JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: OBAMA AND THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE - THE WORLD WAS BRIEFLY CAPTIVATED BY THIS SMILING NEWCOMER AFTER GEORGE BUSH'S DEPRESSING YEARS - HOPES WERE VERY HIGH BUT ALL TO BE DASHED - CLEARLY THE NOBEL COMMITTEE MADE A BIG MISTAKE AWARDING THE PRIZE JUST FOR HOPE AND ENCOURAGEMENT AND FOR ZERO ACHIEVEMENT - BUT THEN THAT'S THEY DO SO OFTEN NOW MAKING IT A NEAR-MEANINGLESS PRIZE - JUST LIKE AMERICA'S MEDAL OF FREEDOM

John Chuckman


EXPANSION OF A COMMENT POSTED TO A SATIRICAL ARTICLE IN CHECKPOINT ASIA



“Local Man Nominated for Nobel Prize After Constantly Complaining About the Heat

"Has done nothing notable in is life except for substantial complaining about the temperature"

___________________________

Response to a comment asking, “…how did Obama pull it off [the Nobel Prize]?”


It was easy to understand at the time.

After all, he did have a big boyish smile, and before he was President, he was even photographed wearing sandals once or twice. And there was that seemingly-brave business of his not wearing an idiotic American flag lapel pin during the campaign, something which became a nasty controversy. There were many little signs that here was someone who was going to be quite different

Remember the huge crowd in Berlin welcoming him? Hundreds of thousands of people. Just overwhelming images of Obama elevated a bit from them, reaching out, smiling. It was quite moving.

The world, briefly, was full of hope and expectation for better things towards the end of George Bush's depressing presidency. You could just feel it.

That's all Obama's Nobel Prize was about. It was a "hopes for better things" prize. The Nobel people have done that before. The Committee hopes in such cases to arm the recipient with more authority and strength for the tasks they see him or her doing.

It is a very poor practice. With that plus the many truly unworthy Prize recipients, even killers, all reflecting political pressures rather than merit, the Prize today in my view is close to meaningless.

https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2018/04/28/john-chuckman-comment-nobel-peace-prize-for-trump-it-would-be-the-first-monty-pythonesque-peace-prize-award-worthy-candidates-a-rather-grim-history-for-this-largely-meaningless-prize/

Meaningless, just as the Medal of Freedom is in the United States, with recipients such as Joe Biden and Madeleine Albright, both people who were, in fact, important supporters of mass killing.

And of course, the hopes for Obama were, before very long, dead. Obama proved a cold, arrogant and rather ruthless man and carried right on where Bush left off. His Nobel Peace Prize soon looked absurd.

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