Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize

Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize. No seriously, stop laughing, he really did. Back in February, twelve days after being sworn in as president, someone thought Barack Obama deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. So, they nominated him. Apparently, 204 other people and organizations were also nominated but couldn't hold a candle to America's first black president, whose crowning achievement thus far is to be America's first black president. Well, that and he's not George W. Bush, which apparently gets you lots of points judging by two of last several choices:

This makes three times, incidentally, in just seven years that the committee’s turned the Peace Prize into a “f*** Bush” award by bestowing it on a liberal American Democrat. The Goracle got it in 2007 and Carter received it in 2002, making today’s announcement yet one more reason to consider The One his presidential heir.

Exit question: There was no one more deserving? Morgan Tsvangirai, Mugabe’s nemesis in Zimbabwe? Iranian protesters? Hello?

If you think you were surprised, guess again? Apparently no one in the White House could believe it either, one of them wondering out loud, "It's not April 1, is it?" No, it's not April 1, and this isn't some fucked up dream, either. What used to be one of the most prestigious committees in the world just awarded what used to be one of the world's most prestigious medals to an amateur, unaccomplished president in the first year of his first term. Only two other sitting U.S. presidents have ever recieved the award, and this year's winner tarnishes the name of one of my favorites, Theodore Roosevelt:

Obama is the third sitting U.S. president -- and the first in 90 years -- to win the coveted peace prize. His predecessors won during their second White House terms, however, and after significant diplomatic achievements. Woodrow Wilson was awarded the prize in 1919, after helping to found the League of Nations and shaping the Treaty of Versailles; and Theodore Roosevelt was the recipient in 1906 for his work to negotiate an end to the Russo-Japanese war.

These two men had meaningful and substantive policy accomplishments, were true statesmen and had regular sized human ears. Meanwhile, the Democrat National Committee is comparing anyone who thinks he doesn't deserve it to terrorists.

This entire ordeal makes this blogger wonder if Barack Obama has ever actually earned anything. He coasted into the White House without ever having muttered a single coherent thought. It was a campaign of anti-Bushisms sprinkled with some Hope and Change rhetoric, and he's been able to deliver on precisely 0% of it. He won his U.S. Senate seat because his opponent's divorce papers were unsealed and revealed some embarrassing things about the candidate. Coincidentally, that's also how he won his state senate seat in Illinois. His is a life not marked by hard work and sacrifice, and certainly not by working for peace, but it is a life marked by charming his way into positions of influence and power, and then squandering it away for lack of a basic ability to lead.

Never before has such a low standard been set for achieving such a prestigious honor. He won this prize precisely the same way he won the presidency. He didn't do anything. He talked about doing something, hoping his giant smile would keep anyone from noticing that he doesn't know what the hell he's doing. Now that Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama have joined the ranks of those previously honored designees, it can be safely said that the Nobel Peace Prize means very little now. Very little, indeed.

Disgraceful.

UPDATE: "Gasps echoed through the Nobel Hall" as prize was announced.

UPDATE: Blogosphere united in utter disbelief. "This is insane."

UPDATE: Time online has field day teasing Obama over his award.