Obama WINS the Nobel Peace Prize

Courtesy of the White House: President Obama

The New York Times: Reports on the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama, the NYT sees the downside to such an award, the NYT writes the following, " ....the award could, in a strange way, prove a political liability......" in essence the you could have a Thatcher/Gorbachev effect, Obama is now down in the polls at home but is loved abroad with the exception of the Olympic Committee. One only has to look at the cases of Lady Thatcher and former USSR President Gorbachev, it should be noted that Gorbachev also won a Nobel Peace Prize but was still thrown out of Office in 1991. These two great leaders from the 80's got more respect abroad than at home, in Russia Gorbachev is as popular as the local tax man who raised your taxes. But it is interesting to see what the Nobel Committee has stated about the award of the prize to President Obama, " The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons. 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. 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. 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. For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama's appeal that "Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges. " If Obama had removed nuclear weapons from the face of the earth then the Nobel Committee would have a point, but according to most news reports the choice of Obama started before he was elected President, thus his selection happened within a few days or weeks of him becoming POTUS. This is not good for the Nobel Committee, it is fast becoming an arm of the Democratic Party in the United States. It can be argued that former Vice President Al Gore and President Jimmy Carter had earned their Nobel awards, this award is about style over substance,