This whole prize will actually be seen as absurd by a lot of people — here and abroad. Even by people who would someday like Barack Obama to win it. It is just too obvious this is way too soon and way too precatory. It may even have the effect of diminishing the currency of the award.
I cannot say that I'm too worried about the Nobel prize committee's decision which is both a surprise and utterly unsurprising - but I do wonder if it's appropriate to announce it on the day that America is attacking the Moon.
Source...Um, Guys, Couldn't You Wait For a Bit? I'm all for Americans winning international prizes, and especially the Nobel Peace Prize. I was also quite confident that Obama would win one as president, but I certainly didn't think he would win one so soon, with what Bloomberg
calls "no concrete achievement to his credit." Similarly,
Reuters describes Obama as "a president less than nine months into his first term, who has yet to score a major foreign policy success," adding that the award "came as a big surprise . . . "
One of the good things about the Nobel, especially in science and literature, but also the Peace Prize, is that they are about achievement, not promise. Even when the awards have been extremely problematic — recall Yasser Arafat — the recipients have done something, for good or for ill. This is especially true for American presidents, as John Miller pointed out in a good post earlier. Handing Obama the prize this early strikes me as a cheapening of the award. If I were Obama, I'd want to win such a prize in my fourth year (or preferably in a second term), rather than in my first.
Source...The Company He KeepsThere are some worthy recipients — Lech Walesa, Shirin Ebadi, Mohammed Yunus. But most Nobel Peace Peace prizes go to conventional leftwing types popular with European elites — Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, Mikhail Gorbachev. Before they break out the champagne at the White House, they may want to pause over the fact that Obama now shares this honor with Mohammed el-Baradei, Yasser Arafat, and flagrant liar Rigoberta Menchu Tum.
Source...Miracle WorkerThe
deadline for nominations for this year's Nobel Peace Prize was February 1. So that means that Obama's award was based on what he had accomplished through about the first ten days of his presidency.
Source..Prediction Bibi Netanyahu will never be given a Nobel prize.
Source....
