Affirmative Action and the Nobel Peace Prize

As I'm sure you've all already heard, President Obama won the Nobel Peace prize. It was announced Friday morning to cheers and jeers all across the globe. The announcement drew sharp criticism from the right for reasons of having no real accomplishments to speak of to be so deserving of such a high honor. After all, Jimmy Carter spent 20 years kissing the rear end of every fascist he met before he was nominated. The left crowed triumphantly as if the party itself had won the prize. I'm quite certain that Chris Matthews has been in an orgasmic stupor since hearing the announcement.

Left or right aside, he doesn't deserve it. It smacks of social engineering by the Nobel committee and the President should have had the class and dignity to decline it. He won't of course. This has been the story of his entire career and I would guess, most of his life. Promotion without accomplishment...accolades without achievement. It's certainly been the defining mark of his still young presidency. He's accomplished very little yet the media, for the most part, seems to think he's already changed the world.

What disturbs me most of all is that he appears to believe his own press these days. The Nobel committee isn't helping that one damn bit either. When you consider that the cud off date for nominations is February 1st, that means the committee had only 12 days to use as consideration for his "achievements in the area of promoting peace."

12 days. I'll bet I can find 12 days in my own life that could be considered for the peace prize too. Like the time I worked at a homeless shelter handing out meals as part of a "Artists Against Hunger" campaign sponsored by the music store where I taught. Or when I served in the military and was part of a group of soldiers that spent a month touring Germany...entertaining the German citizens by showcasing that the Army was more than just trained killers. I shook hands with Irwin Rommel's grandson during that tour. I secretly admired Rommel as a military commander only back then as I had a passion for military history for a time in my youth.

I'll not bore you with the details of the life and legacy of Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite. Suffice to say that he has arguably changed the world for good and for ill at the same time. I'll settle for a little insight into the Peace Prize only for the purposes of our discussion here.

According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize should be awarded to the person who:

"during the preceding year...shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."

Taken in that context, as we should after all...it IS Nobel's final request, Obama hasn't accomplished any of what is mentioned. He certainly can't have done it in the 12 days it took the committee to nominate him. I heard the news and was stunned and dumbfounded that someone with so little concrete accomplishments would even be considered let alone win. Something about it, beyond the obvious, didn't sit well with me. It mulled in my brain all day and drove me to distraction until it slipped into place. I would almost swear I could hear a faint click as it locked into place. The question that kept plaguing me was this:

If he didn't deserve such a lofty, coveted prize, how could he have won?

The answer was much simpler than I was giving it credit for.

The Nobel committee was merely playing by the same rules that most Democrats play by. In fact, the committee used a favorite policy of the left to justify the reward...

Affirmative Action.

That's it. In a nutshell, they gave Obama the award for what he was capable of but not deserving of yet. This is the essence of affirmative action. Awarding someone with less than stellar achievements on the basis that without a little nudge, they can't do it themselves. We've all heard the stories of the unintended consequences of affirmative action. Deserving students with 4.0 grade averages being denied entry into some of our most prestigious universities and colleges based solely on the color of their skin. Job applicants being turned away because a company needs "more women and minorities" than it needs qualified people.

This is what the Nobel committee did. They gave the prize to someone who otherwise would not have been qualified over more deserving individuals based solely...on the color of his skin. I think the award was partly to poke former president Bush in the eye, but I suspect that it was primarily to give the award to a black president. Skin color was the deciding factor though in this case.

It's at this point that my liberal friends begin to feel their blood heat up...I can almost hear the accusations forming in their minds...

RACIST!

Not in the least. There is nothing else that explains the award. This man now sits in the company of Mother Theresa, Bishop Desmond Tutu, Begin and Sadat, the 14th Dalai Lama and Lech Walesa--a hallowed list of those people who put peace and brotherhood above the security of their own lives. Obama has done nothing but promote his own career and his meteoric rise to power as his primary goal in life. His nomination after only 12 days in office and his subsequent win is an indelible stain on the prize for time immemorial. There have been other, more infamous nominations in the past of course. The committee is not without it's dark secrets after all. A short list of other nominees include Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin and everyone's poster boy for peace...Adolph Hitler. It's true... You can't make this stuff up.

There is no other way to see Obama winning the peace prize as nothing more than an attempt by the Nobel committee to insert themselves into history in a public and very disturbing way. When you consider that America is embroiled in protests and division as Obama attempts to alter the fabric of our republic, you can't help but wonder if the committee was drunk...or stupid.