Opinions Expressed in "Rants," while informed by Catholic doctrine, are merely the opinions of the author.
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Barack Obama - WHATEVER!!
So have you heard? Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize. WHATEVER!!
Now I'm an Obama fan, for the most part - by that I mean, I'd like to see him succeed. Evaluations of his performance so far for these nine months are pretty dismal however - he hasn't really done ANYTHING, other than make speeches, despite having full support of both the American Senate and House of Representatives.
The Nobel Peace Prize is intended to give credit to outstanding individuals who have made a significant contribution to the betterment of humanity. Emphasis on the words HAVE MADE.
Here are some previous recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Jean Dunant (1901) - Founded the Red Cross
Woodrow Wilson (1919) - Founded the League of Nations
1948 - Not awarded, on account of assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, who would have won the award that year
Albert Schweitzer (1952) - Missionary Doctor and Surgeon for the poor in the Third World
Lester Pearson (1957) - Helped end war between Israel and Egypt while General Secretary of the United Nations
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1964) - Advocate for Civil Rights in the U.S.
Andrei Sakharov (1975) - Advocate for human rights and disarmament.
Mother Teresa (1979) - Obvious
Lech Walesa (1983) - Lead Poland to freedom from the Soviet Union
Archbishop Desmond Tutu (1984) - Advocate for Civil Rights in South Africa
Dalai Lama (1989) - Advocate for peaceful liberation of Tibet from Occupation by China
Mikhail Gorbachev (1990) - Basically Ended the Cold War
Nelson Mandela (1993) - Peaceful advocate for Civil Rights in South Africa
Jimmy Carter (2002) - Decades of work in international diplomacy, including mediating peace between Egypt and Israel while President
Al Gore (2007) - Brought international awareness to the importance of global environmental protection
Barack Obama (2009) - Made a lot of inspirational speeches
The Nobel Committee is basically saying that Obama should get the award for all the work that he IS GOING to do as President. Only problem is, as with all American Politicians - and Obama is no exception - we don't know what they're going to do until they actually do it. Obama needs to accomplish something - ANYTHING, before he should be given this award.
They might be claiming that his achievement is in being elected as the U.S.'s first African American President. But that is more an accomplishment of the American people, that they've come so far from where they used to be on race relations - but even that is not worthy of recognition, because the U.S. should never have been so bad in the first place.
All this most recent award does is prove that the Nobel Prize is a popularity contest, in particular, in recognition of liberal politics. In all likelihood, the award was given to Obama so as to raise the profile of the Prize itself by using Barack Obama's popularity - whereas it is supposed to raise the profile of the recipient. Not cool.
And things like this only polarize even further those who are already opposed to Barack Obama.
Maybe Obama will be a great president someday. And its good that he was embarrassed to receive the award, recognizing that he doesn't deserve it. That's all great. But for today, he should have turned it down, and let it go to someone else. The fact that he didn't just demonstrates the very lack of experience that John McCain complained about.