The Noble Prize for Stupidity « Northwest Digest

The Noble Prize for Stupidity

By Adam at October 9th, 2009.

The award for Barack Obama may be the most stunningly undeserved use of the Nobel Peace Prize. When you add it up, the Nobel Prize Committee is giving Obama an “A” for effort, and even that’s not deserved when the President of France is calling you naive and making fun of you.

The Nobel Committee has made a spate of unjustified decisions in recent years, though. Consider the Nobel Prizes for Jimmy Carter, which was mainly an attempt to thumb its nose at George W. Bush for being a “big evil warmonger”. Or think about the Nobel Prize for Al Gore for jetting around the world in large private jets to scare us to death about global warming.

There used to be a time when Nobel Peace Prize winners earned their awards through a lifetime of work for peace. Not today. Today, we give it to a guy for accomplishing nothing, as a slap on the back and an atta boy to the world’s favorite pats. Congratulations, Mr. President, Nelson Mandela had to spend 20 years in jail to get the award that you “earned” by being elected on a promise of hope and change. Mother Teresa had to spend decades in the slums of calcutta for the sick and dying to earn her award.

As bad as the Nobel Prize Committee’s decisions this decade have been, they have made dumb decisions before, like handing an award to terrorist Yasser Arafat become the committee was snowed into believing that the Palestinians would change their way. Or the decision to award Woodrow Wilson the Nobel Peace Prize for coming up with the idea for the League of Nations (which ended up failing) and composing the Fourteen Points (which was totally ignored at the Versailles treaty.)

However, beginning with the Jimmy Carter prize in 2002, the Noble Prize Committee began issuing awards to people who had no business even being considered for one. This however takes the cake. It devalues the award. With apologies to Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King, being a Nobel Peace Prize winner means far less than it did seven years.

Tags: Barack Obama, Nobel, Nobel Prize