I’ve just suddenly flashed back to an 80s sitcom called Love Sidney, in which the late Tony Randall played a fussy bachelor who took in Swoozie Kurtz as a single mother. One episode had a dream sequence in which Randall’s character reveals he’s won the Nobel Peace Prize.

“For what?” asks Ms. Kurtz’s character, astonished.

“For being a nice guy,” replies Randall.

That pretty much sums up my reaction to this news of President Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Let me quote from the official press release:

Thanks to Obama’s initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.

Only 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. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population.

I think I have to be blunt here. Dialogue with the traditional international organs of peace is something every U.S. president since Truman has done. Obama’s getting the attention, because he’s an anamoly: the first U.S. non-white president. I would even go so far to say that, in the eyes of Europe, he’s a novelty. the type of American that Europeans don’t usually think of, with a less aggressive mode of behaviour than his predecessor — in other words, “a nice guy.”

Let me ask this: which one of Obama’s initiatives has resulted in talks leading to an actual peace treaty? When Jimmy Carter won in 2002, people could at least point to the work he did in 1978, as well as his Carter Center. I don’t see anything near that level of achievement on President Obama’s resume.

This particular Nobel seems to be awarded based on sentiment rather than achievement; it’s akin to the 1994 one given to the players in the Middle East, in the hopes that peace would result. Didn’t seem to work then. Given the President’s current track record, it’s not likely to work now.

Ah well. At least we know now that the Nobel Committee will, in fact, award a Peace Prize for being a nice guy.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 05:41 and is filed under International, Yankees. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.