Top Ten Things that Barack Obama Should Do With His Nobel Prize Award

I was inspired today when I read that the Republican Party of Texas has commented on Friday’s announcement that a sitting US President has won the Nobel Peace Prize by reminding all of us that the prize comes with a monetary award. In this case a $1.4 million monetary award. Now this has them all very concerned down there in the Republican Party. I quote from their statement, all of which you can find here:

“There is one thing we will point out, though. Given the fact that the Nobel Committee has repeatedly awarded various failed Democrats for essentially Not Being Bush, and given the fact that President Obama will stand for election again in 2012 and that today's Nobel Prize will surely come up during that campaign, the Obama re-election committee is duty bound to report the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize as a campaign contribution from a foreign source.”

“Because that's exactly what it is.”

Uh oh. Campaign contributions from a foreign source. Can’t have that. And apparently Barack Obama himself agrees. The White House announced later that day that President Obama will donate all of his prize money to charity.

This has evoked a virtual torrent of news articles, both serious and whimsical, from points of view on both the left and the right, on what Obama should do with his award. On the right, particularly at Fox News, there are a sickening number of posters who unabashedly mention how Obama may need a grille on his teeth. Others that support the purchase of various ornaments to decorate his ride.

I have decided to join in the fray. And again, with apologies to David Letterman (who needs to make a few apologies himself these days), presented below is the Half Empty list of the Top Ten Things that Barack Obama Should Do With His Nobel Prize Award.

10. Buy 100,000 copies of Sarah Palin’s book, Going Rogue, and grind them into compost.

9. Buy postage and stationary for George W. Bush so he can send apology letters to wounded soldiers, families of 9-11 victims, foreign nationals who have been “renditioned,” and the voters of Palm Beach County, Florida.

8. Buy copies of John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage and give them to every Red State Democratic senator and every Blue Dog Democrat in the House of Representatives.

7. Corner the market on the United States' total supply of sour grapes and send them to the Republican Party of Texas with a note affixed simply reading “Enjoy.”

6. Buy 40 cases of Ex-Lax and send one to each Republican US senator. Maybe if we get them unplugged we can get some healthcare reform passed this year.

5. Reimburse Senator John Ensign’s parents for the $96,000 “gift” they made to Doug and Cindy Hampton for . . . well, for just being the great couple that they are.

4. Give it all to Rush Limbaugh. It will render him speechless for a time, and that will be $1.4 million well spent.

3. Everybody says give it to ACORN. OK, give it to ACORN but with the stipulation that they can only use it to buy brothels for rightwing nutjobs carrying video cameras.

2. Buy a bunch of those lawn jockey statues that were once so popular in The South and give them to each and every federal legislator who goes out of his or her way to dismiss Barack Obama because of his biracial ancestry.

And the number one thing that Barack Obama should do with his Nobel Prize award?

1. Pay Kanye West to go on national TV to congratulate Obama for winning The Prize by saying this: “Yo, Obama Imma let you finish but Henry Kissinger had the best accomplishment for winning the Nobel Peace Prize.”

On Accomplishing Peace

I have had it with the rightwing nuts who alternately celebrate wildly when their country loses its bid to host the Olympic Games in 2016 and grumble and complain when their sitting president brings home the Nobel Peace Prize.

“He hasn’t accomplished anything to deserve it,” they whine.

Well, OK, I’ll bite. Let’s do a brief review of a few of the people who have won the Nobel Peace Prize in the past, and what their accomplishments were.

1906: President Theodore Roosevelt, the first sitting president to win The Prize, won it for negotiating the end of the Russo-Japanese War. A war that had already effectively ended with Japan taking possession of the Sakhalin Islands and all of Korea. Reeling from this defeat, Tsar Nicholas II was soon thereafter deposed by the Bolsheviks leading to 80 years of communist oppression. The USSR retook the Sakhalin Islands from Japan as their reward for declaring war on Japan in August 1945 – after America dropped their atomic bombs on Japan.

So much for that accomplishment.

1919: President Woodrow Wilson, the second sitting president to win The Prize, won it for negotiating the Treaty of Versailles and pushing for the creation of The League of Nations. The Treaty of Versailles was seen as such a singular act of punishment of the German people, through their errant government, that it was very effectively waved as a bloody shirt by the fledgling Nazi Party leading to their ultimate takeover of the German government. The League of Nations, an organization that Wilson could not convince his own country to join, was a joke that didn’t stop a single bullet from being fired in anger.

So much for that accomplishment.

1929: Frank Billings Kellogg, a Secretary of State under Herbert Hoover, won The Prize when he negotiated what became known as the Kellogg-Briand Pact, a non-aggression pact that was ultimately signed by 65 countries including Germany, Italy and Japan.

So much for that accomplishment.

1934: Arthur Henderson, British Foreign Secretary, won The Prize after he led the ill-fated World Disarmament Conference, a conference of the League of Nations that sought to limit the size and scope of armaments, chiefly in Europe. The conference broke down when Adolf Hitler withdrew from both the conference and the League of Nations in October 1933.

So much for that accomplishment.

1950: Dr. Ralph Bunche, first African-American Nobel laureate, received his Prize for his efforts in negotiating the 1949 Armistice Agreements between the new state of Israel and its next door neighbors, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Each negotiation resulted in the creation of a Mixed Armistice Commission, or MAC, which oversaw the cease fire at each border. Israel stopped attending these in 1951. Regional war broke out in 1967 and again in 1973. Palestinian refugee camps exist to this day.

So much for that accomplishment.

1978: Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin jointly shared The Prize that year for negotiating an end to Arab-Israeli hostilities. For his trouble, Anwar Sadat was assassinated. See above for the rest of the story.

So much for that accomplishment.

1984: Bishop Desmond Tutu was awarded his Prize for his work in ending Apartheid in South Africa. Never mind the fact that Apartheid existed as a social system for another 10 years until it was ultimately ushered to the ash can of history by F. W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela, who shared The Prize the previous year.

That accomplishment needed to be rewarded twice before it took hold.

1997: Jody Williams got her Nobel Peace Prize for her work in the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Landmines, however, are alive and well in the world and claim an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 new victims every year worldwide.

So much for that accomplishment.

Do you see a trend here? Do these rightwing fanatical nutjobs have a good handle on why or how the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded? Obviously it is not all about accomplishments, is it? It is all about good intentions, all about creating a setting for the accomplishment of peaceful pursuits. It’s not about accomplishments or none but two of the above would have gotten their prizes would they? As a matter of fact, if it was about accomplishment, some of the above need to return the prize money. It’s not about accomplishment. It’s all about what you do to promote world peace and how effective you are in doing that.

Really, it’s all about getting an “A” for effort.

Dismissing The Prize

The country is full of people today who are going out of their way to dismiss the President of the United States. Dismissing him because he is too black. Because he is too young. Because he is too foreign. Because he is too liberal.

And now they are dismissing him because he won the Nobel Peace Prize, and they don’t think he deserves it.

But guess what? Obama himself doesn’t think that he deserves the award. Not for personal achievement anyway. From his speech this morning:

“I am both surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the Nobel Committee. Let me be clear, I do not view it as recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations. To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who have been honored by this prize. Men and women who have inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace. . . . And I know that throughout history the Nobel Peace prize has not been used to honor specific achievement but 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.”

But again, I think Obama is being a little too humble. I think that there is a level of achievement that needs to be considered. Obama has become a force for a new dialogue and a symbol for peaceful resolution of conflict.

In reality, the prize is just as much a statement for the world’s positive opinion of Obama's world view as it is a statement for the world’s negative view of the policies of his predecessor.

Where Bush strived to develop an anti-missile system to oppose the non-existent Russian threat, Obama has dismantled that effort. Where Bush tried to push the production of another fighter plane, the F-22, Obama killed the project as an unneeded war weapon that was also a waste of taxpayer money (getting thanks from no Republicans). Where Bush and McCain were all for a military confrontation in Iran (Remember ‘Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran?), Obama has opened dialogue with them (as he said he would). Where Bush inflamed the passions of the Muslim world, Obama went to Cairo and his speech there on that day brought Muslims to their feet.

Because we are here in America, maybe we can’t see it. We are too close to the situation perhaps. Internationally, Obama is simply seen from a different perspective. Through different eyes.

No, I will not join the chorus of voices dismissing Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize. I think he merits it. I think that the only thing that is completely wrong with this is that the man is still only 48 years old. Only 48 and he not only has become the President of the United States and an internationally respected figure, but now has a Nobel under his belt.

What do you do after that?