By Patrick J. Buchanan
All my life, said Voltaire, I have had but one prayer: “O Lord, make my enemies look ridiculous. And God granted it.”
In awarding the Nobel Prize for Peace to Barack Obama, the Nobel committee has just made itself look ridiculous.
Consider. Though they had lead roles in ending a Cold War lasting half a century, between a nuclear-armed Soviet Empire and the West, neither Ronald Reagan nor John Paul II ever got a Nobel Prize.
In 1987, Reagan negotiated the greatest arms reduction treaty in modern time, the INF agreement removing all Soviet SS-20s and all U.S. Pershing and cruise missiles from Europe.
Other than hosting the “Beer Summit” between Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge Police and Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, what has Obama done to compare with what these statesmen did to make ours a more peaceful and better world?
What has Obama accomplished to compare with what the other sitting presidents to receive the Nobel Prize accomplished?
Theodore Roosevelt won in 1906 for the Portsmouth Treaty that ended the Russo-Japanese War. Woodrow Wilson won the 1919 Nobel Prize for getting Germany to accept his 14 Points as the basis for an armistice that ended the bloodiest war in all of European history.
And what about Richard Nixon?
In 1972, he made his historic trip to China, ending a quarter century of hostility, negotiated SALT I with Leonid Brezhnev, limiting ICBMs, and ended U.S. involvement in Vietnam. True, Nixon persuaded Hanoi to sign the Paris Peace Accords only after 13 days of “Christmas bombing.”
Yet that did not deter the Nobel committee from giving the 1973 prize to Henry Kissinger and Hanoi ’s Le Duc Tho.
Early in the week his award was announced, Obama snubbed the Dalai Lama, the 1989 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, who has spent 50 years as a courageous voice for the rights of his Tibetan people, who have endured half a century of Chinese communist repression and cultural genocide. Which of these—the Dalai Lama or Barack Obama—seems more deserving of a Nobel Prize for Peace?
Since the news broke, the president has been a national object of mockery and mirth. In fairness, this is not his fault. There is no evidence he lobbied for the prize; no evidence he knew it was coming.
“Is this April Fools’ Day?” said one startled aide.
In accepting, Barack was properly humble, saying that he did not belong in the company of previous recipients, that he would try to live up to the expectations his Nobel had created.
It is the members of the Nobel committee who have made fools of themselves and further devalued their prize, if that is still possible.
For how many Americans could, without Google, identify Shirin Ebadi, Wangari Maathai, Muhammad Yunus and Martti Ahtisaari? Who are they? The 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2008 winners of the Nobel Prize for Peace. In that company at least, Barack, for his willingness to talk to America’s adversaries and enemies, is not outshone.
Indeed, looking down the list of other recipients in this decade—Jimmy Carter in 2002, Muhammad ElBaradei in 2005, Al Gore in 2007 and Obama—the committee should probably rename it the Nobel Prize for Peace … and Stick-It-to-George Bush Trophy.
By 2002, Carter, who should have been included in the 1978 Nobel that went to Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat for the Israeli-Egyptian peace he brokered at Camp David, had become a global pest, bedeviling Bush, as he did Bill Clinton, in violation of the tradition of ex-presidents, all the while accomplishing nothing.
While the International Atomic Energy Agency was right about no atomic weapons or programs in Iraq, ElBaradai himself regretted not having been more courageous in opposing the war. As for Gore, his prize was the committee’s way of providing publicity for a campaign against global warming that is a front for the latest scheme to advance world government.
As for Obama, he got the award because he is the quintessential anti-Bush. Yet, the Nobel committee did him no service.
They have brazenly meddled in the internal affairs of the United States. They have reinforced the impression that Obama is someone who is forever being given prizes—Ivy League scholarships, law review editorships, prime-time speaking slots at national conventions—he did not earn. They have put him under moral pressure to mollify a pacifist left. They have brought him to the point, dangerous in politics, where a man becomes the butt of reflexive jokes, as did Bill Clinton in the Monica affair.
These Norwegian groupies, acting out of “adolescent adulation,” writes the Financial Times, have exposed themselves as “an annex to the left wing of the U.S. Democratic Party” with a “deeply misguided act” that will “embarrass (Obama’s) allies and egg on his detractors.”
The committee did something else. They ensured that their Nobel Peace Prize will never be taken as seriously again as once it was.
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A couple thoughts:
I can see the parallel being drawn with Reagan. I'm not sure I would have objected to giving him the peace prize, but it becomes once again a matter of whether the ends justify the means. Reagan may have been instrumental in the ending of the cold war, but he essentially did it by presiding over the biggest nuclear arms race in history.
Maybe they should just quit handing out peace prizes on a regular basis. Maybe they should wait until another Ghandi comes along. I'm really not sure where the line should be drawn. At the time he was nominated, Obama had just spent a year with stopping the Iraq war as a centerpiece of his campaign. So far he has been far from the most deserving recipient of the award, but I'm hoping he will consider it a mandate. The first thing on his peace agenda should be Israel. They've been acting like a spoiled child, and he should start treating them as such in future negotiations.
As for affirmative action in the prize, Bradlaugh has an <a href ="http://secularright.org/wordpress/?p=2939">interesting analysis of it over at the Secular Right:
A well-deserved spanking for the Nobel Committee.
I'm guessing Obama has decided to reject McChrystal's troop request — I can't imagine he'd accept the Nobel if he was still considering it. By accepting, Obama shows he doesn't care if it appears he's being manipulated by Europe. I still don't care what the continent that invented Communism, Facism and Colonialism thinks of the United States.
A great litany of hawkish peacemakers from historian Pat. He could have added Eisenhower who brought peace the hard way by crushing the Nazis, then ended Truman's Korean War. Our hawks' record of bringing peace is a good fact-based lesson to offset the Nobel Committee's hallucinogens.
Exactly Pat!…………………………..It is now a joke……………..The "Fickled Finger Of Fate" award.
I'd never heard the stick-it-to-Bush angle on the Carter Nobel. Nice column!
I promise never to call him President Obama again. From now on he is the Nobel Laureate.
Our day will be November 9, the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. In the 20th century, 180 million people died in wars and revolutions, over 100 million at the hands of communists.
This year, the Nobel awards were equalized by gender, with two of the female winners having, shall we say, far less imposing credentials than previous- and/or current-year male prize recipients. So Pat could have written this piece about the entire award system adopting the principle of affirmative action. He could have, but he didn't, because like so many Americans, he has a special loathing and contempt for African-Americans that will never go away.
Looks like the Nobel Peace Prize is going the way of the ‘beauty’ pageants, those yearly elaborately costumed public spectacles that demonstrates little else than political correctness trumps reality.
How do you know the female recipients had "far less imposing credentials than previous- and/or current-year male prize recipients"? One female recipient was an ethnic German from Romania who wrote about living in communist Romania under Ceausescu and she won the prize for literature. The other female received the prize for economics (sharing it with a male recipient). Are you an authority on literature and economics?
I voted for Obama and I think he's a significant improvement over George Bush. That does not qualify him for the Nobel Peace prize. Considering his recent hate speech against Iran, I do not think he has earned the Nobel Peace Prize. Maybe in 3 years or after his second term.
On Gaza, he has backed down against his opposition to new Israeli settlements. The UN recently condemned Israel for war crimes in Gaza and the first reaction from our gov't was to criticize the report. If you are not aware of this its because the strong jewish influence in our media has ensured any criticism of Israel will get as much attention in this country as Australian Rules Football does. Not only does Obama need to do more, he needs to show some backbone and not let Jewish lobbyists shape the USA's foreign policy.
What a great point Yakubu! Pat Buchanan is a racist and that's why he wrote an article criticizing the decision to give Obama the Nobel Peace Prize! I mean, if a white liberal were president and he was nominated for the prize after 12 days in office having done nothing with regards to foreign policy except a mandate that American taxpayers fund over-seas abortions I bet Pat would love it and never write an article criticizing the decision.
Hope and promise for socialist change is why Obama was gifted by the Scandanavians. He is a true socialist like them. Being mulatto didn't hurt much either.
I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country. — Thomas Jefferson