Nobel "Peace" Prize Officially a Joke

The Nobel "Peace" Prize has, to some extent, been a politicized joke for many, many years. The award of the prize to, first, Jimmy Carter and then to Al Gore as overt slaps at former President Bush by the Nobel Committee might have been the icing on the cake ...

... but for this ginormous pantload of leftist Euroweenie excrement:

President Barack Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize

OSLO (AP) - President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, citing his outreach to the Muslim world and attempts to curb nuclear proliferation.

The stunning choice made Obama the third sitting U.S. president to win the Nobel Peace Prize and shocked Nobel observers because Obama took office less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline. Obama's name had been mentioned in speculation before the award but many Nobel watchers believed it was too early to award the president.

[...]

The committee chairman said after awarding the 2002 prize to former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, for his mediation in international conflicts, that it should be seen as a "kick in the leg" to the Bush administration's hard line in the buildup to the Iraq war.

Five years later, the committee honored Bush's adversary in the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore, for his campaign to raise awareness about global warming...

Nobel Prize officially "jumps the shark".

What a joke! Somebody please tell me we're celebrating April Fool's Day 6 months early.


UPDATE
So when do they change the name of this joke-of-an-award to "The Nobel Prize for Not Being George W. Bush"?

See also the excellent commentary at The American Catholic.


UPDATE #2
A commentator at The Times of London agrees:

Comment: absurd decision on Obama makes a mockery of the Nobel peace prize

The award of this year’s Nobel peace prize to President Obama will be met with widespread incredulity, consternation in many capitals and probably deep embarrassment by the President himself.

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.

[...]

The committee said today that he had “captured the world’s attention”. It is certainly true that his energy and aspirations have dazzled many of his supporters. Sadly, it seems they have so bedazzled the Norwegians that they can no longer separate hopes from achievement. The achievements of all previous winners have been diminished.

UPDATE #3
Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner!

"Ann" gets the prize for "Pathetic Catholic Shilling on Behalf of the Indefensible by Someone Not Named Tony or Doug".

Pretty sad, but hardly surprising, that some Catholics are uncritically celebrating this turn of events. But other Obama supporters are, quite rightly, a little embarassed by what has taken place. I mean, even Obama idolator Michael Sean Winters is "ambivalent" about the award.


UPDATE #4
TIME Magazine on on the familiar-sounding "Nobel Prize for Not Being George W. Bush":

Congratulations to President Barack Obama, recipient of the 89th Nobel Prize for Peace, as well as the fourth Nobel Prize for Not Being George W. Bush.

The NPFNBGWB was first established in 2002, when the Nobel Committee awarded its Peace Prize to former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, ostensibly for monitoring elections in far-flung hellholes, but really for being the most prominent American critic of then President Bush's buildup to a war in Iraq. The NPFNBGWB returned after a short hiatus in 2005, when the prize went to the International Atomic Energy Agency and Mohamed ElBaradei for refusing to confirm the existence of Saddam Hussein's nonexistent weapons of mass destruction before the war in Iraq — in other words, for standing up to Bush. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change probably deserved the Nobel in 2007 for spreading the word about global warming, but the committee wouldn't have dreamed of adding former Democratic Vice President (and almost President) Al Gore if it hadn't wanted to contrast his advocacy with Bush's climate denial.

Apparently, it wasn't enough for the Nobel Committee to swerve off the road to run over Bush once, then back up to run him over twice more. Even though the official representative of Ugly American culture and cowboy diplomacy has remained graciously silent in retirement, the committee decided to stick it to him one more time by choosing his newly minted successor, who has been in office for only nine months but has made some of the right noises about rejecting some of his global policies. There will of course be some bogus cover story about Obama's vision for nuclear disarmament and Middle East peace and climate change, but the anti-Bush message couldn't have been clearer if the Nobel had gone to Keith Olbermann.

This ill-concealed crusade is clearly damaging the prestige of the Nobel; the winners are supposed to be honored for their achievements, not for symbolizing the committee's grudges. And it probably won't do Obama any favors; he wants to be a leader, not a symbol, and honoring him for his rhetoric about a new American approach to diplomacy only reinforces the meme of his critics that he's merely a man of rhetoric...

TIME (again, we're talking about TIME Magazine, not some right-wing outfit) also has some nifty photo shops of other awards that President Obama has "earned".