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I realize that many believe President Obama’s recent Nobel Peace Prize to be a joke and best and a sham at worst. All the same, the man didn’t campaign for the prize. The New York Times reported that it even caught the White House off guard, with chief of staff Rahm Emanuel saying, “There has been no discussion, nothing at all.” But what was the president supposed to do? Tell the committee, “Thanks, but no thanks?”  

Apparently, that’s how David Brooks of the New York Times feels, telling Michele Norris on NPR, “I thought frankly, he should’ve turned it down.” What good would this have done? Insulted the Nobel committee? I’m willing to bet that he would have gotten more bad press for turning it down, than graciously accepting the prize with a humble, “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,” as he did.

Meanwhile, the President of the Nobel committee, Thorbjørn Jagland, is working on justifying his committee’s choice to the rest of the world, comparing it to the prize of Willy Brandt while he was chancellor of West Germany. “Brandt hadn’t achieved much when he got the prize, but a process had started that ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall.” He went on to say, “The same thing is true of the prize to Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990, for launching perestroika. One can say that Barack Obama is trying to change the world, just as those two personalities changed Europe.”

Whether or not the prize is justified, give Obama a break. The man did not campaign for it. Did this announcement potentially seriously damage the respectability of the Nobel Peace Prize? Of course. But Obama shouldn’t be penalized for receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. Criticize the committee, not him.

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Several of you have been wondering why I don’t simply copy and paste my full Sun-Sentinel pieces on this site. There aren’t hard and fast copyright rules where most blogging is concerned, but I like my employer and I think mutual respect is the best way to go in relationships. I give you the link, and you go to their site to read it. They got the scoop, and they deserve your eyeballs on their site where you can see their advertisers and their other features. I’m sure they’d do the same for me. I will, however, give you a taste of my latest post so you know whether it’s worth clicking the link to read the whole thing:

The committee thought to themselves, “What is the most important thing that has happened in the last year to promote peace in this world?” And the answer they came up with was, “George W. Bush went back to Texas.”

Read the rest here.

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