What’s Scandinavia got against President Obama? First it dissed his Olympic bid; now it’s stuck him with a Nobel Peace Prize. How do you say “Thanks, but no thanks” in Norwegian?
Once the prize was taken seriously. But then it started going to folks like Palestinian terror-master Yasser Arafat and Mohammed “Asleep at the Nuclear-Watchdog Switch” ElBaradei.
Sure, the committee thought to “honor” an American — instead of, oh, Iranian nutjob Mahmoud Ahmandinejad. It’s progress, we suppose — even if it was meant as yet another slap at George W. Bush.
But does a sitting US president really want to be a member of such a club?
Anyway, Obama’s been in office for fewer days than a baby spends in the womb. He hasn’t had time to earn the award — a fact he basically admitted himself yesterday.
“I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments,” he said. “To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize.”
Never mind winners; look who hasn’t won: Ronald Reagan ended a decades-long Cold War. Even Bill Clinton helped negotiate peace in Northern Ireland. They got bupkis from the committee.
Ironically, Obama’s brief record contains only examples where he’s arguably lowered chances for peace — such as his calls for scrapping nukes that have preserved peace for decades.
And he’s undermined folks who’ve risked life and limb to bring peace and freedom to their countries — voters in Iran and Honduras, dissidents in Cuba and Burma, allies in Eastern Europe . . .
No doubt, the Nobel folks admire Obama’s multilateralism and his elevation of world government — through, say, the UN — over US independence, notwithstanding America’s superpower status (and moral standing, relative to others).
But the Ig-Nobels have been down this path. The last sitting US president to receive their award was Woodrow Wilson — who also pushed internationalism, through the League of Nations. About a decade later, the League failed; World War II, the Holocaust and a nuclear Cold War followed soon after.
The committee clearly hasn’t learned from history. Let’s hope the honoree has.