Here's the
AP:
President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, citing his outreach to the Muslim world and attempts to curb nuclear proliferation.
The stunning choice made Obama the third sitting U.S. president to win the Nobel Peace Prize and shocked Nobel observers because Obama took office less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline. Obama's name had been mentioned in speculation before the award but many Nobel watchers believed it was too early to award the president.
"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said. "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."
According to the Nobel Committee's
press release:
Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.
This should further derange the already deranged crazies on the right.
I am an Obama supporter, but I am pretty baffled by this award. Maybe the committee was looking the work William Ayers has done and attributed it to Obama ...
ReplyDeleteCongratulations to Obama in joining this Pantheon of elite individuals.
ReplyDeleteAl Gore
Jimmy Carter
Yasser Arafat
Kofi "Oil for Food" Annan
The progressive "war criminal" Henry Kissinger
And the most anti civil-liberties US President Woodrow Wilson.
I am sure Obama will follow in Wilson's footsteps.
This is of course, good news for republicans.
ReplyDeleteFrom a "contest" on a well-know Conservative Website:
ReplyDeleteAWARDING BARACK OBAMA THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE IS LIKE..... Giving an Oscar to someone who went to see a movie.
HTTT, your sources have improved, but this guilt by association nonsense accomplishes nothing. After all, the people who get the Peace Prize don't lobby for it.
ReplyDeleteFurther, the FTC thing is a way of addressing advertising on otherwise unregulated new mediums of communication. I don't think it is unreasonable to expect bloggers or twitterers to reveal when they are compensated for talking up a product. Now, there is plenty of ground to cover; what constitutes compensation, how should it be revealed, what should the penalty be, and those details are likely to get worked out. But comparing the FTC's regulations to laws attacking any dissent during the Wilson Presidency is a huge stretch at best, and does a massive disservice to any legitimate criticism of Obama at worst. Why do you hate America, HTTT?
I don't think it is unreasonable to expect bloggers or twitterers to reveal when they are compensated for talking up a product
ReplyDeleteDo you support the same standards applying to newspapers radio and TV media companies instead of just targeting the new media?
I suspect this will be struck down in court on First Amendment grounds.
This prize was not deserved.
ReplyDeleteHTTT said "Do you support the same standards applying to newspapers radio and TV media companies instead of just targeting the new media?"
ReplyDeleteI would assume there are such regulations now, but if there are not, then yes, I would support that. There probably are some underhanded deals struck between some reviewers and the companies behind the products they review. I wouldn't be surprised if some PG real estate reviewers did not accept cash from real estate developers, but I also assume there are laws to cover that sort of thing.
The FTC might be struck down by the courts, because it is made to sound a bit harsh. But if it is rewritten to a more reasonable set of standards, then I would expect the courts would up hold it. Look-it, wouldn't you want to know that the person praising a car he has reviewed was given one of those cars?
Still has nothing to do with Obama getting the Peace Prize. I suspect Saturday Night Live is scrambling to re-write a skit to work this in. National and world wide reaction is mixed, some in support, some against, some not really caring.
er, "did accept"
ReplyDeletehe has done more good in 10 months than bush did in 8 bloody years. he actually put his money where his mouth is and kept his word before the election- to TALK to the nations opposed to us instead of marching in and killing and maining and making some war profiteers super wealthy!
ReplyDeleteYeah, fine, but the Nobel Prize for that?
ReplyDeleteThe question is: Does Obama deserves The Nobel Peace Prize more then Ghandi? Vote Now: http://obamanobelpeaceprize.net/
ReplyDeleteThe committee obviously wanted desperately to give a Nobel Warlord Scumball Prize to George Bush, but was not empowered to do so by its charter. It had to settle on giving its prize to Obama for "changing the tone".
ReplyDeleteIt should strengthen Obama's hand and more importantly America's hand a bit in international relations, which is good ... but I agree the Nobel Committee cheapened itself a bit with this move.
Here's a funny article that would probably explain his win as well as anything, however unlikely:
ReplyDeletehttp://thealbatross.ca/2009/10/lazy-illuminati-award-nobel-peace-prize-to-barack-obama/
You know, if people bothered to read the Nobel committee's statement, it tells you exactly why they selected him.
ReplyDeleteGood to see the right cheering against American again, though.
Limbaugh's line about agreeing with the Taliban was classy. "hey, you know who I agree with? The guys killing Americans. Hahaha (jiggle, jiggle, jiggle)."
In the grand scheme of things...this certainly doesn't hurt the President and those who think it does are idiots that shouldn't be commenting on politics. You know how much going to Copenhagen hurt him? Zip, zero, nothing. These really aren't the kinds of things the average voter gets worked up about.
read the def of the prize. it's given to people working toward peace. not to someone that has achieved it- no one has achieved peace. we are constantly working toward that goal.
ReplyDeletepeace, like freedom is a constant work in progress to achieve and to keep.
ReplyDeleteI hope this award doesn't give him second doubts we have to bomb something.
ReplyDeleteGOP strategist John Weaver had the best comment for his GOP friends and their weekly emotional freakouts:
ReplyDeleteGOP strategist John Weaver told POLITICO that party leaders remained quiet "probably because they know -- focused by acute self interest -- that people are not attracted to whiners and titty-babies."
"Applaud when an American city loses an Olympic bid? Mock a president winning the Nobel Prize? This may play well on Glenn Beck's block, but it is a loser with the vast majority of American people," he said.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28141_Page2.html#ixzz0TYZoWCQz
Ihave been thinking and thinking on what Conservative Mountaineer repeated from a conservative website, and I think I would change it a bit. The Nobel committee giving the peace prize to Obama is like giving an Oscar to a person who has written the outline of a script and pitched a great idea for a movie. It may turn into a movie like "Gone With the Wind" or it might turn into "Howard the Duck". But I guess Obama is impressive in not abandoning his plans so far.
ReplyDeleteMore like giving a prize to the person who promises not to burn down the theater (unlike the last guy).
ReplyDeleteAnyone else think if he had declined the right would be attacking him for having an ego so big that he thinks he dis the Nobel?
ReplyDeleteAP had an article debunking some of the myths of the Nobel prize (courtesy of the secretary of the Nobel committee). One of them is the notion that the award is given exclusively to people concrete accomplishments - in fact, more often it is awarded to endorse a person's stated goals and agenda.
Of the 800+ Nobel Prizes(all categories) that have been awarded, only 6 have ever been declined.
Hitler forced three Germans to decline in the late 1930's. The Soviets forced Pasternak to decline after initially accepting. Sartre declined because he never accepted such awards and Le Duc Tho declined in 1973 as a result of the on-going situation in Vietnam.
This is ridiculous, he doesn't deserve it in the least. There's barely been ANY change, at all. Obama has promised change, but how much have we seen since he's been elected? It's gonna be a year soon and he hasn't done shit. Just because he shut down Guantanamo Bay and just because he thinks by in doing that we'll be a stronger nation doesn't mean he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. HE'S PROMISING CHANGE SO HE CAN LOOK GOOD, so he can look like the "ideal" president. He's a fuckin terrorist, the damn anti-Christ! No one else sees it. He's like Adolf Hitler - he's making himself look good pubicly and socially, but there's going to come a day when he's going to be the death of us all; we are the next Holocaust. Hasn't anyone stopped to think that maybe he's too good to be true? Hasn't anyone come to the conclusion that he IS? All the while he's promising this and that and that and this, you wanna know what he's been doing? He's been putting bombs all over this fuckin country. He's in alliance with the Muslims, but just because he says he's not everyone's going to believe him. Wow, and I love how our parents tell us not to believe everything we hear yet they cling onto every word Barack Obama says. I read somewhere that he won the Prize because he PROMISED a whole bunch of changes, yet he didn't actually do anyone of them. If a time comes and he hasn't done any of the things he said he was going to do, he may as well just throw the Nobel Peace Prize out the fuckin window. So, in all honesty, I think he should give the award back; he's making a mockery of it all.
ReplyDeleteThat was snark, right?
ReplyDeleteWell, either that or someone needs to be far more careful with their meds.
OMG I hope that was snark.
ReplyDeletesee this too
ReplyDeletehttp://roshrockshere.blogspot.com/