A more-of-a-shocker-it-happened-already story today as President Monkey inexplicably wins a Nobel Peace Prize.
Pretty much everybody on the planet, upon hearing that news, has to go... huh?
Even when your remember that the Nobel Peace Prize generally goes to people who reduce, rather than increase the amount of peace in the world (c.f. Kofi Annan, Yassar Arafat) the award makes no sense. After all, the peace prize is awarded to
the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.
This person does have to "do" the most or best work, which implies that some sort of work towards the fraternity between nations has occured. As I'm sure you're all aware, Obama hasn't done anything. The closest I suppose you can argue is since the U.S. Army is a "standing army" and the Taliban are not, he will reduce a standing army in numbers as American soldiers are picked off by suicide bombers. Doesn't seem much like a man holding and promoting peace congresses now does it?
The Nobel Prize has gone to those who haven't really done anything before (c.f. Jimmy Carter, Aung San Suu Kyi) but usually come with some sort of political motive. Carter's nomination was supposed to be a rebuke of President Bush (subsequently laughed off by the American people), and Kyi's was a rebuke of the military junta who arrested her before she could enact a single policy (who just used it as an excuse to bump her sentence up by another couple decades). The only question here is to determine what the political motive could be. It could be a promotion of Obama's continual efforts hoping to encourage his poll numbers to bump back up -- but seems unlikely, since even in Sweden they can notice that the mainstream media has already flogged that dead horse long after it was buried in the ground and a DVD presentation of its life given to its family.
It could be an apology for not getting the Olympics, but that doesn't really cover it either.
Even Obama himself is a little unsure how to frame this new development.
Standing in the Rose Garden to make his first public statement since being woken early by aides bringing news of the award, Mr Obama stressed that his win was just the beginning of his work.So if Obama is correct, then there's an attempt to push his agenda. However, most of his agenda has been domestic, rather than in foreign policy. Apart from more troops in Afghanistan, there isn't even much on the horizon as specific policy goals of Obama. He would like North Korea to be less crazy and Iran to remain non-nuclear and less crazy, but so would President Bush. There are really no foreign policy goals of the Obama Administration apart from hardcore apeasement of foreign dictat...
He said he did not feel he deserved to be in the company of some of the "transformative figures" who had previously received the award.
Some of his aims, particularly the goal of universal nuclear disarmament, would be difficult to achieve even within his lifetime, let alone his presidency, Mr Obama said.
And he sought to deflect some of the global surprise at his win, describing the award as "affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations".
"I know that throughout history the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honour specific achievements," he said.
"It's also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes. And that is why I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st Century."
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...oh shit.
