggers - the silence from the elected officials (with the exception of Cantor) was almost deafening.

Looks to me like there is a definite and growing disconnect between the talk show screechers and "hate-triots" (new word I learned last week!) and the republicans in office - and I'm relieved to see that the elected republicans at least have a minimal sense of self-preservation not to put their lot in with the anti-America crowd.

DLS

Yes. As I wrote, it is an albatross. This is an embarrassment, even puzzling or confusing, or even angering leftists in this country, given that it was a vacuous "anti-Bush" flimsy PC political statement (which is what the Nobel Peace Prize has long been, a play-pen leftist political expression) that was awarded to someone not for anything he has done or accomplished, but merely because he gave the Committee the satisfaction that it was possible, or likely, something vaguely to happen sometime vaguely in the future.

At best, it was mis-awarded, and should have been awarded to the US electorate for electing a black American to the office. That's about the most substantial claim that could be associated with this award.

DLS

"frothy-mouthed idiots that are deriding and decrying"

CORRECTION: They are stooping to all kinds of depths to defend or otherwise try (and fail) to rationalize this award, as well as exploiting this event to politicize it as much as, or more so, than the Nobel Committee itself, while being predictably rabid and stupid toward anything right of somewher left of center.

(This, while even some more-intelligent leftists are as confused or embarrassed, or even angry about this bogus award, as the mainstream is, angry when they identify actual, more deserving candidates this year, like the Chinese dissidents, for example, who were slighted in order to see another low-IQ superficial play-pen "anti-Bush" feeble-minded political statement being made. Either that, or the Nobel Committee was simply among the most trivial among the Idol Obama personality-cult crowd, which doesn't recover any credit for them, either.)

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