Obama's a Joke!

This morning the United States and world was thrown into a state of shock when President Barack Obama was announced the winner of the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize. However, when you think about it....what has Obama even done to merit such an award? Nothing! It was a monumental event when he was announced the first African American president in the history of the United States, but this alone shouldn't make him the winner.

When the the Nobel Peace Prize committee was asked this exact same question they responded by saying, "Obama was selected not for substantive accomplishments, but for his "vision" and inspiring "hope" at the beginning of his presidency." If you read through the words carefully, you notice that they say, "was selected not for substantive accomplishments", which tells me he won it because he was the first African American president ever. Its hard to not admire what vision and plans Obama proposed during his election to the American people, but generally there has to be some sort of accomplishment or progress in those plans to merit any recognition or award.

If you look at past winners, which include the likes of Martti Ahtisaari (for his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts), IPCC & Al Gore (for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change) and Muhammad Yunus & Grameen Bank (for their efforts to create economic and social development from below). In reading over these previous winners accomplishments, there was nothing stated about simply having a vision, but fulfilling it and laying the groundwork to it as well.

I think this award was very premature and perhaps somewhere down the road if President Obama was able to lay groundwork or accomplish some of these big ideas he had and has, then he should receive the award. At the end of the day it's sad to say but Obama's skin color won him this victory and it shouldn't be hard for the rest of the world to see either. The other competitors who were up for this great award should go home tonight and feel that they were cheated because in fact they were!