"...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..."
I am in total awe of the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Storting.
What I really want to know, is who took the phone call at the White House this morning?
Also, just how long does it take them to get a press release out on whitehouse.gov?
The simplest comment is that this is an elaborate experiment in mass cognitive dissonance of conservative politicians and pundits in DC
they think Rahm Emmanuel needs a true test of his ability to "manage expectations"
Norwegian's actually do have a sense of humour, something only Icelanders and Swedes had hitherto suspected
it is exactly as they say: the Nobel Peace Prize is for Effort.
The Prize is for the person who, in the preceding year, worked on fraternity amongst nations, reduction of standing armies and promotion of Peace Congresses.
This Obama has done, and the Prize, as they say, is to encourage him to stick with it.
Cool.
In my more paranoid moments, I wonder what the Norwegians know that we don't.
Like, maybe sometime earlier this year, maybe someone firmly quashed a secret request by an ally for passive or active support for a unilateral and surprise act of war against a regional power...
or not.
Israel was fast and early in congratulating Obama. The Iranians have so far been notably cool about it.
el-Baradei's reaction is also interesting, very strongly positive, as opposed to politely non-committal "good luck with that" from other recent recipients.
And there was the Curious Incident of the Iranian Processing Facility Announcement at the G-20 Meeting...
I wonder if Obama ever read early Spiderman comics, or watched the first movie?
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If they had given John Kennedy a Nobel Peace Prize in October, 1961 it might have deterred him from sending military advisors to Vietnam and prevented a great tragedy.
That's the only plausible explanation I can think of for giving the prize to Obama.
Other than the obvious fact that the committee members despise Bush and are awarding the prize to make a political statement showing their contempt for him.
We won't actually have all our troops out of Iraq for years, if not a decade. Obama still is considering sending more troops to A-stan without a clear vision.
If he gets the Peace Price, then should Goldman Sachs his campaign financier, or Larry Summers, architect of Democratic Party neoliberalism, or Tim Geithner, presiding officer of the financial meltdown, get the economics prize?
The Nobel committee is simply rewarding the American People for not doing what we usually do, which is to put a dangerous yahoo in the white house. Americans who nay-say this award need to step back and take notice of what is going on planet-wide. And, we should as a whole be more gracious about or president winning this award.
Affirmative action goes global...
They are giving Obama the Peace Prize for ending the cold war between the U.S. and Europe.
In eight months, Obama's dropped a useless and expensive missile shield and thus secured Russian cooperation for pushing for nuclear disarmament: http://firedoglake.com/2009/10/10/come-saturday-morning-credit-where-it…