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President Barack Obama deserves a Nobel Peace Prize only slightly more than my 5-year-old son deserves the Best Screenplay Oscar.
Neither has done anything particular to win those respective awards, but both theoretically have the potential to earn them at some future point.
Essentially, the Nobel committee gave Obama the prize because he seems like a nice fellow and he’s not President George W. Bush.
Our current president’s big contribution to world peace appears to be that he picks up the phone when other countries call and he does not actively taunt our enemies.
Admittedly, that is an improvement over Bush, but not being a jingoistic jerk with an “invade first, ask questions later” policy hardly deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.
This would be like giving Miley Cyrus a lifetime achievement Grammy because she’s better than the Jonas Brothers or awarding the World Series trophy to the Brewers for beating the Pirates in a regular season game.
Awards – even pompous and preposterous ones like Nobel Prizes – get handed out for what you actually do, not what you might do.
We give unearned awards to make people feel better at Little League banquets and Cub Scout dinners, not on the world stage.
A president should not be rewarded for his potential, he instead should be judged by his actions and it remains too soon to tell about Obama.
Though there have been some embarrassing Nobel Peace Prize winners in the past (Yasser Arafat come to mind), the awarding of this one seems, at best, premature.
Obama currently presides over two wars he has done little to end, along with rising tensions with Iran.
Our president seems like a fellow who wants peace, whereas Bush seemed to seek out wars, but liking hockey does not make me a Stanley Cup champion.
Obama, of course, did nothing to seek out this award and one would have to imagine that he is a little bit embarassed by it.
Declining a Nobel Prize because you have not yet earned it would probably create an international incident and, hopefully, the president will use this as motivation to live up to the honor he has already received.
It is somewhat encouraging that the world seems to want Obama to succeed in creating a kinder and gentler America.
After years of everyone either hating us or being really scared of us, it’s nice to see the possibility of at least some other countries partnering with us through affection and not because of our brute strength.
Barack Obama has the potential to be a coalition builder and a peacemaker.
He can change the history of our nation and mankind. He just hasn’t quite done so yet.
Perhaps we should save the awards cermeony until after the actual victories and congratulate the man on furthering the cause of world peace when he has actually done that.
Daniel B. Kline’s work appears in more than 100 papers weekly.
When he is not writing Kline, serves as general manager of Time Machine Hobby, New England’s largest hobby and toy store, www.timemachine hobby.com.
He can be reached at dan@no tastep.com or you can see his archive at DBKline.com or befriend him at facebook.com/ dankline.
this opinion piece is nothing but right wing fox news style hackery. this man isn’t qualified to have an opinion on whether obama deserved the nobel peace prize or not.
he runs a TOY STORE.
this man thinks the nobel prizes are “pompous and preposterous”. tell that to marie curie and einstein, and dr. king, and sinclair lewis and william faulkner.
this bit of idiocity started with “President Barack Obama deserves a Nobel Peace Prize only slightly more than my 5-year-old son deserves the Best Screenplay Oscar.”
typical right wing hackery, take two things that have NOTHING to do with each other and pretend they do then proceed from there.
this article was a waste of print.
to the editor: i went and looked this guy up. this seems to be the group that syndicates his stuff: http://weoped.ning.com/
i was quite correct in my assumption that this man is not qualified to have an opinion. this organization is simply a means for people to spout right wing nonsense and get it into papers like they were some legit opinion person.
i saw nothing on the site that wasn’t pro republican/anti democrat.
some of the opinion pieces i found to be quite alarming. these people are FAR right wingers. the ad for ann coulter on the home page says it all.
this type of fraudulent opinion has no place in any newspaper unless it is a letter to the editor. it is trite tripe.
you should take a look at the stuff these people put out, it isn’t good.
“President Barack Obama deserves a Nobel Peace Prize only slightly more than my 5-year-old son deserves the Best Screenplay Oscar”
i would like to point out that president obama not only has a nobel prize but he could also write a screenplay which could win an oscar while the chances of a 5 year old doing the same are NIL. president obama actually has the skills to write a screenplay. this is nothing but right wing hackery from a right wing hack.