This is certainly reasonable, but I'm not sure if it's historically correct that the prize has not previously been used with a view to influencing current events.

From Andrew Sullivan:

A list of world reaction to the announcement.

Anyone have CNN? Is he on now?

finished

Just seemed like thats what you thought. My bad if that isn't how you feel.

But Obama never made any specific campaign promises NOT to do those things.

And therefore they were excluded from consideration by Nobel Committee.

he's doing alot more for world peace than isolationalist "libertarian" types ie ron paul

And I am doing more than X, therefore I should win it.

All I'm doing is trying to explain the motivation of the committee, not justify it. Personally, I think the award was premature.

Consider this article by Robert Naiman:

So, he may be right that the prize has been used on other occasions to effect change, rather than to reward for change accomplished. But while I cannot recall what was happening in 1984, the analogy to Desmond Tutu seems pretty silly. I'm pretty sure that, by 1984, Tutu had already spent years fighting apartheid, at great personal risk.

tons of them.

you win the thread

O RLY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr9ywEFRQkQ

it's a joke. The award has now lost all credibility

the fact that the nominations were due before he took office makes it that much more of a joke

By increasing military spending, and increasing troop levels in Afghanistan?

Ron Paul, the man who wants to pull out of our major conflicts and basically end the US rule of the world?

Where did you come up with your views on Ron Paul? You appear to have no idea what he or libertarianism is about if you think he is doing less to promote peace than the leader of the world empire...lol.

That they felt they had to rush to give him the award this year suggests that they are concerned that it would not fly next year or future years once the reality of who the real Obama is sinks in.

You mean after spending his whole life working to benefit the poor and downtrodden, graduating with honors, etc etc......

Ty

When I heard, my first reaction was to laugh. It wasn't entirely out of happiness.

Afghanistan is a just war and most right thinking people recognize this. I recognize that this doesn't include the majority of Americans.

Also, for those who don't know, the award of any Nobel Prize includes a $1-2 million cash award.

Wynton - thanks for posting these links to what are, for the politics forum, unpopular views. It stimulates useful discussion.

Having said that, I have serious problems with the analysis above. Here's the issue.

The reason that the country's reputation plummeted in the last administration is because it damned well deserved to based on the actions that the US government took under that administration. Even if the country's rep has mysteriously risen because of Obama's silky voice and calm demeanor, it damned well doesn't deserve to have risen because the actions are fundamentally the same (on-going occupation of two countries, detaining people without trial because they're terrorists, etc). This doesn't address the fact that people are wrong to give him credit for changing things, it just observes that some people are giving him credit so why not a Nobel prize too? And I think that's stupid.

I am mystified by people who talk about what a joke the Nobel Peace Prize is and yet seem to have their hackles up so strongly over a prize they perceive to be a joke. The only way this makes any sense is if you think that once upon a time the prize wasn't a joke and now an august institution is being ruined. But I don't see anybody making arguments here as to how it has changed with time.

Looking back on the list of inductees and the stated goals of the award I don't see a lot that most complainers in this thread are going to like. They don't seem very likely to approve the high UN functionaries given the prize basically for being high UN functionaries, which has been going on periodically since the 40s. And many of the prizes that people in this forum will say they look favorably upon (Borlaug, MLK and other internal civil rights types) have little to do with "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." On the stated criteria of the prize Obama probably is already ahead of a lot of those people even without having done anything other than replace Bush!

Obama certainly has made more diplomatic contact with international actors that the Bush administration spurned (Venezuela, Spain (lol), perhaps Iran.) That's a good start. The early rhetoric suggested more change on the detention front than has happened - this, for me, is the big disappointment of the administration thus far.

This prize certainly wipes away all the rumours and accusations of corruption of Chicago politicians.

Chicago is clean now. Clean and pure.

You're giving this forum a lot of credit. We already have a thread where the contributions of Borlaug are called into question and his character generally impugned. And some in this forum IIRC genuinely think MLK is world-class philanderer who beat up his paramours and seduced underage girls and boys. You can search the RP newsletter threads if you doubt this.

Just the other day I posted that the Dalai Lama is a feudal warlord.

I doubt there's any one Nobel winner who would get universal approval from this forum. If there's one thing I've learned reading this forum for 5 years, it's that everyone is evil and terrible.

Glenn Beck via twitter-
"Nobel Prize committee awards its 1st 'participation' trophy. gd job Prez Obama 4 participating! Who's so cute? Yooouuuu R."