{"id":15963,"date":"2009-10-09T13:28:09","date_gmt":"2009-10-09T19:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=15963"},"modified":"2009-10-09T13:28:10","modified_gmt":"2009-10-09T19:28:10","slug":"peace-prize-for-a-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/10\/09\/peace-prize-for-a-president.html","title":{"rendered":"Peace Prize for a President"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Okay, let me just get it out of the way and say I think Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize is goofy.<\/p>\n

Not that I don’t like Obama. Not that I don’t think he’s done some good things so far, including on the Peace front. But … well, let’s turn to the committee itself<\/a> on why he got this:<\/p>\n

\n

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. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama\u2019s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That’s all very nice — but, my God, has the world been so terrible that behaving in a civilized fashion, encouraging dialog, and acting multilaterally for a few months is all you need to get a Nobel Peace Prize?<\/p>\n

Well, yeah, compared to the last eight years that’s practically disarmament (to hear the Neocons). To a very large extent, Obama is getting this for making it very clear that he is not George Bush or Dick Cheney — and to encourage him to continue<\/a> (emphasis mine):<\/p>\n

\n

Members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee said their choice could be seen as an early vote of confidence <\/strong>in Obama intended to build global support for his policies. They lauded the change in global mood <\/strong>wrought by Obama’s calls for peace and cooperation, and praised his pledges <\/strong>to reduce the world stock of nuclear arms, ease American conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthen the U.S. role in combating climate change.<\/p>\n

[…] Aagot Valle, a lawmaker for the Socialist Left party who joined the committee this year, said she hoped the selection would be viewed as “support and a commitment <\/strong>for Obama.”<\/p>\n

“And I hope it will be an inspiration <\/strong>for all those that work with nuclear disarmament and disarmament,” she told The Associated Press in a rare interview. Members of the Nobel peace committee usually speak only through its chairman.<\/p>\n

The peace prize was created partly to encourage <\/strong>ongoing peace efforts but Obama’s efforts are at far earlier stages than past winners’. The Nobel committee acknowledged that they may not bear fruit at all.<\/p>\n

“Some people say, and I understand it, isn’t it premature? Too early? Well, I’d say then that it could be too late to respond three years from now,” Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said. “It is now that we have the opportunity to respond <\/strong>\u2014 all of us.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Again, all very nice, but why just send him a note of appreciation — “Keep up the good work, and we’ll get back to you in a few years.” Unless there was really a dearth of candidates, this strikes me as inappropriate so early into his term, and only further dilutes the meaning and quality of the Nobel Peace Prize itself.<\/p>\n

Inappropriate but not apocalyptic, which seems to be the reaction from the Far<\/a> Right<\/a>. I mean, you have the “See, they’re all socialists and atheists over there” crowd. You have the “See, yet another piece of th Anti-Christ puzzle falls into place” crowd. The “See, they only give awards to people who hate Israel” crowd. And, of course, the crowd that says Obama hasn’t had time to do anything substantive for peace even though with the next breath they note he’s managed to “destroy everything that is Good about America” in the same limited time frame.<\/p>\n

At any rate, it’s done. The best we can hope for (thought this is no small thing) is that it will encourage Obama to continue to fight for peace, for international comity and multi-lateral resolution of crises. God knows he’s going to have plenty of opportunities in the years ahead to actually earn <\/em>that medal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okay, let me just get it out of the way and say I think Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize is goofy. Not that I don’t like Obama. Not that I don’t think he’s done some good things so far, including on the Peace front. But … well, let’s turn to the committee itself on … Continue reading “Peace Prize for a President”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-law"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":49800,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/03\/10\/a-new-clear-role-regarding-iran-and-critical-peace-talks.html","url_meta":{"origin":15963,"position":0},"title":"A new, clear role regarding Iran and critical peace talks","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 10-Mar-15 1:03pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Courtesy of the Borowitz Report.\u201cTensions between these two historic enemies have been high in recent years, but we believe they are now at a boiling point,\u201d Khamenei said. [...] He said that his nation was the \u201clogical choice\u201d to jumpstart negotiations between Obama and the Republicans because \u201cit has become\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15967,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/10\/09\/unblogged-bits-for-friday-09-october-2009.html","url_meta":{"origin":15963,"position":1},"title":"Unblogged Bits for Friday, 09 October 2009","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 9-Oct-09 6:00pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Links (most recent first) that caught my eye, but did not warrant full-blown blog entries .... Scalia, Empathy, and Crayons - Well put: what someone with no empathy, no ability to see things from other perspectives, looks like. Pawlenty: The \u2018appropriate response\u2019 to Obama winning the Nobel is to say\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Potpourri"","block_context":{"text":"Potpourri","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/potpourri"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":135893,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/02\/12\/official-obama-portraits.html","url_meta":{"origin":15963,"position":2},"title":"The Official Obama Portraits","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 12-Feb-18 7:41pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm enough of a traditionalist to not particularly care for these paintings, and the one of Michelle just doesn't look to her to my eye (though I'm happy to see t bare arms). But the Barack painting has been growing on me since I first saw it. And, honestly, it's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Obama-official-portraits.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":41912,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/02\/amazing-how-absolute-secrecy-spawns-ignorance-and-conspiracy-theories.html","url_meta":{"origin":15963,"position":3},"title":"Amazing how absolute secrecy spawns ignorance and conspiracy theories","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 2-May-14 1:28pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Who'd've thunk?Reshared post from +Alex ScrivenerUm. You know why those complaining may \"lack knowledge of what is going on in the negotiations\"? Perhaps it's because the USTR -- a part of the Obama White House -- has insisted that the entire negotiations take place in complete secrecy with no transparency\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":130154,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/03\/10\/gop-senator-admits-blocking-obama-scotus-nom-is-politics-not-principle.html","url_meta":{"origin":15963,"position":4},"title":"GOP Senator admits blocking Obama SCOTUS nom is politics, not principle","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 10-Mar-16 7:41pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Not that anyone's actually surprised, mind you, except maybe that Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) would be so blunt about it.\"Generally, and this is the way it works out politically, if you\u2019re replacing \u2014 if a conservative president\u2019s replacing a conservative justice, there\u2019s a little more accommodation to it. But when\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":135104,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/10\/20\/mississippi-school-changes-name-davis-obama.html","url_meta":{"origin":15963,"position":5},"title":"Mississippi school changes name from “Davis” to “Obama”","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 20-Oct-17 9:08am","format":false,"excerpt":"The Davis International Baccalaureate Elementary School in Jackson, Mississippi is changing, after a student body vote, from being named after Jefferson Davis to being named after Barack Obama. Generally I oppose naming things after live people, but I can't deny that the nominclature is a significant upgrade, esp. in a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Barack-Obama.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15963\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}