If you were wondering how a man who’s been in office for less than nine months, with an application that had to have been submitted when he was in the White House for only a couple of weeks, could possibly be the winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, you’re not the only one.

If newspapers and periodicals from Europe are any gauge, no one actually knows why Obama won this year!

From a left-wing newspaper commentary:

Wat heeft het comité bezield om de prijs toe te kennen aan een
politicus die alle verwachtingen nog moet inlossen? Zijn de vijf
keuzeheren bedwelmd geweest door de roes van hoop?

Translation, according to Google Translate:

What has inspired the committee to award the prize to a politician who
has yet to deliver on expectations? His choice of five men were
intoxicated by the rush of hope?

Yep, they were drunk.

From a left-center Dutch opinion piece:

Met de keuze voor Obama lijkt het Nobelcomité de boodschap opnieuw belangrijker te vinden dan het resultaat. Het onderscheiden van iemand die zich nog moet waarmaken, is echter niet zonder risico. Het comité stelt  terecht dat ‘slechts zeer zelden een persoon in dezelfde mate als Obama de aandacht van de wereld heeft getrokken en haar bevolking hoop op een betere toekomst heeft gegeven’. Precies daar wringt de schoen, want  het is duidelijk dat Obama  steeds meer moeite heeft aan de hooggespannen verwachtingen te voldoen. Tegenover zijn inspirerende woorden  over vrede en ontwapening staan nog maar weinig concrete resultaten. Wat een bekroning hoort te zijn, kan    voor Obama  een loden last worden.

Translation, according to Google Translate:

In choosing Obama the Nobel Committee appears to be saying again that the message more
important than the result. Distinguishing someone who has yet to live up,
is not without risk. The Committee is correct that “only very rarely a
person in the same degree as Obama has drawn attention of the world and
its people hope for a better future”. Right there is the rub,
because it is increasingly clear that Obama has trouble with meeting high
expectations. To his inspiring words about peace and
disarmament are still few concrete results. As an award should be,
Obama’s may be a heavy burden.

Yep, he’s done nothing to deserve it.

The London Telegraph’s chief political commentator thinks Obama should turn it down.   


To reward him for a blank results sheet, to inflate him when he has no
achievements to his name, makes a mockery of what, let’s face it, is an
already fairly discredited process (remember Rigoberta Menchu in 1992?
Ha!).

The Times of London thinks the Nobel Committee’s decision is absurd.

Rarely has an award had such an obvious political and partisan intent. It was
clearly seen by the Norwegian Nobel committee as a way of expressing
European gratitude for an end to the Bush Administration, approval for the
election of America’s first black president and hope that Washington will
honour its promise to re-engage with the world.


Instead, the prize risks looking preposterous in its claims, patronising in
its intentions and demeaning in its attempt to build up a man who has barely
begun his period in office, let alone achieved any tangible outcome for
peace.

The left-wing Guardian wonders, “Why now?”

Indeed, the reasoning behind the awarding of the prize to previous
American presidents has been easier to discern. Teddy Roosevelt opened
the court of arbitration in the Hague and helped mediate a peace treaty
between Russia and Japan; Woodrow Wilson was the founder of the League
of Nations. Jimmy Carter won his prize for his “untiring efforts to
find peaceful solutions to international conflicts”.

Which is
what makes the awarding of this year’s prize to a president who has
been in office for a mere nine months an odd departure. It is as if the
prize committee had been persuaded to give the award on the future
delivery of promises.

The Aussies are shocked.

The Germans think it’s too early.

And the Canadians just can’t figure it out.

So basically, the message is:  if you  hate Bush and make a lot of empty promises, you’re a shoo in for the Nobel Peace Prize.  I wasn’t a huge fan of Bush.  At all.  And I’m fully capable of making a bunch of promises I can’t keep.  So where’s MY Nobel?

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