| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Politix |
| WaPo's Columnists Mock Obama's Nobel Prize |
| 2009-10-09 |
| Richard Cohen, "Post Partisan" blog @ Washington Post n a stunning announcement, Millard Fillmore Senior High School chose Shawn Rabinowitz, an incoming junior, as next year's valedictorian. The award was made, the valedictorian committee announced from Norway of all places, on the basis of "Mr. Rabinowitz's intention to ace every course and graduate number one in class." In a prepared statement, young Shawn called the unprecedented award, "f---ing awesome."... (Contractually-required unfunny cheap shot at Sarah Palin omitted) And again in a stunning coincidence, the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences announced the Oscar for best picture will be given this year to the Vince Vaughn vehicle Guys Weekend to Burp, which is being story-boarded at the moment but looks very good indeed. Mr. Vaughn, speaking through his publicist, said was "touched and moved" by the award and would do everything in his power to see that the picture lives up to expectation and opens big sometime next March. At the same press conferences, the Academy announced that the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award would go this year to Britney Spears for her intention to "spend whatever it takes to save the whales." The Academy recognized that Spears had not yet saved a single whale, but it felt strongly that it was the intention that counted most. Spears, who was leaving a club at the time, told People magazine that she would not want to live in "a world without whales." People put it on the cover. The sudden spate of awards based on intentions or plans or aspirations was attributed to the decision by the Norwegian Nobel committee to award the peace prize to Barack Obama for his efforts in nuclear disarmament and his outreach to the Muslim world. . . . Some cynics suggested that Obama's award was a bit premature since, among other things, a Middle East peace was as far away as ever and the world had yet to fully disarm. Nonetheless, the president seemed humbled by the news and the Norwegian committee packed for its trip to the United States, where it will appear on Dancing with the Stars. As evidenced by the gratuitous, contractually-required, and terminally unfunny cheap shot at Sarah Palin in this blog posting (which I deleted out of mercy for you, the reader) and the overall body of his work, Cohen is a dead-conventional knee-jerk runs-with-the-herd-of-independent-minds in-the-tank-for-the-Dems Beltway liberal. It would seem significant that his first reaction to the Nobel award is to scathingly mock it. Nearby on the WaPo's blog, there's this non-humorous, but no less scathing, take by Michael Gerson: At first I thought the announcement of the prize was a joke. On further reflection, the Noble Committee has made itself a joke. It has decided to give a ribbon before the race, a trophy for aspiration, a gold star for admirable sentiments. Which means that the decision it made is entirely, purely, solely political. Members of the committee like Obama's goals and rhetoric. And since they aren't American citizens, this is the only way they could vote for him. In the process, they have forfeited any claim to seriousness. Peace -- the kind of peace that keeps people from being killed and oppressed -- is an achievement, not a sentiment. The Noble Peace Prize Committee can no longer distinguish between the two. |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #7 You saw the piece on Eugene Volokh's blog, Rambler? |
| Posted by: Eric Jablow 2009-10-09 22:25 |
| #6 he's already promised to give the cash to a charity: "Acorm or SEIYou or something" - it was kinda vague |
| Posted by: Frank G 2009-10-09 19:33 |
| #5 Richard, there is precedent for a sitting President to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Teddy Roosevelt won for negotiating an end to the Russian-Japanese War, and Woodrow Wilson for helping to end WWI and starting the League of Nations. A quick Google search didn't explain what happened to the money for the prize - whether Roosevelt and Wilson were able to keep the money or if it became the property of the US. |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2009-10-09 18:09 |
| #4 As President, I don't see how he can accept the prize. it seems to me that the medal and the cash are property of the state, since both are worth more than nomimal value. So, the United States has gotten a Nobel Peace Prize, long overdue in my opinion. |
| Posted by: Richard of Oregon 2009-10-09 13:04 |
| #3 Someone should write a book about that.... |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2009-10-09 12:43 |
| #2 A couple of thoughts: * Richard Cohen mocking this award to Bambi is almost as mind boggling as the Nobel Committee's decision to award it to the ONE. ** This is simply further evidence of the ongoing social trend of giving awards/grades/trophies/etc. to people simply for showing up and/or expressing an idea or thought, however original or not. |
| Posted by: WolfDog 2009-10-09 11:32 |
| #1 I'll bet Michelle nominated him. A million bucks will buy a lot of organic arugula. |
| Posted by: Woozle Uneter9007 2009-10-09 11:29 |