Philadelphia Negro

That ain’t workin’, that’s the way you do it

Money for nothin’ and your chicks for free

Now that ain’t workin’, that’s the way you do it

Lemme tell ya, them guys ain’t dumb

Maybe get a blister on your little finger

Maybe get a blister on your thumb

— Dire Straits, “Money For Nothing”

I would like to thank the Nobel Committee for forcing me out of my long hiatus from my duties as a blogger.  I could not have imagined a greater gift that its decision to award the 2009 Nobel Prize for Peace to President Barack Obama.  H. L. Mencken is most assuredly spinning in his grave.

I must have missed something in the last nine months of the Obama presidency.  Have the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ended?  Have the Israelis and Palestinians committed themselves to peaceful coexistence?  Have Iran and North Korea given up their ambitions to become (overtly, at least) nuclear states?  Has the genocide in Darfur ceased?  No?  Then why did Obama win what is arguably the most important and recognizable prize in the world?

My liberal friends and other Obama sycophants insist that the President’s actual achievements in the area of world peace are far less important than his potential to do good.  (I wish I could get my credit card company to accept that logic: surely my potential to pay my bill means more to them than getting a silly check from me every month.)

Perhaps I am old-fashioned, but I was under the impression that the Nobel Prize was awarded to people who had actually done something in the area for which they were being recognized.  Some of Obama’s predecessors in the Oval Office have amassed an impressive record for peace–and they did not get the Nobel Prize for their efforts.  For instance, Jimmy Carter brought Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin to the negotiating table. (Sadat and Begin won the 1978 Prize.  Carter eventually won the Prize in 2002.)  Ronald Reagan restarted nuclear disarmament negotiations with the Soviets and pushed Mikhail Gorbachev to unleash democracy in the former Soviet Union and its satellites.  (Gorbachev won the 1990 Prize.)  Bill Clinton hammered out peace in Northern Ireland and got Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin to shake hands on the White House lawn.  (Arafat, Rabin, and Shimon Peres won the 1994 Prize.  Bill is, I am sure, actively campaigning to get the Prize before Hillary does.)  Even Presidential also-ran Al Gore managed to finally win something: the 2007 Prize.

To be sure, achieving peace anywhere in the world–or even down the block–is an elusive and frustrating goal; and prior Administrations could not and did not accomplish everything that they might have desired.  And President Obama faces challenges that his predecessors could not have imagined in their worst nightmares of global Armageddon.  Be that as it may, he has not yet met what should be a very high standard to join such exclusive company.

Awarding Obama the Nobel Prize for his potential as a peacemaker is disturbingly similar to the current practice of giving children prizes, certificates, etc. for just about anything that they do.  (I mean, how ridiculous is kindergarten graduation?)  Greater minds than mine have proposed that this ready availability of praise cheapens its value and creates an expectation that merely showing up merits getting an award.  Hard work, sacrifice, and determination are dismissed as unnecessary or even foolish.  Obama, of course, could not have achieved such amazing success before reaching age 50 had he subscribed to this point of view.  But accepting the Nobel Prize for Peace now ironically contradicts the amazing and (I admit) inspiring narrative of his life.

President Obama should do the right thing and refuse the Nobel Prize for Peace.  I am pretty sure that he will get another crack at it.