Saturday, November 14, 2009

In Support of Obama's Nobel Peace Prize

Diane Beeler wrote a wonderful post last month on her site, It Dawned on Me, in support of Obama's winning the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. At that time I read dozens of hostile reactions to it. Not one mentioned the actual criteria involved in selecting the winner from among the candidates. Diane's post made this very clear, as did this video interview from Nobelprize.com.

14 comments:

  1. If you bothered to do a bit of research, you would learn that submissions for the prize must be submitted by Feb. 1st.

    Obama was in office as president a mere 9 days before this date.

    What did he do to deserve this?

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  2. None of those points that they are trying to use as justification for their political award was done before the deadline.

    Obama winning the prize was a bigger joke than Al Gore winning it. The award is truly meaningless and political.

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  3. Political yes, but meaningless no. What may have made it meaningless or perhaps even a liability, is the reaction on the part of so many nay-sayers. It seems like the conservative Obama bashers have a tacit agreement with one another to do as much damage to him as possible by all their repeated negative and hostile criticism. And of course you do it in the name of what's "right" and in the name of "patriotism."

    The nice Norwegian man explained very clearly and very plausibly how the determination is made and why Obama was the best candidate.

    Some people's bias against him is truly astounding.

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  4. The nice Norwegian man explained very clearly and very plausibly how the determination is made and why Obama was the best candidate.

    Don't you read your responders?

    I will repeat what they said. The deadline for nominations for the award it Feb 1. Obama had only been president for NINE DAYS when he was nominated.

    You can only be considered for the award for what has been submitted.

    Therefore, everything the Nobel representative said is bogus because Obama did NOTHING he mentioned prior to Feb 1.

    Why is that so hard to understand???

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  5. TomB, I'm afraid you and some of the others are the ones not understanding something. The will of old Nobel stipulated that the period of consideration should be one year. Did Obama not exist before taking office? Of course he existed. He existed very much in the public eye. It was during the campaign that he initiated the very items mentioned in the video. You may not like the decision, but to continue pretending it's so absurd because he'd only been in office for a month is bad spinning at best.

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  6. The will of old Nobel stipulated that the period of consideration should be one year.

    But the things the Nobel spokesman says he accomplished could have only been done by a sitting head of state:

    Fraternity between nations? What did he do other than his "look at me" speech in Germany during the campaign?

    Reduction in standing armies?!? Are you kidding me?

    Produced the vision of a nuclear-free world? That isn't even an accomplishment, just window dressing.

    The holding of peace conferences? Obviously I missed Senator Obama holding a world peace conference between campaign and fundraising stops.

    Produced a new international climate? There it is. He won for getting elected. Nothing else. He won and made people feel better about themselves.

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  7. In case you missed it, Obama gave a speech at the 2004 Democratic convention. He was pretty much chosen to become president in 2008 at that time.

    It's amazing to me how suspicious some people are about politics, yet seem to miss the obvious.

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  8. Anonymous, Thanks for pointing that out. All the things TomB listed were initiated during the final year of the campaign which makes them perfectly suitable for consideration.

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  9. Anonymous, Thanks for pointing that out. All the things TomB listed were initiated during the final year of the campaign which makes them perfectly suitable for consideration.

    He initiated the "Reduction in standing armies"? Can you point me to when he did that?

    Specifics please, not empty platitudes.

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  10. TomB, What you call "empty platitudes" the Nobel committee must have considered concrete plans, perhaps ones already undertaken prior to his taking office.

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  11. Mikeb: "It was during the campaign that he initiated the very items mentioned in the video."

    So the Nobel Prize is now awarded based upon...campaign promises?

    I suppose that's okay -- after all, campaign promises are sacrosanct and guaranteed, right?

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  12. TomB, What you call "empty platitudes" the Nobel committee must have considered concrete plans, perhaps ones already undertaken prior to his taking office.

    He wasn't in a position prior to taking office to "undertake" any plans. That would be unconstitutional.

    Unless you would care to enlighten us with specifics?

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  13. This prize was one of the best gifts to those who don't want to see a 2nd Obama term.

    MikeB deftly (or is it daftly?) illustrates why!

    Keep it up, Mikey!

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  14. Why did Obama win the "peace" prize??? Sending over 30,000 more troops is NO form of peace! He promised to bring our troops home and yet he is doing the exact opposite!!

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