(Thorbjoern Jagland Chairman of the Nobel Prize Committee explains to the AP why they chose to nominate Pres. Barack Obama.)
(Neither the GOP nor Rush Limbaugh were pretending to be gracious about Pres. Obama's Nobel Peace Prize award. The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson talks about the right-wing’s inability to see good news for President Obama as good news for the United States.)
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Nobel Prize To Obama Defended
The announcement drew gasps of surprise and cries of too much, too soon. Yet President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday because the judges found his promise of disarmament and diplomacy too good to ignore.
The five-member Norwegian Nobel Committee - four of whom spoke to The Associated Press, said awarding Obama the peace prize could be seen as an early vote of confidence intended to build global support for the policies of his young administration.
They lauded the change in global mood wrought by Obama's calls for peace and cooperation, and praised his pledges to reduce the world stock of nuclear arms, ease U.S. conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthen its role in combating climate change.
"Some people say - and I understand it - 'Isn't it premature? Too early?' Well, I'd say then that it could be too late to respond three years from now," Thorbjoern Jagland, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told the AP. "It is now that we have the opportunity to respond - all of us."
Jagland said the committee whittled down a record pool of 205 nominations and had "several candidates until the last minute," but it became more obvious that "we couldn't get around these deep changes that are taking place" under Obama.
Obama said he was surprised and deeply humbled by the honor, and planned to travel to Oslo in December to accept the prize.
"Let me be clear: I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations," he said at the White House. "To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize."
Pres. Obama will donate the $1.4 million cash award that comes with the prize to charity.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who won the prize in 1984, said the decision showed that great things are expected from Obama and "wonderful recognition" of his effort to reach out to the Arab world after years of hostility.
"It is an award that speaks to the promise of President Obama's message of hope," Tutu said.
Many were shocked by the unexpected choice so early in a presidency that began less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline for the prize and has yet to yield concrete achievements in peacemaking.
"So soon? Too early. He has no contribution so far. He is only beginning to act," said former Polish President Lech Walesa, who won the peace prize in 1983.
Some around the world objected to the choice of Obama, who still oversees wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and has launched deadly counterterrorism strikes in Pakistan and Somalia.
Jagland told AP that while the war in Afghanistan was a concern, the Obama administration "immediately started to reassess the strategy."
"That itself is important, because when something goes wrong, then you need to ask yourself why is it going wrong," he said.
Pres. Obama said he was working to end the war in Iraq and "to confront a ruthless adversary that directly threatens the American people and our allies" in Afghanistan, where he is seriously considering increasing the number of U.S. troops on the ground and asking for help from others as the war enters its ninth year.
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi in Afghanistan condemned the Nobel committee's decision, saying Obama had only escalated the war and had "the blood of the Afghan people on his hands."
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki called the Nobel decision "hasty."
"The appropriate time for awarding such a prize is when foreign military forces leave Iraq and Afghanistan and when one stands by the rights of the oppressed Palestinian people," he was quoted as saying by the Mehr news agency.
Aagot Valle, a lawmaker for the Socialist Left party who joined the Nobel committee this year, said she hoped the selection would be viewed as "support and a commitment for Obama."
"And I hope it will be an inspiration for all those that work with nuclear disarmament and disarmament," she told AP in a rare interview. Members of the committee usually speak only through its chairman.
The peace prize was created partly to encourage ongoing peace efforts, but Obama's efforts are at far earlier stages than those of past winners, and the committee acknowledged they may not bear fruit at all.
"If everything goes wrong, then one cannot say that this was because of Barack Obama," Jagland said. "It could be that it is because of us, all the others, that didn't respond. But I cannot exclude that Barack Obama also can contribute to the eventual failure."
In Europe and much of the world, Obama is praised for bringing the U.S. closer to mainstream global thinking on such issues as climate change and multilateralism. A 25-nation poll of 27,000 people released in July by the Pew Global Attitudes Project found double-digit boosts to the percentage of people viewing the U.S. favorably in countries around the world. That indicator had plunged across the world under President George W. Bush.
The award appeared to be at least partly a slap at Bush from a committee that harshly criticized Obama's predecessor for his largely unilateral military action in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
"Those who were in support of Bush in his belief in war solving problems, on rearmament, and that nuclear weapons play an important role ... probably won't be happy," said Valle.
At home, the picture is more complicated. Obama is often criticized by his political opponents as he attempts to carry out his agenda - from government spending to health care to Afghanistan.
Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele said Obama won because of his "star power" rather than meaningful accomplishments.
"The real question Americans are asking is, 'What has President Obama actually accomplished?'" Steele said.
Drawing criticism from some on the left, Obama has been slow to bring troops home from Iraq and the real end of the U.S. military presence there won't come until at least 2012.
The Nobel committee said it paid special attention to Obama's vision of a nuclear-free world, laid out in a speech in Prague and in April and at the United Nations last month.
Former Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, said Obama has already provided outstanding leadership on nuclear non-proliferation.
"He has shown an unshakable commitment to diplomacy, mutual respect and dialogue as the best means of resolving conflicts," ElBaradei said.
In July talks in Moscow, Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed that their negotiators would work out a new limit on delivery vehicles for nuclear warheads of between 500 and 1,100. They also agreed that warhead limits would be reduced from the current range of 1,700-2,200 to as low as 1,500. The U.S. now has about 2,200 such warheads, compared to about 2,800 for the Russians.
There has been no word on whether either side has started to act on the reductions.
Obama also has tried to restart stalled Mideast talks with no progress yet reported.
In the Gaza Strip, leaders of the radical Hamas movement said they had heard Obama's speeches on better relations with the Islamic world but had not been moved.
"We are in need of actions, not sayings," Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said. "If there is no fundamental and true change in American policies toward the acknowledgment of the rights of the Palestinian people, I think this prize won't move us forward or backward."
Obama has said that battling climate change is a priority. Yet the U.S. seems likely to head into crucial international negotiations set for Copenhagen in December with Obama-backed legislation still stalled in Congress.
Unlike the other Nobel Prizes, which are awarded by Swedish institutions, the peace prize is given out by the five-member committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament. Like the Parliament, the panel has a leftist slant, with three members elected by left-of-center parties and two right-of-center members. Jagland said the decision to honor Obama was unanimous.
The secretive committee declined to say who nominated Obama. In Nobel tradition, nominations are kept secret for 50 years, unless those making the submissions go public about their picks. This year's nominations included Colombian activist Piedad Cordoba, Afghan woman's rights activist Simi Samar and Denis Mukwege, a physician in war-torn Congo who opened a clinic to help rape victims.
Nominators for the prize are broad and include former laureates; current and former members of the committee and their staff; members of national governments and legislatures; university professors of law, theology, social sciences, history and philosophy; leaders of peace research and foreign affairs institutes; and members of international courts of law.
Obama is the third sitting U.S. president to win the award: President Theodore Roosevelt won in 1906 and President Woodrow Wilson was awarded the prize in 1919.
In his 1895 will, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the peace prize should go "to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses."
RNC, DNC feud over Barack Obama's Nobel Prize
The Republican National Committee says President Barack Obama doesn’t deserve his Nobel Prize.
The Democratic National Committee says the RNC sounds just like the Taliban and Hamas, sworn enemies of the United States.
And all this debate was over a “peace” prize.
Pres. Obama’s award touched off a bitter fight between the two national parties Friday morning — just the latest example of a rhetorical one-upmanship that seems to have overtaken Washington, on matters from health care to Obama’s birth certificate.
But the reactions to Obama’s Nobel seemed particularly pungent. Obama hadn’t even taken to the White House podium to accept the honor when Republican Chairman Michael Steele issued a statement questioning what Obama has done to deserve the honor.
“The real question Americans are asking is, ‘What has President Obama actually accomplished?’ It is unfortunate that the president’s star power has outshined tireless advocates who have made real achievements working towards peace and human rights,” Steele said in his initial comments.
Even some Obama supporters had raised the question — more delicately to be sure — about whether a president who has been in office for nine months deserves a Nobel Prize. Obama himself said at the White House he didn’t deserve to be grouped with Nobel laureates who came before.
But no matter. The DNC quickly fired back in an e-mail statement, comparing Steele’s criticism to similar statements made by religious extremists.
“The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists — the Taliban and Hamas this morning — in criticizing the president for receiving the Nobel Peace Prize,” said the DNC.
Those two groups had also criticized the selection of Obama for the peace prize.
“We believe he has been rewarded or judged based on good intentions toward peace but not on his achievement,” said Ahmed Yousef, deputy foreign defense minister of Hamas.
“He has done nothing for peace in Afghanistan,” wrote Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid. “…We condemn the institute’s awarding him the peace prize. We condemn this year’s peace prize as unjust.”
Republican committee spokeswoman Gail Gitcho called the Democrats’ attacks “demonizing.”
“First they call Americans concerned over health care ‘rabid extremists’ and ‘angry mobs.’ Now, when challenged to answer the question of what the president has accomplished, Democrats are lashing out calling Republicans terrorists. That type of political rhetoric is shameful,” Gitcho said.
Political experts say partisan knee-jerk reactions are becoming a regular part of the political landscape as partisan interest groups continue to become further polarized.
“Everything else about the administration has been polarized, so we shouldn’t be surprised that a Nobel Peace Prize is polarizing,” said Darrell West, who runs the governance studies program at Brookings Institution. “It’s producing knee-jerk reactions from all quarters, and it’s getting worse over time.”
But the DNC wasn’t the only group examining the similarities. Fox News Correspondent Wendell Goler also made the link.
“If you want to look at it this way, the RNC and the Taliban are basically on the same page. It’s an unusual situation…,” he said.
When POLITICO asked if Steele saw the Taliban or Hamas statement before posting his own, Gitcho replied, “Are you kidding me with this question?”
DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan wouldn’t budge when asked if the committee’s terrorist comparison was extreme.
“You’ll have to ask the RNC why they chose the same tack as the likes of Hamas and the Taliban. But there’s no doubt they did…” Sevugan said.
But not all Republicans are bashing Obama’s award.
Sen. John McCain praised his former campaign opponent in a pretaped episode of CNN’s “State of the Union,” which will air Sunday.
“I can't divine all their intentions, but I think part of their decision making was expectations. And I'm sure the president understands that he now has even more to live up to. But as Americans, we're proud when our president receives an award of that prestigious category.”
Democrats and Republicans were at odds earlier this week when Obama lost his bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games in Chicago. Some Republicans, including conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh, even seemed gleeful.
"[Obama has been] running around the world for nine months telling everybody how much our country sucks. He's been running around the world apologizing for the United States of America. Why would anybody award the Olympics to such a crappy place as the United States of America?” Limbaugh said.
“We’ve reached a point where if Republicans say green, Democrats will say brown,” said West. “It’s juvenile behavior.”
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Sources: Politico, Huffington Post, Washington Post, MSNBC, Nobel Prize Committee, Zimbio, AP, Youtube
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