What’s Wrong with the World

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What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

In other news, Edward Feser has been awarded the Dawkins Prize…

OK, I’ve finally stopped laughing. I see two good things coming out of this:

1. We now have an absolutely infallible test for determining whether Obamolatry has yet completely rotted out a given individual’s mind: Either you’re sane and still have a shred of intellectual honesty, or you think Obama merits the Nobel Peace Prize. Apply to your liberal friends, sit back, and enjoy.

2. This farce will only solidify in the electorate’s mind the truth of what was blindingly obvious before the election and has become Metaphysically Certain since: Obama is an empty suit with no substantive achievements to speak of, who owes whatever standing he has entirely to the ridiculous fantasies that have been projected onto him by his sycophants.

Said sycophants will, of course, be utterly unmoved whatever their idol does or fails to do. But with the swing voters whose opinion actually makes the difference in elections, this will only hurt Obama. When buyer’s remorse has been setting in already, the last thing you want to do is double down on the salesman’s BS. And there ain’t enough cash left in the Treasury for this clunker.

So, thank you Nobel Committee! Next year, why not go ahead and award one to yourselves? Couldn’t make you look any worse…

Comments (36)

Even the entire world had a laugh at this!

Just a few excerpts found from various articles posted:

World cheers, puzzles over Obama’s Nobel: From Britain to Afghanistan to China, congratulations come in — but seem to be overwhelmed by confusion about why the U.S. president won this prize.

AFGHANS ‘CONFUSED’ BY OBAMA’S WIN
By Adrienne Mong, NBC News Producer

KABUL, Afghanistan – News that President Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize came as a surprise to people we spoke to in Kabul…

But when we asked whether he thought the U.S. president deserved the prize, he replied, “He just became the president. Things are just the same as the way they were by the administration of Mr. [George W.] Bush. Things are not better, things are worse and worse.”

PALESTINIANS AND ISRAELIS: PRIZE ‘FOR WHAT?’
By Lawahez Jabari, NBC News Producer

Still, both Israeli and Palestinian officials welcomed the news and offered congratulations.

But, in the street, the reaction was much different. The news that Obama won the peace prize was met with surprise. It was a shock for both sides and the major question is: “For what?”

CHINESE NETIZENS ASK: ‘IS TODAY APRIL FOOL’S DAY?’
By Bo Gu, NBC News Producer

Very few people applauded the president’s honor on the comment thread. After any comments that say something like, “I think Obama deserves the prize,” the comment was immediately followed by angry replies. Comments like, “Yeah the whole country and Iraq and Afghanistan are laughing at you!” Or “Why don’t they just give it to Adolf Hitler?” Quite a few Chinese netizens raised the same question: “Is today April Fool’s Day?”

CUBAN PROFESSOR: ‘WHAT PEACE DOES THIS AWARD REPRESENT?’
By Mary Murray, NBC News Producer

U.S.-Cuba politics aside, Esteban Morales, U.S. Studies professor at Havana University, thinks the Nobel committee’s choice was “inappropriate.”

“I find it paradoxical that he won this prize when the U.S. is currently embroiled in two wars and has practically declared its intention to attack Iran,” said Morales. “While I give him the benefit of the doubt with his talk about tolerance and unity, in real life he’s done nothing to solve the problems at hand. Maybe he would deserve this down the road, but I have to ask today: What peace does this award represent?”

KENYAN’S ASK ‘WHY?’
By Paul Goldman, NBC News Producer

LOKICHOGGIO, Turkana District, Kenya – In this village in northern Kenya aid workers were shocked when they heard the news that native son President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

“Why?” asked a logistics officer of the World Food Program. “What has he done to deserve it?”

SOURCE: http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/10/09/2093914.aspx

Two best comments I read so far:

The Chicago political machine is responsible. They were supposed to bribe the Olympic Committee.

"Yo, Barack. I'm really happy for you. I'm gonna let you finish......but Beyonce had one of the best slightly less belligerent foreign policies of all time. Of all time!”

"Yo, Barack. I'm really happy for you. I'm gonna let you finish......but Beyonce had one of the best slightly less belligerent foreign policies of all time. Of all time!”

Where'd you get that? From NobeLOL??? Classic.

In order to underscore Ed's important point that Obama's sycophantic followers project things upon him that have no basis in reality, I simply point out that nominations for the Nobel peace prize were due February 1. Obama had been in ofiice only about 10 days at the time.


Or, to make the case form a different direction, if you weaken the defense shield that is designed to keep eastern Europe safe from attack by Russia and Iran; if you coddle up to the Chinese so they can continue to persecute thousands, maybe millions, of human beings at will just because the Chinese are financing your debt and your ridiculous inflationary monetary policies; if you refuse to meet with the Dalai Lama; if you expose Israel to greater danger of nuclear attack by Iran; if you bungle the resistance to Taliban atrocities, if you oppose the surge in Iraq that brings peace to more of that country sooner and more effectively than anything we ever tried; if you stand by passively while the thugs under Ahmadinejad kill and maim those who are resisting oppression and corruption, you win a Nobel Peace prize.

Or, put differently yet again, with Reagan it was peace though strength. With Obama it's peace through charisma -- as if a winsome smile ever saved anyone from oppression.

The Nobel prize has become a mutual admiration society for leftists intent upon weakening Israel and denigrating the US. For that agenda, Obama is the perfect choice. He joins other worthy recipients, like Yasser Arafat.

No --

It's "Engage in a Global Children-Killing Crusade, Win a Nobel Peace Prize"!


Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, but a closer analysis of the award shows his only achievement at the time he was nominated was exporting taxpayer-funded abortions. Obama hadn't accomplished much else in office when the nominations were finalized.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee's deadline for nominations for this year's Nobel Peace Prize was February 1, just 11 days after Obama's inauguration.

SOURCE: http://www.lifenews.com/int1345.html#

Presumably, his policies are by definition what the Nobel committee wants. Which tells you something.

Maybe they awarded him for what they think he's going to do, like, uh...nothing's coming to me. Maybe it's an affirmative action award.

You'd think an honest man would turn it down.

Well, there is a bright side. He's been awarded this after accomplishing nothing. Maybe this will serve as inspiration to continue to pursue the same course. At this point, nothing is the best we can hope for, right?

FWIW, every liberal I know is amused by this but I have only seen one really out there person think that he really deserved it.

Obama gets the Nobel prize because of what he is, but not because what he's done. The fetus, however, has no such luck. The killing of the fetus is justified, as some bioethicists argue, precisely because of what it has not done despite what it really is.

Obama gets the Nobel prize because of what he is

It's also because of who he's NOT, namely, George W. Bush, whose administration they also took a petty swipe at.

Lol. A Delian League tributary state attempting to stuff the Athenian ballot box with a "prize" after the fact. Next time why don't they drop the charade and just announce the prize to their candidate of choice two weeks before the election?

Frank, that's a breathtaking contrast -- one that ought to be used again and again.

It has been a meaningless award for a while, it has now gone beyond even absurdity, to some unfathomable degree of the grotesque.
It is issued from a nation, a continent, a culture, that is dying before our eyes, a gasp before the coffin is lowered into the ground, a necrophiliac joke.
If Obama was unbearable before, and he was, what horrors are in store for the unfortunately sane now?
Sometime soon when someone plants a stink bomb by the Bush residence in Texas can they expect the prize? Why not?

"When small men cast long shadows, you know the sun is setting."
--Lao Tzu

HT to John Medaille at http://distributism.blogspot.com/

Oslo in Wonderland

Andrew Sullivan is one liberal who thinks he deserved it:

http://newledger.com/2009/10/why-obama-deserved-it-andrew-sullivan-explains/

How can the allegedly "anti-war" Left retrofit this award for Obama when he is simply the continuation of Bush's foreign policy by other means?

We are still in Iraq. But increasing our commitments and losses in Afghanistan, while expanding military operations into Pakistan. Guantanamo is still open and renditions are still practiced. Conditions in the Palestinian territories make a mockery of "peace plans", and Iran is very much in the cross-hairs of the perpetual war for perpetual peace crowd. Code Pink has done a reverse on troop withdrawals in Afghanistan and "Obama Lied, People Died" bumper-stickers are in scarce supply.

It really wasn't the carnage and empire-building the Left objected to, as much as it was about whose finger was on the trigger. Now that it is Obama treating our troops like cannon fodder and violently visiting the gifts of democratic capitalism on the benighted peoples of the world, the Left will do what they do best; embrace the grim necessity of bloodshed.

A prize bequeathed in the name of a munitions manufacturer can only be given to a recipient like Obama, but what a perverse irony that it was ever awarded to Mother Teresa.

Well said, Kevin.

"How can the allegedly "anti-war" Left retrofit this award for Obama when he is simply the continuation of Bush's foreign policy by other means?"

You'll find the principled (?) leftists at Democracy Now are critical of this award. The real shapeshifters are those for whom an anti-war position was just a proxy for an anti-Bush/pro-Obama stand.

"The meaning of peace is the absence of resistance to socialism."

--Karl Marx

The real shapeshifters are those for whom an anti-war position was just a proxy for an anti-Bush/pro-Obama stand.

Understood, but it appears that describes Move.On, Code Pink, at least half of the Democrats in Congress, Obama himself, as well as Susan Rice and the rest of his War Room.

Sure, there must be honorable exceptions out there, but not enough to retain the critical mass required to wield any influence. This represents a tragedy on several levels of course, since even the pretense of self-government is shattered when differences are based, not on sincerely held views formed in good faith, but by cynical, partisan calculations and concealed agendas.

We are 10 months in to the changeless Change on the war fronts and the odious silence of the Left resembles the same servile turnabout which greeted the Hitler-Stalin Pact.

We were told the practice of shielding the flag-draped coffins of our fallen from public view would end under the new Administration. Has that happened yet, have we rescued slain soldiers from unjust anonymity, publicly mourned their deaths and been forced to count the costs in real flesh and blood lives?

Not even the excruciating circumstances surrounding the loss of 1st Lt. Jonathan Brostrom and 8 others assigned to an unfathomably remote outpost can galvanize a spineless movement that has gone shamefully mute before the new Commander in Chief.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/03/AR2009100303048.html

Maybe Bush should have dressed his military interventions up in themes like "reproductive rights", same-sex marriage and lower health-care costs.


"Maybe Bush should have dressed his military interventions up in themes like "reproductive rights", same-sex marriage and lower health-care costs."

Don't you recall how the military intervention was supposed to help women? "Reproductive Rights" was never explicit in the pandering rhetoric, but it was there.

There were a few Western women with NGOs who were murdered in Iraq soon after the invasion, possibly because of their pro-abortion work.

Kevin,

It is amazing how you can turn any thread into a forum for your anti-war blubbering.

"Reproductive Rights" was never explicit in the pandering rhetoric, but it was there.

I don't recall the promotion of abortion as a sub-text to the invasion, but not surprised that the mission would include imposing the worst, most depraved aspects of our culture on the newly "liberated."

George R, don't take the title of the post literally. This thread is actually about awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to a man with views as calloused as yours.

I'm certainly no Obamaphile, but I was thinking about this yesterday at a family party. From several angles this isn't really surprising at all.

1. The self-fulfilling prophecy of Euro-love for our President. They love him so diplomacy thaws so they love him and give him a prize for diplomacy-thaw.

2. The award and committee have always involved sanctioning a particular ideology--just look through the history of the award. President Obama fits the profile nicely. "Elitist Euros Award Insular Prize to Colleague, Ally" doesn't sound quite so shocking, no?

3. There have been many irregular years for prizes in lots of different ways, up to and including winning an ally or strengthening diplomatic ties for Norway. One could always chalk this year up to that.

4. The closing of the Gitmo Prison and the withdrawal from cities in Iraq are both notable. Considering what those things came to represent about us for the European world, and the judgment that was passed on those things, again it's not surprising that the committee looked on the President favorably.

5. Disarmament seems the most promising way to explain this. What Dr. Bauman referred to as a debacle for peace (the missle shield issue with Russia), others in the world see as a positive step toward peace via disarmament. That people disagree on the matter is obvious, but it is a concrete action that the committee can point to, and one highly congruent with the committee's track record on disarmament. Similarly, if the President's policy toward Iran really does result in a peaceful resolution to the nuclear energy/weapons problem, that would also be a concrete and substantive action for the committee.

I am by no means sold on these points, nor on the prize to President Obama, but it is hard for me to work up shock and indignation over this.

The nominations, as Dr. Bauman pointed out, had to be in by February, at which time his great accomplishments for peace (now so wonderful, ahem) overturning the Mexico City Policy--an expansion of the war on the unborn abroad.

Oh, I'm more than willing to agree--jump to agree--that the nomination is pure madness. I just think the selection of the President is slightly more understandable.

I'd be interested to learn the history of Nobel Peace Prize nominations (as opposed to just the victors, which is easy info to be had). Do U.S. Presidents and other world leaders typically get nominated pro forma?

I just think the selection of the President is slightly more understandable.

Why? The reasons you gave are factually incorrect;Gitmo isn't closed, or happened prior to Obama takig office; like the withdrawal of US troops from Iraqi cities. While, US troop may be safer, it is not clear that after all the ethnic-cleansing and sectarian bloodshed, the plight of Iraqi is much better after the withdrawal. But if true, can we come home now?
http://blog.taragana.com/n/iraq-sees-worst-violence-since-us-combat-troops-left-cities-us-military-releases-iranians-104657/

Similarly, if the President's policy toward Iran really does result in a peaceful resolution to the nuclear energy/weapons problem, that would also be a concrete and substantive action for the committee.

If? O.k., we give out trophies to every kid who shows up for an event for the first 14 years of their life, but typically one does not receive adult honors based on future expectations bereft of concrete results at the time of the nomination. And, the Committee must be convinced Obama is a shallow narcissist if they think the Prize will alter the course of his diplomacy.

Maybe they should simply have said; "Only deep-rooted, systemic white racism and our own clouded visions prevented Barack Hussein Obama from receiving this modest, but long overdue acknowledgment of his extraordinary achievements during the early days of his public ministry" and waited to have this entry added to the next edition of Stuff White People Like, and be done with it.

"...and waited to have this entry added to the next edition of Stuff White People Like, and be done with it."

#130: The Nobel Peace Prize. Can't wait! :)

As far as surprise and shock--it's not so much that he got the nod, given the hinky awarding in the past. It's more that they are not even trying to pretend any more. Thus, it doesn't bother me under the rule of "give-em-enough-rope" and the principle that when someone is determined to make a fool of themselves, best to get out of the way and let them do it.

Kevin, I find the selection more understandable than the nomination for the five reasons I cited above. You want to focus on how ineligible President Obama is for the Nobel Prize, particularly within the context of how you understand the significance of said prize. I am simply presenting what I think are the perfectly predictable, non-surprising reasons that the real committee presented the real prize. Whether they are dumb reasons, lying reasons, factually incorrect reasons, or woefully misguided reasons is irrelevant. It's a dog-bites-man story.

Much of the indignation over this prize seems to stem from an idealized sense of what the award signifies and how it should be awarded. What the award should be for is a worthwhile discussion...I was thinking about making that the substance of a follow-up post anyway. But if the discussion is about what the prize really is and how it has been awarded through the last 100 years, I don't think there's much to be shocked about. You keep railing about the President and I'll roll my eyes about the committee and go back to watching football.

I don't think there's much to be shocked about.

The Nyssan,
I'm with Scott W. on this one; it is stunning that a few stylistic flourishes could cloak the lack of substantive accomplishment and result in netting a prize that has meant something in the past. (See below.) While, it is a fluke that a Saint could receive it, deeply flawed sinners have risked their lives in attempts to sign treaties and end hostilities. Their efforts are mocked this year.

The Committee's empty symbolism is a poke in the eye of humanity and most in the Western or Islamic worlds are rightfully insulted.
http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&cid=1254573482737&pagename=Zone-English-News/NWELayout


# 1998 - John Hume, David Trimble
# 1994 - Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin
# 1993 - Nelson Mandela, F.W. de Klerk
# 1983 - Lech Walesa
# 1978 - Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/

"It is amazing how you can turn any thread into a forum for your anti-war blubbering."

I call it "peace-mongering."

Hmmm, I see it as being pro-life.

OSLO — Three of the five members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee had objections to the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to US President Barack Obama, the Norwegian tabloid Verdens Gang (VG) reported Thursday.

"VG has spoken to a number of sources who confirmed the impression that a majority of the Nobel committee, at first, had not decided to give the peace prize to Barack Obama," the newspaper said.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gOy7GLcrP7iQja3yU5Zu4BHMqFdw

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