Left Speechless!

Barack Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize...to the gasps of those present at the announcement, gasps now echoing around the world. "For What?" asks the Drudge Report...a comment also echoing around the world.


Comments The London Times: "Absurd decision...makes a mockery of the Nobel Peace Prize": "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."

Even The Washington Post registered puzzlement: "Obama is the third sitting U.S. president--and the first in 90 years--to win the coveted peace prize. His predecessors won during their second White House terms, however, and after significant diplomatic achievements. Woodrow Wilson was awarded the price in 1919, after helping to found the League of Nations and shaping the Treaty of Versailles; and Theodore Roosevelt was the recipient in 1906 for his work to negotiate an end to the Russo-Japanese war.

"In contrast, Obama is struggling with two wars -- weighing whether to increase the number of U.S. troops fighting to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan and overseeing the withdrawal of American combat troops from Iraq. He is mired in domestic struggles over healthcare reform and economic recovery efforts, and searching for ways to build momentum to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and to assemble an international effort to stop Iran's nuclear program." 


(You can vote in the Post's poll on the subject here.)


Within this country reaction will probably turn on ideological lines, with those of us who support a strong foreign policy wondering if "peace maker" will translate to "appeaser," i.e. to a continual erosion of US support for allies in Central Europe and Israel and a weakening of our commitment to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Pakistan along with placid acceptance of the spread of nuclear weapons to rogue states such as Iran. Will this prize further heighten Obama's savior conceit or honestly "humble" him to see the world as the world is rather than he wishes it to be?