Making Nobel Irrelevent

Alfred Nobel's Peace Prize has quickly become irrelevent. The once vaunted prize which highlighted efforts to better the world through peace, has become a sham in which Norwegian committee endorses politics. Eventually, it's irrelevance will become known and few people will tune in to find out who won.

Historically the award not only rewarded the person, but their effort as well. While Mother Theresa was "discovered" by Malcolm Muggeridge, her efforts received a huge boost with the award of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The first slip was awarding it to Stalinist Le Duc Tho in 1973 for the Paris Peace Accords. The Nobel committee was awarding a prize to the aggressor for the pretending to talk about ending the war. Imagine if Hitler came to some peace agreement after conquering Poland, and then being awarded a peace prize. Even Tho declined the award stating there was no actual peace. Of course, peace to him was conquering Vietnam.

When the Nobel committee awarded Yassar Arafat the award in 1994, it resulted to wishful thinking that Arafat had renounced his violent past. When he instigated violence shortly thereafter, the Committee should have renounced his award.

At least the few examples up until 2000 were under the semblance of peace. After 2000 the Prize was used often to endorse political stances. In 2001, Kofi Annan won for opposing Bush. In case you didn't get it, they gave it to vocal Bush critic, Jimmy Carter. The feckless Mohammed ElBaredei won in 2005. All hell broke loose in 2007, when Al Gore won for global warming. Few could say with a straight face that promoting global warming alarmism is akin to peacefully resolving a conflict. Gore had one major advantage: he's not Bush.

So, it should be really no surprise Obama won, for doing only one thing: not being Bush.

From Obama's acceptance speech:

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 — men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace. [Okay so decline it]

But I also know that throughout history the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it's also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes. [Really? Which one?]