The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama is astonishing. The best grade even the most sympathetic grader could give him in this, his ninth month in office, is “Incomplete.” Predictably, many conservative commentators have reacted negatively to the Nobel committee’s decision. But, more interestingly, so have many liberals. Some juicy examples:
● Mickey Kaus (who calls on Obama to politely decline the honor).
● Peter Beinart, former editor of the New Republic (“this is a farce”).
● New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof (“very premature”).
● Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post (“ridiculous—embarrassing, even”).
● Columnist Richard Cohen (“the Pulitzer Prize for literature went to Sarah Palin for her stated intention ‘to read a book someday’”).
● Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein (“Obama also awarded Nobel Prize for Chemistry. ‘He’s just got great chemistry,’ Nobel committee says”) .
● Gabriel Rachman of the Financial Times (“slightly premature,” “very odd timing”).
When Saturday Night Live led off its broadcast last weekend with an Obama parody in which the putative president says he has accomplished nothing, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer felt obliged to run a fact-check segment on it, as Jonah Goldberg has amusedly noted. Was the Nobel committee’s decision just another response to SNL?
