International Law
Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize for Efforts at International Diplomacy
Posted Oct 9, 2009 5:33 AM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
President Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”
The Washington Post says the “stunning decision” drew gasps from the audience waiting for the announcement. The decision “sparked immediate questions from reporters in Oslo, who noted that Obama so far has made little concrete progress in achieving his lofty and ambitious agenda,” the story says.
The Nobel Committee cited Obama’s diplomatic efforts and his call for a world without nuclear weapons. Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland also pointed to Obama’s speech about Islam in Cairo last spring.
Obama is the third sitting U.S. president to win the prize (Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt also won it while in office) and the third prominent Democrat to win since 2002 (former President Jimmy Carter and Al Gore also won).
The New York Times also has the story.
Related coverage:
TaxProf Blog: "Tax Consequences of President Obama's Nobel Prize"
Updated as 12:45 p.m. CT to include TaxProf Blog coverage.
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Comments
associate
Oct 9, 2009 8:23 AM CST
The Nobel Committee acted stupidly.
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Time
Oct 9, 2009 9:19 AM CST
Any person who was elected president and ended the last 8 pitiful and painful years was bound to be a strong contender for the Peace Prize.
The reemergence of Hope is a powerful thing.
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Anon
Oct 9, 2009 9:27 AM CST
I voted for Obama, twice, but still! It’s really hard to take the Nobel Peace Prize seriously after this.
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Steve
Oct 9, 2009 9:28 AM CST
This makes a mockery of the nobel peace price. It is worthless and makes a mockery of it. I only wonder if Obama is going to pay taxes on his million dollar winning.
Then again the 09 winner refuses to meet with the 89 winner dali lami because he doesn’t want to offend chinese dictator. so much for peace.
Does anyone else think this is a million dollar bribe by the international community to get obama to sign the climate bill?
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AndytheLawyer
Oct 9, 2009 11:36 AM CST
The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to questionable recipients many times. My favorite is the one to Henry Kissinger—after he spent years helping to turn Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia into abatoirs. Obama’s is at best premature, but that’s the worst you can say about it.
I expect that the loudest voices howling about it will be the same bitter,defeated Republicans who cheered America’s failure to obtain the 2016 summer Olympics.
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London Calling
Oct 9, 2009 12:05 PM CST
@#5 Andy
“Premature” is not the worst thing you can say about the Committee’s decision. The worst thing you can say about Obama’s award is that it is currently undeserving, may never be deserving and certainly deprived a deserving recipient of the award. I hope that someday Obama will do something to deserve the award (give it to him then) but today, the Committee’s decision certainly cheapened the award.
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JR
Oct 9, 2009 1:05 PM CST
I think the Republicans and their right-wing nuts have sunk to a new low. We should feel proud that the US has risen in the esteem of the world that our president receives the Nobel Prize. President Obama correctly said that he as an individual did not deserve the prize, but he will accept it as a call for world cooperation.
In my opinion, his efforts to return the rule of law to the international stage, in the face of Republican opposition and the mess George W. Bush made merit the prize.
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Lee
Oct 9, 2009 2:41 PM CST
James Taranto in today’s Wall Street Journal “nails it” perfectly:
“The jokes write themselves. Six days ago, ‘Saturday Night Live’ was mocking Obama for having accomplished nothing, and the president’s media protectors were crying foul. After all, can’t expect a guy to accomplish very much in a few short months. But the incongruity of this staggeringly premature honor—the equivalent of a lifetime-achievement Oscar for a child star—makes yesterday’s satire into today’s news.”
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B. McLeod
Oct 9, 2009 6:39 PM CST
I share the sentiments expressed by #6, and must admit, I do feel cheated. After all, I have often advocated for peace by various media and in many fora. Further, over an extensive period of years now, I have neither killed anybody, nor issued any directives to others resulting in such actions. On the other hand, I am pretty sure that since January, Mr. Obama has regularly issued war directives, resulting in numerous and pointless deaths. This, for no greater reason than absence of the moral fibre necessary to discontinue the ill-advised military adventures launched by his predecessor.
The Nobel Peace Prize?? Please.
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Paul the Magyar
Oct 12, 2009 10:01 AM CST
The world has too few levers (carrots and sticks) to move American foreign policy in the ways the world would like to move American foreign policy.
So let us not nitpick when the world uses one of its very few levers, moral suasion, in a positive way to reinforce good American foreign policy.
To waste ANY words or time bemoaning the President’s award is petty and pointless and misses the significance of the matter.
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Bean Counter
Oct 12, 2009 12:16 PM CST
Fidel Castro said it; this is not about what Obama has not accomplished [in peace] but what previous U.S. Presidents had accomplished [in war].
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