[StBernard] The Affirmative Action Nobel

[Westley Annis]

THE CONSERVATIVE REVIEW - October 16, 2009

The Affirmative Action Nobel
by Pat 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. involve-
ment 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 quint-
essential 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.