Politics

Noonan Calls Nobel Wicked and Ignorant

Peggy Noonan has a hard-hitting piece on yesterday’s news about President Obama’s winning the Nobel Peace Prize. She is not critical of Obama, but of the committee who diminished the award. She writes:

“The giving of the peace prize to President Obama is absurd. He doesn’t have a body of work; he’s a young man; he’s been president less than nine months. He hopes to accomplish much, and so far–nine months!–has accomplished little. Is this a life of heroic self-denial, of the sacrifice of self for something greater, of huge and historic consequence, of sustained vision? No it’s not. Is this a life marked by a vivid and calculable contribution to the peace of the world? No, it’s not.

“This is an award for not being George W. Bush. This is an award for not making the world nervous. This is an award for sharing the basic political sentiments and assumptions of the members of the committee. It is for what Barack Obama may do, not what he has done. He hasn’t done anything.

“In one mindless stroke, the committee has rendered the Nobel Peace Prize a laughingstock, perhaps for as long as a generation. And that is an act of true destruction, because it was actually good that the world had a prestigious award for peacemaking.

“The members of the committee have also put the young American president in a terrible place. They make it look like all the talk of “The One,” the heartthrob of the European elite, the darling of the international left, is true. They make him look prefabricated and inauthentic, an empty structure held up by essentially silly people. Which puts him at a disadvantage in his own country, because Americans don’t really like it when flaky European politicians tell them how they ought to see him or the world.”

Read the rest here.

 

5 Comments

  • Jada

    It infuriates me that so many, who have EARNED this great award/acknowledgement, actually, worked very, very hard and for a long time with results, not just a plan for what they might do/desire to do. Yet, here is one, who was given this award, WHY?

    I am not bashing our President. I respect the office of President, pray for him and his family and for our country. Yet, this is a laughing stock. It reduces this highly prestigous award to a political game piece used to carry out a specific agenda, instead of awarding it to someone based upon merit, hardwork and endurance in achieving a goal.

    Yesterday, when I heard the ‘news,’, I asked my husband, “So, does this mean if I tell people how good an album that I might record would be and really WOW them, I can be granted a Grammy!?”

    Or even, taking it to the education level: should students, who don’t study, apply themselves, work hard in classes, be given grades, just for telling the instructor/prof/teacher what they could perhaps do? Certainly NOT in my classroom. I may see promise in some, but they have to work to receive the grade that they EARN.
    It is not just about being a charismatic student, coming up with a ‘plan’, but carrying it out to completion and showing results.

    Maybe trivial, but still. What message does this send to children? Talk a good talk, reel them in, and be granted an award with nothing to back it up.

    I wonder how he must feel? I mean, does he truly believe he ‘earned’ this? I would give it back. How will the history books record this one?

  • Ryan K.

    Yes this is not Obama’s fault but in all truthfulness it is obvious that his Nobel prize is more an anti-Bush award than anything else.

    How sad that everything in our world from the Oscars to the Nobel prize must be hijacked for politics rather than merit.

  • DennyReader

    Peggy Noonan is an aristocratical narcissist, but I have to thank her for her contribution in electing our Presidential Nobel laureate. We are so much better off.

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