I know, and she should have received it instead of those East Timor guys…
[quote=“Chuanzao El Ale Destroyer”]I hate Americans for stuff like this.
[/quote]
Why?! You sold hate Norwegians for being cock suckers.
I know as a Norwegian i hate my country right now.
Sadly some politicians or there friends ended up in the Nobel comity.
Obama did not want to receive our prime minster as a visitor and don’t want to come to Norway so they force him by giving him a price.
Like earlier stated the leader of the comity is also ex prime minister and a member of the sitting government.
I don’t see how embarking on what looks to be the third term of George H. W. Bush’s foreign policy is sufficient. If the rhetorical flourishes, a speech in Cairo, a return to fairer play in Israel/Palestine, and some ego-stroking at the UN were enough… well, shit… if the bar’s that low, how magnificently incompetent did W’s minions and handlers have to be to fuck it up so badly?
Ms. Oprah is more deserving of the award than Mr. O. Black, American and the added bonus of being a lady…and yes all those schools, homes, book clubs, bra and hair interventions. So much ACCOMPLISHED!!!
Just looked at who is in the comity.
3 out of 5 is socialists and former politicians in the current government.
Handing the price to chinese Hu Jia was not going to happen.
Deficiently not now when we are negotiating some deals with the chinese and for shure not with a government that go to Bejing quite often.
What a slap in the face to Bush and company. They had 8 years… they wouldn’t win a Nobel prize if they had 800 years. And Obama gets it in 8 months! Also an illustration (if any was needed) of how far out on the reactionary fringe all the haters (here and elsewhere) are. Get a clue.
Read more at: huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/0 … 15167.html
I agree that Obama hasn’t done anything yet to justify this award. Maybe it is just a reflection of a world that is starved for peace and just relieved that the saber rattlers are not in control of the US anymore.
President Obama’s speech in Cairo was June 4th. As petrarch1603 pointed out, he was nominated for everything he did in the first two weeks of his presidency, from Jan 20th to Feb 1st 2009. Except for promising to close Guantanamo and not being President Bush, I can’t think what else he did in those two weeks that would qualify him to be nominated for this.
Everything he did in the last 8 months would qualify him for next years Nobel peace prize, not this years. Hell did you hear his response? He was skeptical as hell about it thinks that he hasn’t done enough to earn it yet!
His daughter placed the Nobel in it’s proper context; less important than their dog’s birthday.
I voted for and support Obama (not unconditionally or blindly, mind you), and even I am a bit surprised by this prize. I think it is too early. But perhaps it is a reflection of how far down the wrong path the U.S. is perceived to have traveled, and how desperately relieved parts of the world are to see Obama bringing it back from the brink of the moral abyss.
I always find this guy a good read, even while disagreeing with him.
This, I think, is on the money. And my first reaction was exactly the same.
[quote=“Thomas Barnett”]
I will tell you flat out, I thought it was an Onion-like scam when I saw the WAPO breaking news email in my Mac account. I honestly looked the page over for the “tell” that said, this is one glorious joke. I mean, this is just after SNL’s devastating takedown Saturday night (which I caught live).
[…]
Yes, he changes our foreign policy tone, and that matters a whole helluva lot.
[…]
None of that adds up to serious achievement.
So why the award?
I wrote Great Powers because I came to the conclusion that Americans had no sense of how much we had scared the world the previous seven years and little understanding of how America was the one country in the world that could kill globalization–its greatest gift to date to the planet. The fear in America was one thing (e.g., our sense that we went off course in foreign policy, were unsustainable in our economics, and were feared more than respected[…]
Obama simply comes off as highly realistic and pragmatic about where the world is, in its current evolution, which is momentous. He represents an America that will do nothing dangerous at a point in history in which we represent, quite franky (and I said this in Great Powers), the one country capable of really screwing things up.
So, in many ways, the award is a measure of fear in the system. It is simply a signal.
[…]
I voted for the guy because I wanted careful. Will I always be happy with just careful? God, no. And I’m already expressing my frustration in that regard. But careful sure beats strategically self-destructive, and apparently Oslo wants the world to know that right now.
[/quote]
I think the prize should have gone to Micheal Jackson. If he hadn’t died on cue like that the world would have had to face up to the fact that the Iranian population isn’t an amorphous fanatical mass but instead contains progressive elements brave enough to stand up to Islamic law.
Also, Obama just agreed to quit pressrring Isreal on expansion in the West Bank. That should do a lot for world peace. Way to go Obama!
Haven’t people woken up to this charlatan yet?
A Nobel Peace prize was given to war criminal Kissinger (who helped East Timor lose a third of its population).
Days into Obama’s administration, Obama was dropping bombs on weddings in Pakistan.
Peace indeed.
A troubling thought occurred to me while asking myself, “Why now?”
Sure, the selection committee wants to recognize and encourage America’s reorientation and reengagement, but why now?
Well, they may not be able to do so in a couple of years: it’s crazy season, and the Nobel prizes are never awarded posthumously.
What a farce. I do like Obama, don’t get me wrong. But I have to add my voice to those who are questioning his winning the Nobel Peace Prize.
It’s actually somewhat embarrassing considering he hasn’t even done anything yet!
Me likes him too. He Accepted!! I thought he was more humble than that. Wouldn’t it have won so many more fans, if he had refused to accept it and say sth like, ‘give it to me when I deserve it’ kind of thing.
Well he doesn’t deserve it, he knows it but the the temptation of being a Nobel Prize winner is too hard to resist.
Ridiculous- he hasn’t done anything yet.
US Presidents more worthy:
Nixon: detente, opening to China- even though it was just to piss off the Russians, it was a big step. OTOH, he did stretch the Vietnam War out for a few years…
Reagan: no, not for the collapse of the Soviet Union- he didn’t have much to do with that- but for reaching out to Gorby in the face of right-wingers like Newt Gingrich and Cheney screaming “Munich! Appeasement!”
Love Michelle Malkin’s comment-
“Where’s Kanye West when you really need him?”
Just about the “He was nominated in January” thing:
[quote]Much has been made today of the fact that the nomination deadline for the Nobel Peace Prize is Feb. 1 – just 12 days after President Obama took office.
But the winner isn’t selected until much later, usually around mid-September. The Norwegian Nobel Committee, made up of five members appointed by the Norwegian Parliament, makes the decision. Here’s the process, according to the committee’s web site:
Nominators – including members of governments, university professors, past Nobel laureates and members of the International Court of Justice – must make their picks to the committee by Feb. 1. The committee usually receives between 150 and 200 nominations for the Peace Prize, but this year they received a record 205 nominations.
The committee then holds its first meeting,when members can add their own nominees to the list. They then narrow the list down to between five and 20 candidates.
Those candidates are then reviewed by the Nobel Institute’s director, research director and a team of advisers, usually university professors. Those advisers draw up reports on each candidate, a process that takes a few months, and present those reports to the committee.
And then the committee “embarks on a thorough-going discussion of the most likely candidates.” They sometimes request more information, especially when, like Obama, candidates are involved in current affairs. The committee usually makes its decision by mid-September, but has been known to take until the final meeting in early October.
The decisions are almost always unanimous. But when committee members can’t get a consensus, they use a simple majority vote to determine the winner.
So while Obama was indeed nominated less than two weeks after becoming President, the decision was made several months later. We won’t know who nominated him, however, unless that person (or people – thousands of nominators have been known to gather behind one candidate) comes forward. The committee keeps details of nominations secret for 50 years.[/quote]
tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.co … ?ref=fpblg
AS well, the standards for being a nominator are really low:
"Qualified Nominators
The right to submit proposals for the Nobel Peace Prize shall, by statute, be enjoyed by:
- Members of national assemblies and governments of states;
- Members of international courts;
- University rectors; professors of social sciences, history, philosophy, law and theology; directors of peace research institutes and foreign policy institutes;
- Persons who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize;
- Board members of organizations who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize;
- Active and former members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee; (proposals by members of the Committee to be submitted no later than at the first meeting of the Committee after February 1) and
- Former advisers appointed by the Norwegian Nobel Institute.
The Nobel Peace Prize may also be awarded to institutions and associations."
So basically any whack-job Representative /MP or cloud-cuckoo-land professor can nominate anyone.
why was he even a candidate in February?