President Obama has not yet been in office for a year. So far he has shown himself to be a weak president. Weak and ineffectual. What has he accomplished so far? Nothing discernible. Obama is a talker; he’s a bloviator. He talks a great deal and achieves little. Common sense tells any normal person that he does not deserve this prize; not yet, at least. The Nobel Peace Prize should be awarded for achieving peace in the world. Having the intentions of achieving peace isn’t, or shouldn’t be, enough. Hence, by awarding this greenhorn the Nobel Peace Prize, the committee has destroyed its integrity at a stroke. The award has been devalued. Furthermore, the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama at this stage lays bare the politics behind such awards. Merit and achievement have little or nothing to do with them. – © Mark
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, citing his outreach to the Muslim world and attempts to curb nuclear proliferation.
The stunning choice made President Obama the third sitting U.S. president to win the Nobel Peace Prize and shocked Nobel observers because Obama took office less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline. President Obama's name had been mentioned in speculation before the award but many Nobel watchers believed it was too early to award the president.
"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said. "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."
The committee said it attached special importance to President Obama's vision of, and work for, a world without nuclear weapons.
"Obama has as president created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play," the committee said.
Theodore Roosevelt won the award in 1906 and Woodrow Wilson won in 1919. Former President Jimmy Carter won the award in 2002, while former Vice President Al Gore shared the 2007 prize with the U.N. panel on climate change. >>> Associated Press | Friday, October 09, 2009
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: This is completely bizarre. President Barack Obama has just won the nobel peace prize. It is unclear why. For making peace, of a kind, with Hillary Clinton? For giving up the missile shield and cheering up the Iranians? For preparing a surge of troops and weaponry in Afghanistan? >>> Iain Martin | Friday, October 09, 2009
THE TELEGRAPH: Nobel prize for President Obama is a shocker. He should turn it down. >>> Benedict Brogan | Friday, October 09, 2009
THE GUARDIAN: Barack Obama's Nobel prize: why now? : Giving Barack Obama the Nobel peace prize so early in his presidency could hinder rather than help his diplomatic efforts >>> Peter Beaumont | Friday, October 09, 2009
AFP: KABUL — The Taliban Friday condemned Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, saying rather than bring peace to Afghanistan he had boosted troop numbers and continued the aggressive policies of his predecessor.
"We have seen no change in his strategy for peace. He has done nothing for peace in Afghanistan," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told AFP.
"We condemn the award of the Nobel Peace Prize for Obama," he said by telephone from an undisclosed location.
"When Obama was elected president, we were hopeful he would keep his promise to bring change. But he brought no change, he has continued the same old strategy as (President George W.) Bush. Taliban condemns Obama's Nobel Peace Prize >>> Waheedullah Massoud (AFP) | Friday, October 09, 2009
TIME: The last thing Barack Obama needed at this moment in his presidency and our politics is a prize for a promise.
Inspirational words have brought him a long way — including to the night in Grant Park less than a year ago when he asked that we "join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it's been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years — block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand."
By now there are surely more callouses on his lips than his hands. He, like every new president, has reckoned with both the power and the danger of words, dangers that are especially great for one who wields them as skillfully as he. A promise beautifully made raises hopes especially high: we will revive the economy while we rein in our spending; we will make health care simpler, safer, cheaper, fairer. We will rid the earth of its most lethal weapons. We will turn green and clean. We will all just get along.
So when reality bites, it chomps down hard. The Nobel committee cited "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." His critics fault some of those efforts: those who favor a missile shield for Poland or a troop surge in Afghanistan or a harder line on Iran. But even his fans know that none of the dreams have yet come true, and a prize for even dreaming them can feed the illusion that they have. Obama's Nobel Peace Prize: The Last Thing He Needs >>> Nancy Gibbs | Friday, October 09, 2009
LE FIGARO: ANALYSE VIDEO - Selon Philippe Gélie, chef du service international du Figaro, le jury du Nobel n'a peut-être pas fait un cadeau à Obama en lui attribuant ce prix à la surprise générale.
Pour Philippe Gélie, chef du service international du Figaro, Barack Obama n'a pas encore d'énormes succès diplomatiques à son crédit, «c'est sans précédent je crois qu'un chef de l'Etat soit primé aussi tôt dans son mandat».
Il souligne également que ce prix pourra être lourd à porter pour un président dont le monde attend déjà énormément : «Est-ce qu'il a besoin, dix mois après le début de son mandat, d'être aussi prix Nobel de la paix?»
[Source : Le Figaro]
TIMES ONLINE: The award of this year’s Nobel peace prize to President Obama will be met with widespread incredulity, consternation in many capitals and probably deep embarrassment by the President himself.
Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent. It was clearly seen by the Norwegian Nobel committee as a way of expressing European gratitude for an end to the Bush Administration, approval for the election of America’s first black president and hope that Washington will honour its promise to re-engage with the world.
Instead, the prize risks looking preposterous in its claims, patronising in its intentions and demeaning in its attempt to build up a man who has barely begun his period in office, let alone achieved any tangible outcome for peace.
The pretext for the prize was Mr Obama’s decision to “strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples”. Many people will point out that, while the President has indeed promised to “reset” relations with Russia and offer a fresh start to relations with the Muslim world, there is little so far to show for his fine words.
East-West relations are little better than they were six months ago, and any change is probably due largely to the global economic downturn; and America’s vaunted determination to re-engage with the Muslim world has failed to make any concrete progress towards ending the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
There is a further irony in offering a peace prize to a president whose principal preoccupation at the moment is when and how to expand the war in Afghanistan.
The spectacle of Mr Obama mounting the podium in Oslo to accept a prize that once went to Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi and Mother Theresa would be all the more absurd if it follows a White House decision to send up to 40,000 more US troops to Afghanistan. However just such a war may be deemed in Western eyes, Muslims would not be the only group to complain that peace is hardly compatible with an escalation in hostilities. Comment: absurd decision on Obama makes a mockery of the Nobel peace prize >>> Michael Binyon | Friday, October 09, 2009
Open for comments.
2 comments:
The fact that the 2009 Peace Prize has gone to Mr Obama is prima facia evidence that the Nobel Committee has taken loss of its senses, to say nothing of its sound judgement. The record clearly shows that the man has accomplished virtually nothing; to be certain, he has done a lot of talk about hope and lots and lots of bloviating about "We Can" -- we are still not clear what we can do. So far -- and as an American and I hope this changes -- Mr Obama has talked and talked and talked and waved his finger like a scolding parent. What does America and the world have to show for all of his antics? Zero! Nothing! No results -- only excuses.... With one stroke, the prestige and integrity of the Nobel Peace Prize have gone right down the drain into the cesspool of leftist politics. Just another stroke for political correctness and the resulting reemerging of a new dark age about which you so eloquently speak in your blog. It is precisely incompetent, naive and stupid actions such as this one, which will destroy western civilization and take the world back to seventh-century barbarism.
Thank you for your comment. This award to BHO is a joke. The NPP is well on its way to worthlessness.
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