US President Barack Obama says he's honoured and humbled to win the Nobel Peace Prize and will accept it as a "call to action" to work with other nations to solve the problems of the 21st Century. Mr Obama told reporters in the White House Rose Garden that he's not sure he's done enough to earn the award, or deserves to be in the company of the celebrated other laureates before him. - Obama is right, he doesn't deserve it. Maybe he will share it with the IPCC. - ed
State Department Lauds Obama's Nobel Peace Prize by Making Jab at Bush
In a clear dig at former President George W. Bush, a State Department spokesman compared President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize to the flying footwear his predecessor faced in Iraq. "From our standpoint, you know, we think that this gives us a sense of momentum … when the United States has accolades tossed its way, rather than shoes," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters on Friday.
Carl Williams plans revenge in tell-all
GANGLAND figure wants his own book deal, as ex-wife Roberta slams Mick Gatto's effort.
'I'm the most persecuted man in history'
ITALIAN Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi says he has spent more than $325m in the courts defending his good name. - the appalling press have a lot to answer for. It isn't like the guy is Roman Polanski. - ed.
Two killed in yacht race accident
TWO people have died and 16 have been rescued after a yacht overturned off the Australian east coast during a race early today.
Turnbull's mates turned to rival
LIBERAL insiders were working on Peter Costello as opposition leader only four weeks ago. - still no questions on who will succeed Rudd - ed.
Golfer 'loses arm in alligator attack'
AN alligator has bitten off part of a golfer's arm as he went to pick up his ball at a private course in the US, reports said today.
Pastor Benny Hinn: Charlatan or Man of God?
Pastor Benny Hinn is being investigated by the Senate Finance Committee and was recently denied entry into the United Kingdom. The press has been bad, he says, because the media doesn't understand him.
NASA water bombs the moon's surface
TWO rockets have been fired into the moon to search for water that could be used by astronauts.
Jacksons say thanks to Hey Hey Harry
MICHAEL Jackson's brothers thank Harry Connick Jr for sticking up for them in "blackface" row.
NSW obsessed with McMansions
WHILE the rest of Australia opts for smaller, more efficient abodes, new homes being built in NSW are 22 per cent larger than the national average.
=== Journalists Corner ===
Michael Moore Speaks Out!
They sparred over the economy, health care, and everything in between.
Don't miss part 2 of the explosive interview everyone's talking about!
===
No Longer Number One?
First we lost the Olympics; now countries are dumping the dollar ... Is the U.S. losing its mojo?
===
Guest: Col. Oliver North
Col. Oliver North sits down with Huckabee to talk about the future strategy in Afghanistan.
===
The Jobless Recovery!
What's the government really doing to help states across the country survive this crisis?
=== Comments ===
Trouble Inside the Democratic Party?
By Bill O'Reilly
As you know, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are the two most powerful Democrats in the country — next to President Obama, of course. Well Tuesday, speaking after their meeting with the president about Afghanistan, there was this display:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. HARRY REID, D-NEV.: Madam Speaker, the one thing that I think was interesting is that everyone, Democrats and Republicans, said whatever decision you make, we'll support it, basically. So we will see.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
Now am I reading that wrong? Did Ms. Pelosi look uncomfortable? Was there a little eye roll there?
Certainly Republicans think there is tension between Pelosi and Reid, but again, you're going to have to make the call. This could all be just an awkward moment, not anything more. But there is no question the Democratic Congress is having big problems.
According to a Gallup poll released this week, just 21 percent of Americans believe Congress, controlled by the Democrats, is doing a good job. That is down 10 points in one month.
Also, the Rasmussen Daily Tracking Poll has the president at 48 percent approval on Thursday — down three points in three days.
So what is going on? I believe many independent Americans see weak leadership coming from the president and Congress. Health care is a mess, Afghanistan is unsettled, unemployment is about 10 percent and climbing, and it seems the Democratic leadership has few solutions.
Speaker Pelosi, for example, apparently opposes more troops to Afghanistan:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NANCY PELOSI, SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I don't think there's a great deal of support for sending more troops to Afghanistan in the country or in the Congress.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
What Ms. Pelosi does not seem to understand is that failure in Afghanistan means a huge blow to American prestige. It would be a big win for the terrorists.
It is not enough to oppose. You have to have a better idea. Does Pelosi have solutions? Does Reid? Does the president?
Hope is one thing. Solving complicated and vitally important problems is quite something else.
The Democrats have had eight and a half months to improve the nation. So far, they have failed to do that.
===
PLANET BEGINS TO HEAL
Tim Blair
In honour of Obama’s Nobel prize, his hometown cancels global warming:
Start cursing the weather gods, Chicago.Imagine how much colder it would be if Al Gore, the famous climate phenomenon, was also in town. But he’s at a conference of environmental journalists in Wisconsin, where … well, you guessed it:
Snow could be coming to town as early as this weekend. That’s right, snow. Flurries and flakes.
The forecast says that Saturday night rain will turn into the white stuff early Sunday morning.
If the snow sticks, it would be the earliest recorded measurable snowfall in Chicago.
The temps will feel more like late November than early October this weekend, as cold air from Canada covers Wisconsin in a blanket of frost and near record low temperatures …UPDATE. Media concern that Obama’s prize will make people laugh at him:
To top off the cold, snow is in the forecast as well … there could be some accumulation in central Wisconsin of up to a quarter-inch of snow on grassy surfaces Saturday night.
It’s not just the harsh rhetoric from the right - rhetoric that will only grow louder over the weekend on the Sunday talk shows - that threatens the president.It’s funny because it’s true.
It’s the comedy gold that the blogosphere as well as the late night talk show hosts and “Saturday Night Live” will exploit to no end.
In fact, there’s already a joke formula that’s exploded: fill in the blank with your favorite award (Oscar, American Idol, etc.) and say that President Obama has already won it without accomplishing anything to deserve it.
UPDATE II. Here’s the list.
UPDATE III. Meet the people who were passed over for Obama.
===
TITLE CLAIMED
Tim Blair
It’s a crowded field, but we may have found the stupidest person on the internet. Readers are welcome to attempt explaining to South Australian academic Damian Lataan how creative types will sometimes rework material sourced online ("see, Damian, what they’ve done is take the original MEMRI clips and added storyboards and funny music ...") but be warned: that’s 48 hours of your life you’ll never get back. And there’s no guarantee, even after that amount of time, that Lataan will have any idea what you’re talking about.
===
USAFL
Tim Blair
“I saw this in my local newspaper,” emails Cincinnati reader Wronwright:
An Australian pastime with a growing American contingent is making its way to Warren County this weekend.Further from our man in Ohio: “I thought it was interesting. Especially since lately I’ve been asking my fellow Aussie commenters what sports like footy is all about.
The United States Australian Football League is holding its 2009 national championships Saturday and Sunday at Heritage Oak Park in Mason.
“I’ve often thought I would go to a footy match if it was located fairly conveniently to me. And I guess now there is one. But what I really meant is I’d go if they’d serve copious amounts of Australian beverages like XXXX or Victoria Bitter.
“Unfortunately, the article doesn’t mention that.
“That’s exactly the type of shoddy journalism that has made readers like me give up on traditional newspapers.” Indeed. Helpfully, an online version of the article does indeed mention the event’s alcoholic attractions:
Coopers beer and Alice White Wine are event sponsors. An after-party open to players and the public will follow Sunday at Brazenhead in Mason. The party begins at 7 p.m. Sunday, with drink specials and entertainment to follow at 8 p.m.Wronwright now has no excuse. He must attend, and take pictures.
===
THEY’LL GET YOU IN THE END
Tim Blair
A cautionary tale.
===
CHILD TORMENTED
Tim Blair
Following Clive Hamilton’s advice, the British government ramps up the fear:
Climate change sceptics are to be targeted in a hard-hitting government advertising campaign that will be the first to state unequivocally that Man is causing global warming and endangering life on Earth …Sharia law, for example.
The advertisement attempts to make adults feel guilty about their legacy to their children. It features a father telling his daughter a bedtime story of “a very very strange” world with “horrible consequences” for today’s children.
The storybook shows a British town deep under water, with people and animals drowning.
Take a look. This bloke should be charged for child abuse:
Sweet dreams, future dead person! Have fun fishing your puppy’s corpse out of the yard tomorrow, if you live that long!
Carbon dioxide is depicted as rising in clouds of black soot from cars and homes, including from a woman’s hairdryer.Soot? Soot? And a coal-powered hair-dryer? Which century is this campaign aimed at?
The soot gathers into a jagged-toothed monster menacing the town.Someone in Britain with jagged teeth. At last, a note of realism.
The daughter asks her father if the story has a happy ending and a voiceover cuts in, saying …… “Visit Australia and get away from these fat sociopaths and their apocalypse fantasies.” Seriously, with a little reworking this could be the best Australian tourism promotion ever.
UPDATE. “Children, kitties & puppies hardest hit.”
===
FIVE PLUS ONE
Tim Blair
Five dodgy Norwegians give an encouragement prize to Barack Obama. According to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, this “confirms, finally, America’s return to the hearts of the people of the world.” The whole world? And here’s the Prez himself:
“This prize reflects the kind of world we want to build … I will accept this award as a call to action … We can’t accept a world where people are denied opportunity … This award must be shared with everyone who strives for justice and dignity.”Who knew that fewer than half-a-dozen unknown gravlaks-munchers could make him do all that stuff?
UPDATE. American Digest:
Accomplishments are not the only thing that’s a bit fuzzy about this “moment.” Here’s a screen shot of the Nobel announcement page at 3:07:
Rather symbolic, isn’t it?
UPDATE II. CBS’s Daniel Farber: “The prestigious award more than makes up for the loss of the Olympic Games in Chicago in terms of political capital.” If you say so.
UPDATE III. According to Wikipedia’s entry for Nobel chairman Thorbjørn_Jagland:
In 1998, Jagland was confronted with another incident, after placing his hands on Synnøve Svabø’s breasts on national television. Svabø was at that time talk show host for Weekend Globoid.
I mention this only because Weekend Globoid is a spectacular name for a TV show.
===
HOLD YOUR FIRE
Tim Blair
So much for climate change being a security issue:
The science of climate change is too doubtful to dramatically change Australia’s national defence plans, according to a key adviser on the Australian Defence Force’s recent White Paper …Damn. I want my climate change war.
A key adviser on the white paper, Professor Ross Babbage, says he is not convinced that climate change exists at all.
===
AVOID DELAY
Tim Blair
Back in May, Mark Steyn made a sporting offer to Andrew Sullivan:
I’d be happy to take him for falafel at my favorite restaurant in Amsterdam in 2025. And afterwards he can buy me a drink at his favorite gay bar. If he can find one.
That schedule, as Steyn now writes, may need to be accelerated.
===
SPRING IS SPRUNG
Tim Blair
J.F. Beck in Quadrant Online on Carsonian craziness:
Norman Borlaug, widely credited as the father of the Green Revolution, which saved upwards of a billion developing world lives, was contemptuous of anti-chemical “fear-provoking, irresponsible environmentalists”, publicly calling their efforts to ban DDT and other agricultural chemicals “vicious” and “hysterical”. Given that the modern environmental movement was built on Rachel Carson’s fear-provoking, irresponsible and at times hysterical cornerstone – Silent Spring – it’s only natural that the movement shares these characteristics. The viciousness? It’s the left’s traditional tool for silencing opposition. If that doesn’t work there’s always violence.
===
But would Costello have said yes, anyway?
Andrew Bolt
How the Liberals lost their last pre-election chance to get a credible and effective leader, according to Dennis Shanahan (and Peter Costello):
CONFIDANTS of Malcolm Turnbull, convinced his leadership of the opposition was terminal and he was leaving politics, sounded out Peter Costello about taking over the Liberal leadership only four weeks ago.
Approaches to Mr Costello were on the basis Mr Turnbull was resigning… About two weeks ago, just as Joe Hockey made his decision to stand as Liberal leader if Mr Turnbull’s leadership failed, Mr Costello was told Mr Turnbull had “changed his mind” and was staying on…
Suggestions Mr Costello should take over, even as he prepared to resign from parliament, died off after the Liberal Party deputy leader of 14 years insisted on speaking directly to Mr Turnbull and not through a nominated intermediary.
But Mr Costello’s final rejection of the Liberal leadership and irrevocable resignation coincided this week with Mr Hockey’s public confirmation that he had been approached by colleagues to stand for the leadership.
Costello isn’t leaving without a few last kicks at Turnbull. And Turnbull isn’t leaving with a single Liberal left to adequately replace him. - and STILL Bolt fails to address the more pressing issue of who will replace Rudd on the ALP side. We know he won't stick around if there is no early election .. and he might get sent to jail for corruption anyways .. - ed.
===
Dreaming we’ll be saved from our folly
Andrew Bolt
If only warming believer Lenore Taylor followed her arguments through to their logical - and frightening - conclusion as she airily urges the Liberals to back Kevin Rudd’s emissions trading scheme:
Call me a nasty neo-liberal, but I think a well-designed market is by far the smartest approach and in the end will overcome lots of “heavy-handed interference”. For example, even under the gentlest 5 per cent emission reduction target embraced by both sides of politics, the carbon price will be headed towards $40 a tonne by 2020, a price that dictates that clean coal technology (if it works) or nuclear will have to be brought in to our power mix, whatever heavy-handed bans or rules politicians may seek to impose.Let’s put to one side - as does Taylor, for other reasons - some inconvenient truths, as in the fact that the planet hasn’t warmed for a decade and nothing Australia does would prevent any warming anyway, and would only kill jobs.
Examine instead her blithe assurance that as the carbon price soars (even under the “gentlest” targets), and with it the price of almost everything else including our exports, that we’ll have a no-worries solution to what will become a tax too high for the economy to survive. Don’t worry, she assures us: to replace dirty coal-fired power in 2020 we’ll have either nuclear power or clean-coal technology.
Two critical problems. First, clean-coal technology on the scale we’d need has not been proved anywhere, and even if it is made to work (at what cost?) is unlikely to be ready and installed in a decade. Nuclear power is meanwhile banned by the Rudd Government, and would take at least a decade to install from the lifting of any ban - presuming no state government, green army or politicised judge halts it in the meantime.
Until either or both of those for-now huge obstacles are overcome, it’s the highest folly to presume they’ll be around in 2020 to save us from the consequences of Rudd’s colossal tax.
That’s the whole point of much of the opposition, Lenore. Peter van Onselen understands this point rather better.
===
Obama wins Olympic gold
Andrew Bolt
More sensational news from Norway:
Barack Obama has won the 100 metres at the London Olympics, to be run in 2012.
IOC spokesman Che Riviera said the committee had decided to award Obama the gold medal after the president made a series of speeches in which he promised to run an astonishing 9.5 seconds.
“Obama captured the world’s attention, and expressed values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population,” Riviera said.
“We would hope this will enhance what he is trying to do.”
UPDATE
Tim Blair notes a sudden cooling in Obama’s home town. Al Gore is caught in a snowstorm, too.
===
Artless Obamas
Andrew Bolt
Charlotte Higgins is just one of the many now gushing over the impeccable taste of the Holy Obamas, who have chosen new art for the White House:
The Obamas have also selected work by Jasper Johns, Ed Ruscha, Josef Albers and Sam Francis. These are the great giants of postwar art, quintessentially and ineluctably American, yet, at times, acerbic critics on the national condition. It seems clear the Obamas have a personal liking for abstract expressionism, but they are also projecting a clear message: they are thoughtful, comfortable with abstraction, aesthetically sophisticated. And patriotic.Actually, the choice of art suggests rather that the Obamas have no sense of history - at least of art history - and have instead included pieces that say, “We have a sense of political messaging” and “Other than that we’re a bit out of ideas”.
Unsurprisingly – and pleasingly – the Obamas have also chosen to hang works by African-American artists, including two works by Glenn Ligon, a selection of William H Johnsons, and a piece by the African-American abstract expressionist, Alma Thomas....Despite the pile-up of modern art, the Obamas have also included pieces that say, “We have a sense of history”:...
Take the work by Alma Thomas, which turns out to be just a (black female) artist’s lightly disguised rendition of another (white male) painter’s work:
As Michelle Malkin notes:
Alma Thomas’s “Watusi” (1963) looks to be an almost exact reproduction of a 1953 piece by Henri Matisse titled “L’Escargot” (right)...
As for the Ruscha, doesn’t the work say it all about Barack Obama:
===
Probably useless, admits charter architect
Andrew Bolt
We really do live in an age in which judgments are made on the seeming, not on the achieving. Judge that not just by Obama’s bizzare Peace Prize, but by the recommendation of a charter of human rights by a committee which doubts it will work:
THE key mechanism that underpins the nation’s proposed charter of rights is unworkable, according to the man who helped design it.Paul Kelly:
And critics claim the charter will erode government service delivery, engulf public servants in a wave of damages claims and contribute to a blowout in government spending on legal services.
Father Frank Brennan, who helped design the proposed charter, has conceded that “enormous practical problems” will prevent the High Court from taking on expanded responsibilities under the proposed charter. ”My own view is that I think this provision is not going to be workable,” he said.
The human rights debate is about politics: it is a device to achieve social, political and economic change opposed by a majority of the population by recourse to human rights law as interpreted by the courts. The Brennan report will further divide the country.It’s like Rudd’s “fix” for global warming: here’s something that will cost us plenty, yet won’t work to fix a problem that doesn’t actually seem to exist.
===
Army defends us from warming mania
Andrew Bolt
The Rudd Government finally gets some sane advice on global warming:
The science of climate change is too doubtful to dramatically change Australia’s national defence plans, according to a key adviser on the Australian Defence Force’s recent White Paper.
--Margot O’Neill, ABC News, 9 October 2009
The data on what’s really happening in climate change was looked at pretty closely and the main judgment reached was that it was pretty uncertain - it wasn’t clear exactly what was going on. When you look at that data, it really does suggest that there hasn’t been a major change in the last decade or so and certainly no major increase. So the sort of judgments that were required have to be fairly open at this stage.
--Ross Babbage, ABC News, 9 October 2009
Has it finally become permissable to doubt? How fast the (intellectual) climate is changing. After all, it’s only a year since The Chaser toured a show that mocked me as the last remaining sceptic in Australia.
===
Orwell’s green Britain
Andrew Bolt
Problem: what to do when the public won’t buy your nutty scares, wild claims and dodgy science?
The majority of the British public is still not convinced that climate change is caused by humans - and many others believe scientists are exaggerating the problem, according to an exclusive poll for The Observer. The results have shocked campaignersA visiting Australian authoritarian and deep-green worshipper of the alarmist faith has advice that’s surprisingly unethical, given his job:
Clive Hamilton, Professor of public ethics at the Australian National University, said the majority of the population is still in denial about the risks of climate change. He compared the situation to the psychology of the British and German populations before the Second World War and said the only way to make people change their behaviour is to ”ramp up the fear factor.”The British Government agrees, and with its plans for huge new green taxes in danger decides besides to launch a new scare campaign that targets the most vulnerable of all its citizens - the children,:and their protective parents.
Ministers sanctioned the campaign because of concern that scepticism about climate change was making it harder to introduce carbon-reducing policies such as higher energy bills.What consequences they are, too, drawn not from science but propaganda textbooks:
The advertisement attempts to make adults feel guilty about their legacy to their children. It features a father telling his daughter a bedtime story of “a very very strange” world with “horrible consequences” for today’s children.
The storybook shows a British town deep under water, with people and animals drowning.Carbon dioxide is depicted as rising in clouds of black soot from cars and homes, including from a woman’s hairdryer. The soot gathers into a jagged-toothed monster menacing the town..Have these people lost their minds? The real danger is clearly not global warming but an unprincipled, over-mighty government with totalitarian instincts of the kind Hamilton shares:
Philip Stott, Emeritus Professor of Biogeography at the University of London and a critic of the Government’s plan to cut CO2, said the advert was an attempt to manipulate people with alarmist language and apocalyptic imagery. “It is straight out of Orwell’s 1984: an attempt to control with images of a perpetual war against something, in this case climate change.”===
Obama’s Nobel: the Left rewards its own
Andrew Bolt
So who decided to give Barack Obama the Nobel Peace Prize for doing nothing but talk? Who gave it to a man with no concrete achievements, and who’d been just 11 days in office when nominations closed?
Here they are, the five Peace Prize judges appointed by the Norwegian Storting (parliament) under the terms of Alfred Nobel’s bequest:
Thorbjørn Jagland (Chairman) - President of the Storting, former Labor Prime Minister, vice president of the Socialist Inrternational, named by the KGB as a ”confidential contact”.I think the numbers tell the tale, given three of the five are either Socialists or of the Labour Party, orginally formed as a Marxist group.. Wouldn’t hurt Obama, either, that four of the five judges are women.
Kaci Kullmann Five - public affairs advisor and former Conservative politican.
Sissel Rønbeck - former minister of Left-wing Labour Party.
Inger-Marie Ytterhorn - political adviser to the centre-Right Progress Party
Ågot Valle - Socialist Left member of Parliament.
But Jagland seems confused about whether Obama was given the prize as a reward for deeds done or for deeds merely promised:
“We are not awarding the prize for what may happen in the future, but for what he has done in the previous year,” Mr. Jagland said. ”We would hope this will enhance what he is trying to do.”===
Obama wins Nobel for showing up
Andrew Bolt
Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize - the once-great honor that has now become a highly politicised joke.
Where is the peace Obama has brought? What has he actually achieved?
In fact, here’s the undeniable proof of that Obama did nothing at all to deserve an award once handed out for ending wars or creating a League of Nations: in fact, deadlines for nominations for this year’s prize ended on February 1, just 11 days after Obama took office. Associated Press claims that deadline is ”strictly enforced”. This was a prize given to Obama by Norwegian politicians for just being Obama.
So what excuse does the committee actually give for now handing its prize to Obama, just nine months into his term in office?
In an announcement in Oslo, he was honoured “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” the head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Thorbjoern Jagland said.So let’s go through that list.
“Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as (Mr) Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future,” the committee said.
“His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.”
The committee said it attached special importance to Mr Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.
“(Mr) Obama has as president created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play.”
First, Obama has given several speeches saying America has acted badly, and wants to be friends. He’s offered concessions to Iran and Russia, and got tough on Israel in the hope of bring peace to the Middle East. The result so far? Iran contines to work on its weapons program, Russia has offered nothing in return, Israel has given Obama the bird and the Middle East is not a step closer to peace. Indeed, Obama is now having to consider sending more troops to Afghanistan.
Second, Obama has been honored for being famous. This gives Brad Pitt a lot of hope of winning the next Peace Prize, but what has that fame actually brought?
Third, Obama has apparently accepted that the US must go along with the values and aspirations shared by “the majority of the world’s population”. But aspirations and values as defined by whom? China, the world’s biggest nation and biggest autocracy? But it’s true - Obama has gone quieter on defending democracy and human rights.
Fourth, the committee praises Obama dreams of a world without nuclear weapons. Three problems: that dream will never come true, a disarming US will probably trigger an arms race by minor powers, and a world without nuclear weapons would in any event become as unsafe as the world was in the 1930s. Oh, and while Obama talks of disarmament, in fact he’s done nothing effective to stop Iran from soon gaining a nuclear weapon, too. Obama speaks of disarmament, but others are arming. His dreams are mocked by reality.
And fifth, Obama is praised for talking nicely about the UN, that corrupt, ineffective institution whose human rights committee is now a plaything for autocracies. He is praised for suborning US power - the greatest guarantor of democracy.
In short, Obama has been rewarded for talking, not acting, and for promising to curb America’s ideals and power. The international Left, which has long dominated the Nobel Peace Prize committee, applauds. As it did with Jimmy Carter and Al Gore, the committee now hands its prize to yet another American politician who is not George Bush. And it rewards him for what he promises, not for a single thing he’s achieved.
What an utter circus.
UPDATE
The world laughs.
Michael Binyon:
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.
David Blair:
So far, however, Mr Obama has no concrete achievement to his credit.... The only possible explanation for the judges’ decision to reward Mr Obama is that they are betting on his future achievements.
Benedict Brogan:
They could have awarded it to Kylie Minogue and I wouldn’t have been half as surprised… 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!). ... He should turn it down...
Micky Kaus:
Turn it down! Politely decline. Say he’s honored but he hasn’t had the time yet to accomplish what he wants to accomplish.
Paul Reynolds:
In awarding President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian committee is honouring his intentions more than his achievements.
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