Nobel for Good Intentions

I just read that the Nobel Committee has chosen Obama for this year's Nobel Peace Price. Obviously the prize is no longer meant to award achievements which Obama has little of since he was only elected President less than a year ago. Indeed, the citation acknowledged as much:

"Very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said...

Is the bar for qualification so low that merely attracting media attention and offering kind words of hope sufficient? Apparently so. Even the chairman of the Nobel Committee only said that the point of the award was to 'enhance what he is trying to do'. By reducing the criteria to the quantum of publicity and platitudes, the committee has ended up devaluing the prize.

Michael Gerson put it well in the Washington Post today:

Apparently, they now give out a Nobel Peace Prize for good intentions. Unless I have missed something, President Obama has not yet achieved a nuclear free world -- which was also, by the way, Ronald Reagan's good intention. He has not yet achieved peace between Israel and the Palestinians -- a prospect the Israel Foreign Minister recently dismissed as years away. He has not yet tamed the nuclear ambitions of Iran, which has responded to outreach with deception, defiance, bloody crackdowns and missile testing. He has not yet pacified Afghanistan -- preferring, so far, to dither and fidget. He has not yet removed the nuclear threat of North Korea, the world's wackiest, totalitarian nuclear power. He has not yet solved the problems of global warming, achieved a free Tibet, ended the slaughter in Congo, lifted the oppression of Burma or settled the conflict in Darfur.

At first I thought the announcement of the prize was a joke. On further reflection, the Noble Committee has made itself a joke. It has decided to give a ribbon before the race, a trophy for aspiration, a gold star for admirable sentiments. Which means that the decision it made is entirely, purely, solely political. Members of the committee like Obama's goals and rhetoric. And since they aren't American citizens, this is the only way they could vote for him. In the process, they have forfeited any claim to seriousness. Peace -- the kind of peace that keeps people from being killed and oppressed -- is an achievement, not a sentiment. The Noble Peace Prize Committee can no longer distinguish between the two.

Enough Said. Also click here to read interesting reactions to this from around the world.

Update: AP has an piece on the 'Common Misconceptions about the Nobel Peace Prize' where Geir Lundestad, secretary of the prize committee says that the award is not necessarily given for successful efforts but 'to encourage those who receive it to see it through, sometimes at critical moments'.