“and one part to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” — The Last Will and Testament of Alfred Nobel.

And the winner is Barack Obama.  He has done the most and best work for fraternity between nations by …… uh  ….. what exactly has he done?  Well he must be downsizing the American military.  No U. S. forces are on a recruitment drive.  He is promoting peace by maintaining troops in Iraq, increasing troops in Afghanistan, signing off on extraordinary rendition, talking about closing Guantanamo Bay.  That doesn’t sound like it fits the spirit of the Will either.

The consensus seems to be that he has won the prize because he is a symbol of hope.  At least that is the line being taken by those who support Obama.  Of course Fox News thinks the Nobel committee are a bunch of hippie / commies chosen by a parliament of hippie / commies in Norway who give this prize to other hippie / commies to celebrate hippie / commies.  If the Daily Show isn’t on you can allows tune into Fox News to get your daily laugh.  The upshot though is that no one is defending the prize as actually legitimate.  And that says a lot.

Whatever reason possessed the committee to award the prize to Obama was misguided to be charitable.  There have always been those on the Right who have diminished the importance of the Peace Prize and pointed to winners such as Yasser Arafat as evidence of it mistaken sentiments.  But Arafat had accomplished something.  Now the Right can actually say that someone won it for doing nothing except being liked by the members of the committee.  Worse there will always be the rumour, suspicion that politics played a role.  Obama’s people responded in open-mouthed astonishment that their man had received the prize.  But White House staffers are trained and proficient liars.  Even when they tell the truth it always sounds like a lie.  We will never know for sure and conspiracy theories are likely to abound across the Internet.

What I suppose gnaws at me most is the rush of progressive left wing organizations to jump on the bandwagon and celebrate the prize.  I just read a missive from Avaaz.org, a group that does a lot of good work promoting human rights and keeping governments honest, argue the prize is an opportunity to help Obama justify his winning in the future.  We all condemn the Right when they justify the unjustifiable.  But given the opportunity the Left sounds suspiciously similar.  Blind slavery to any doctrine or person is not only misguided it is down right dangerous.  Have we so quickly forgot the excesses of the Soviet Union.  We can argue that Soviet socialism was not true socialism but then we just sound as dogmatic as the current Right or the old Soviets.

Instead we should be as critical of our own as we are of our opponents.  Mr. Obama you should have refused that prize as you know you do not deserve it.  The prize committee needs to be censured for so callously violating the spirit of Alfred Nobel’s final request.  Shame on you and shame on Obama for sullying the noble gesture of Alfred Nobel.