Obama wins 2009 Nobel Peace Prize

Now if I support the Nobel Committee, I am against terrorists and an anti-Semite at the same time?!!?

You got it . . . the best of both worlds ! ! !

Barak Obama's nomination itself was way premature.... and anyways Nobel Peace Prize's credibility has been under question since the time M.K.Gandhi was denied a Nobel Peace Prize due to his involvement in Indian Independence.

So a freedom fighter who never used violence against his enemy is not a candidate for Nobel Prize but a President of an influential war-making country who is not even 1 year old in his presidency is.

Huh!

P.S. Plz check how incredible Ramon Magsaysay Award committee is by looking at list of their awardees.

I'm the "reader" here. Hee.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/10/peace-prize-reax-i.html#more

the RNC is really pissed.

I like this one too:



http://tigerhawk.blogspot.com/2009/10/two-reasons-to-be-happy.html

I'd just like to say that it is good that Obama won such a prestigious award and that I hope, going forward, he actually earns it.

Watching the thing -- he doesn't really think he deserves it but he understands that the Nobel committee sometimes gives the prize as a "means to give momentum to a set of causes." Good.

awww...that's sweet McG.
My, how you've mellowed.

Does anyone know when the final voting took place? The nomination deadline was Feb 1, but when did they vote?

Yeah, I asked that too... haven't been able to find an answer yet.

Oh, I'd missed this... saab says the decision was made two days ago.

Which is a good start...but not enough.

I must admit, that my first reaction upon reading about this (ten minutes ago) was a grin, a devious one, at the conniption fits the right-wing will be having over the issue.

Once again, they will find themselves in a negative position; in knocking Obama, the prize, and the concept of his diplomatic idea all at the same time. It's satisfying in the short-term and damaging in the long-term.

Cycloptichorn

No!!!

Au contraire.

There can be no peace without war.

The more war you create, the more peace you can claim to have created later.

The actual voting is never known (but rumors run around, specially in lit).

Totally premature. Yes.

Someone worried about the possibility of affecting the credibility of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Does anyone remember that Henry Kissinger -of all people- won the Nobel Peace Prize?
(And worse, Dario Fo won in literature sometime in the 90s, I digress)

thanks saab,

I hope you don't mind but I swiped your post and copied it to another site where a poster claimed it was an "affirmative action" award, which REALLY pissed me off.

Late to the party (and obviously didnt read all the pages of comments), but what an utterly weird decision.

First off, it's outrageously premature. Give the man some time to actually do something first - what are his diplomatic feats so far? It basically comes down to giving the man an award for being elected, and for being who he is - his mere election led to a sigh of relief around the world, but that doesn't make him worthy of a Nobel Prize yet ... jeez, let's wait and see what he'll actually succeed in doing, no?

On a tangent, there is not a President, no matter how much enthusiasm and idealism he brought to the office and was elected with, who can not make a major mistake. Awarding him now already throws all caution to the wind: who knows what he might still majorly **** up in the four or, hopefully, eight years of his administration, that would make this award look like a folly in hindsight? LBJ looked very good in the beginning too, but then Vietnam grew way over his head.

Finally, for years conservatives have derided the Nobel Peace Prize as a purely political, partisan thing ... and we'd have to argue that, no, in fact, there was a solid logic behind it that did actually reward real achievements in brokering greater peace in the world. This decision in one stroke seems to make the conservatives right after all.

What were they thinking?

That's potentially silly of the Taliban, were Obama a pettier man....as I undstand it he is busy separating the Taliban off from "the enemy" and moving towards accepting them as a part of Afghani culture, which no war will change.