Why Did Obama Get the Peace Prize?

The news broke this morning that Barack Obama is the latest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. While there isn't really a single definitive reason that can be easily discerned, there has certainly been a large reaction. After all, he is leading a nation fighting two wars. The kicker to this story is that Obama said he was "surprised" to learn that he was named as the winner, joked about his dog's birthday being equally as important to the family, said he did not view the decision as a compliment to his accomplishments. (Full speech text here.)


Said Obama:

I am both surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the Nobel Committee.  Let me be clear:  I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations. 

In an email to his supporters, Obama remarked that he did not fit with past winners of the prize. He wrote:

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 -- men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.

So the President summed up the story well - this year's Peace Prize had to be awarded to someone - and ideally an American, apparently - so why not award it to him? After all, to his credit, he did win a hotly contested election (and didn't hesitate to gloat about it to congress) -- and is now spending government money at an unprecedented rate, and making new promises as fast as he can break his old ones (Afghanistan anyone?). 


On a somewhat-unrelated note, this week, the news also came out that Obama handed out white lab coats to a crowd of doctors who were all invited to hear him speak on healthcare reform, so that they would be sure to look their part toward the media's cameras. While it may be 'peaceful' to hand out gifts at a costume party among political allies, there is little laughable about Washington's lousy record since the election last year. (But maybe there is: Saturday Night Live could have been right when they named off Obama's only accomplishments after 9+ months in office, such as swatting a fly on TV, stimulating the Japanese economy via the Cash for Clunkers program, and so forth.)


Whatever the reasons are, Newsweek's bloggers (NewsBusters' deciphering of the latter link is here) seem a bit contradictory and hypocritical. This from MSNBC seems to be fairly balanced.


A rush of responses have come from Twitter, as well. (List.) (If you know me, I dislike the overblown Twitter phenomenon quite a bit. Don't get me wrong, I follow a few tweeters by RSS, and I confess, it does have its uses -- reactions to breaking news can be quite intriguing.) My personal favorite from the above list comes from comic Mike Drucker, who said: "Obama winning a Nobel Peace Prize for his progress as president is an inspiration to all of us who slept in today."


Internationally, the story is slightly annoying to some and the boiling point for others. Interestingly, The Washington Post filed one article about the international response under National Security.


No such news story would be complete, of course, without the far side of one wing criticizing a member of the other, only to have its contempt blown out of proportion and thrown back. (You guessed it: Rush Limbaugh, having questioned Obama's qualifications yet again, has been once again called a tirade of pitiful names by the left, including the classic "un-American." When will these toddlers in the political sandbox learn to get along?)


The President will donate to charity the $1.4 million that the Peace Prize carries as a side effect. Obama is certainly not the first strange pick for the Nobel Peace Prize in recent years. Al Gore got it for advocating radical change against the global warming myth. (And he approves Obama's picking, of course.) A question worth asking is whether Obama would like another medal, or (politically speaking) a chest to pin it on. How many more awards will Obama get for doing nothing in particular?

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Obama -- The Presidential Lobbyist

This may not surprise you, but President Obama has recently done something no president has ever done, or may never again do, for that matter. (He promised Change, didn't he?) With this act Obama has officially lowered himself to the status of (un)Presidential Apologizer in Chief. As long as he has been in office he has been running around the world, kowtowing to foreign leaders, and expecting them to kowtow back. They haven't. Obama's over-friendliness has not helped one bit; in fact, all the favors he has asked have been refused. So, you might ask, what did he do? Our president made a trip to Copenhagen to voice his support for the 2012 Summer Olympics being held in his home city of Chicago. That's right, lobby. Presidents don't do that, lobbyists do that! And not only did he and the first lady fly via Air Force One at the approximate cost of $68,000 per hour, but they each gave a short speech and jumped on the plane for the ride back, and that's exactly when they heard that Mr. Pres had failed once again in his quest for kowtows, which puts the official Kowtow Count at precisely 0. The Olympics officials were evidently unimpressed by the Obamas' self-centered speeches, in which Mrs. Obama mentioned herself 36 times in 16 paragraphs and Mr. Obama mentioned himself 23 times in 13 paragraphs, as described eloquently in this George Will clip:



Obama is no doubt discouraged, but maybe, just maybe, this latest defeat may hold him to more "presidential" pursuits.

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