President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize Friday morning for what the committee called “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” especially his work to reach out to the Muslim world and to eliminate nuclear weapons around the globe.
The announcement, less than nine months after Obama took office, sparked immediate questions from reporters in Oslo about whether the Nobel committee was acting prematurely in rewarding a world leader who has outlined a lofty and ambitious agenda but has not yet made many concrete steps toward realizing it.
But Thorbjoern Jagland, chairman of the five-member Nobel committee, said “we have not given the prize for what may happen in the future. We are awarding Obama for what he has done in the past year. And we are hoping this may contribute a little bit for what he is trying to do.”
Well, this may be a tad controversial in some quarters.
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Yawn. It’s not like the Peace Prize had any credibility left to lose anyway.
They’ll probably award it to Roman Polanski next year.
This is an absolute sick joke.
If he keeps the prize money, will he pay the taxes on it?
Diplomacy is all about symbolism. Besides, as it has been pointed out, Obama qualifies, admittedly not in a spectacular manner. Frankly his achievement as being elected the first Black President of the USA certainly qualifies as a mission of peace and extending hands across barriers. Too bad the Right isn’t interested in reaching back, even today.
#98 “Frankly his achievement as being elected the first Black President of the USA certainly qualifies as a mission of peace and extending hands across barriers.”
What the hell does that mean?
BTW he is a mulatto unless you live in the deep south where .000000000000000001% of black ancestry make you black.
little pedro, go back and review #77 and brush up on your basic english comprehension skills. That’s a good boy. 🙂
Only crazy disturbed republicans can criticize this. I know you like torture and bullying the world.. but sadly for you, the world has moved in a different direction now.
You’re inbred right wing nutheads are so messed up. Go back in your DeLorean and live in 2004 where you belong.
US Presidents who have won the Nobel Peace Prize.
1. Theodore Roosevelt (1906)
2. Woodrow Wilson (1919)
3. Jimmy Carter Jr (2002)
4. Barack Obama (2009)
Clearly, this was God’s will.
Shame on you conservatives for ridiculing God’s wisdom. God wants to bring attention to Obama’s world leadership through the Noble Prize.
Very disturbing behavior from the right loonies who I expected to love and appreciate God.
#25 – rolbar,
Ok I may be the stupidest person on the site since I can’t spell stupidest 🙂
Ya. Nor can you give reasons for your opinions.
#42 – megapotamus,
Well, let’s see. The vast majority of the world’s climate scientists versus the opinion of megapotamus, an anonymous blogger. You’re really taxing my powers of veridical thinking here.
Hmm…..
I think I’ll go with the climate scientists, the overwhelming data, and observable facts that I can see everywhere I travel.
#71
So, you’d be OK with awarding George W the Nobel Peace Prize right? After all, every American should take pride in that regardless of party, right? Further, you would have cheered if they had given it to George W before his first year in office was done, right?
#91
““to the person who shall have done 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.”
Didn’t I read somewhere that we were planning on increasing troop levels in Afghanistan by 40,000? Wasn’t it Obama that who stated during his campaigns that we should sent more troops to Afghanistan?
Frankly, there is too much emphasis on what the UN or Europe thinks of us. The UN is a paper tiger and the Europe has its own issues. If Europe “liking us” helps terminate more terrorists, then great. However, I don’t see that result in Obama’s foreign policy.
Cheer up, wingnuts… Obama’s going to donate the prize money to charity. So no matter which charity he donates it to, you can bitterly criticize him about it. w00t!
Um, I might be getting this wrong, but are people deliberately using Obama’s middle name to try and infer he’s somehow connected to Islamic extremism?
Dang, the blog changed my zeros to letter Os.
w00t
woot
w 0 0 t
hmmm…
nope, my bad, font alert. 🙂
# 94 Phydeau ‘Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting.’
For a people(Norway) concerned about the environment they sure do pump out a lot of oil from the North Sea.
Fail.
#112 False dichotomy alert: Either you extract and use petroleum products, or you are concerned with the environment.
Logic fail. 🙂
Nobel Peace prizes are all on sale at Wal-Mart this weekend. Go get you one!
# 90 Jägermeister
One thousand pardons for my ignorance.
#108-Phydeau-Obama’s going to donate the prize money to charity.
I wouldn’t be opposed to him keeping some of it so he can personally pay for Michelle’s shopping trips instead of burdening the taxpayer.
Any bets that he donates a portion of his prize money to his presidential library fund?
# 113 Phydeau
Great, I’m glad you cleared that up. When someone asks me how I can drive my Hummer and still be concerned about the environment I’ll let them know that their argument is a false dichotomy.
I guess it could have been worse. They could have given the prize to Muammar Qaddafi – in recognition for all his good works helping the Lockerbie bomber. And, of course, for his riveting speech at the UN when he pointed out the vast conspiracy regarding the H1N1 virus.
#113 Phydeau
While I applaud your attempts to introduce some nuanced, shades of gray thinking into this discussion, I’m very much afraid that the effort is lost on many of the people here.
A good example of the genre is little pedro (at #116) who apparently has not understood what a false dichotomy is – or maybe does not want to understand. 🙂
Quite frankly, trying to discuss anything with someone who can only think in black and white terms is rather a waste of time.
*sigh*
This whole thing whole strikes me as a ham-fisted, bone-headed attempt at interference at the internal politics of the U.S.
I concede that it is well-meaning, but guys, *we get it*. Bush was a disaster. You’re all relieved that Obama is not Bush.
Please stop gushing now. It’s backfiring.
If Obama had any cojones, he’s politely decline- however, his lack of cojones is increasingly well-documented.
Dr. Dodd- IIRC, the expenses of the First Family, aside from security and housing, are not paid by taxpayers. Specifically, Michelle Obama’s shopping trips aren’t paid by taxpayers.
And, I’ll take that bet on the library fund.
So the other candidates were soo incredibly bad they choose someone with no accomplishments what so ever.
Now that I think about it they gave the same award to Yassir Arafat. So what exactly is the Nobel Peace Prize? other than worthless?
It doesn’t mean what it used too now that they hand it out to terrorists and hopefuls with no accomplishments.
I was just looking at the wikipedia page for the nobel peace prize. Looks like Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini were once nominated.
interesting…
Maybe the others were worse?
He does not have the years of devotion to this cause I thought would have been required to be so recognized.
He was shocked and some of his staff thought it was a prank. Nuff said.
Either give the thing to somebody with a track record of give it a pass for a year.
Congratulations Obama.