Obama's stunningly undeserved Nobel

Understand that I do not in any way fault President Obama for the Nobel committee's decision to award him the Nobel Peace prize today. I'm sure nobody was more shocked than he by the news. It is absurd, though, that after less than a year in office, a year in which he hasn't accomplished much of anything on the international front (does any president in their first year?), Obama would win the Peace prize over human rights activists, environmental campaigners, and others. Was there really no other man or woman on the planet who did more for the cause of peace this past year than the U.S. president? Really?

The Nobel committee has awarded Obama its Peace prize for the grand achievement of not being George W. Bush. I don't see any other way to explain this decision. Again, it doesn't reflect poorly on Obama, but rather on the Nobel committee, which looks petty and political. On the other hand, none of us are George W. Bush either, so maybe we can dare to dream that the Norwegians will gift us with the Nobel Peace prize next year. Personally, I would use the prize money to foster understanding between peoples, and to buy silken slankets for the whole family. Then again, with the Nobel having now awarded its third Peace prize to a top U.S. Democratic politician in seven years, maybe John Edwards has something to look forward to, for once.

UPDATE: A friend who is an international correspondent, and who is very much on the left, writes this morning to say: "The Norwegian academy may yet succeed in moving me right."

HuffPo's Michael Russnow, after identifying himself as an Obama supporter:

Whatever one might feel about Obama, he has not earned this singular award. Few American presidents have received it and of those who have it was bestowed after they'd been engaged in something special. Theodore Roosevelt had helped to negotiate peace in the Russo-Japanese War. Woodrow Wilson had tirelessly worked for the creation of the League of Nations -- a struggle that was blamed for causing the serious stroke he suffered, which left him disengaged in the last years of his presidency.

Jimmy Carter received the Peace Prize after he left office, but in the wake of huge achievements monitoring worldwide elections and in his efforts with Habitat for Humanity, building homes for the poor.

Former Vice President Al Gore got the prize after years of working for the environment. And whether you appreciated Henry Kissinger's getting the award it was in response to his efforts to effect a peace in the Vietnam War.

So, at the moment, I believe it is enormously premature for Obama to be getting this great tribute, which to a certain extent cheapens the prior recipients and the work all of them performed over so many years.

Exactly right.

UPDATE.2: Time magazine says it could embarrass him and hurt him more than it will help. Excerpt:

No doubt the Nobel Committee want this prize to add momentum to those plans. But the award also risks adding to the huge burden of expectations that Obama carried when he entered office. The reality of governing has already proved how ridiculous many of those expectations were.

And now Obama is the Nobel Peace Prize winner. "Frankly it seems premature when he hasn't been in office even a year yet, and has not yet actually achieved the goals he set out -- although he certainly has made some very noteworthy efforts," says Mark Fitzpatrick, Senior Fellow for Non-proliferation at the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies. "I think he will be embarrassed by it and it will be unhelpful in the domestic milieu."

And Time's Mark Halperin has a snarky line: "It isn't quite as inexplicable as Marisa Tomei's Best Supporting Actress Oscar, but it seems pretty close."

UPDATE.3: Steve Sailer on the SWPL Nobel.

UPDATE.4: CC blog commenter Crustacean made me snicker with this line: "If Obama gives one of his daughters ginger ale when she has a tummy ache, does that mean he gets the Nobel Prize for Chemistry?"