The question is not whether it is unprecedented. It is whether it is correct under the rules established by Nobel for the awarding of the Peace Prize.
The Vietnam Peace Accords were signed in January 1973, with the work being done in 1972. So that one was definitely in the previous year, as required by Nobel’s will.
The 1978 award was more on the edge. It says:
This one is a bit more problematic, but the award clearly highlights the huge breakthrough of Begin’s offer and Sadat’s acceptance that led to the 1977 visit by Sadat to Jerusalem.
In addition, in both cases, the work was done and led to real world practical outcomes. Obama, on the other hand, has not done anything that has led to practical results. There are just as many nuclear warheads now, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are still going on, Guantanamo is still open, Obama is still fighting to maintain Bush’s use of warrantless wiretaps …
So what did Obama do in 2008 that led to the same kind of real, measurable outcomes as achieved by the 1973 and 1978 Prize winners?
With you doing the measuring, nothing. Others point to the dropping of Star Wars and the European missile shield as significant. And of course not espousing an evil empires list like Bush and Reagan was a breath of fresh air.
Intention, your obsession with this topic is more than a bit disturbing. You seem to think it is more important to win an argument than to find any insight into the actual situation.
In any case, your list of polls is totally bogus, for the following reasons:
Internet polls are of negligible (at best) statistical value.
Your generalization left out critical data points: the % approval and how the question was worded (e.g. “was the prize awarded to Obama too early?” vs. “does Obama deserve the award or not?” vs. “do you think the award should have been given to someone else?”) How the question is stated can have a drastic effect on the outcome of a scientific poll–which those internet polls are not.
The NPP has never been awarded based on approval polls, never will be, and never should be.
It’s saying “You may be the one who decides who gets the award, but I know better than you and you’re wrong.” That’s how it’s an insult.
Occasionally people do get away with it, sort of:
It was a grand and generous gesture on Rhames’ part, no argument there. But it was an awkward moment for Lemmon (have you ever seen this? It’s probably on YouTube somewhere) and you’ll note that the HFPA gave Rhames the duplicate, presumably in order to validate their original decision to choose him over Lemmon. To not do so would be to admit that they’d gotten it wrong in the first place.
Internet polls are of negligible value (at best)? What are they at worst?
I understand their limitations quite well. However, I did not find any poll saying anything different from what I said, which was that the prize has not been well received and that many people disagree with the award. I would have thought that some of the liberal sites would have shown a large number of people saying he deserved the award, but I didn’t … clearly not proof of anything, but it does give an insight into the situation on the ground.
Yes, I didn’t put in the exact wording of the question, but in all cases the intent was quite clear — did he deserve the Prize or not? I fail to see how it can be interpreted in any other way, but if you have some alternate explanation, I’m interested. You are right, some said “Did Obama deserve the Prize”, and some said “Should Obama have gotten the Prize”, and some said “Has Obama done anything to merit the Prize” … are you seriously claiming that makes a difference? Really??
What on earth does that have to do with whether there is widespread dissatisfaction with the award? Do you truly think that I believe the NPP should be based on an approval poll? Where did you get that fantasy?
I said that there’s lots of opposition to the award out there. elucidator said no, and asked for cites.
I posted a number of comments from around the world saying that there were plenty of folks out there that said that Obama didn’t deserve the award. That wasn’t good enough.
I posted a number of cartoons showing people laughing at Obama for accepting the prize. That wasn’t good enough.
I posted people saying they thought The Onion had pulled off a brilliant hoax, but that’s no good either.
I post a host of polls, none of which shows anything other than what I claimed. That’s not good enough either.
Articles, and comments, and cartoons, and polls, and lots of people saying “I thought it was a headline from The Onion” and seven page threads debating the question, are not good enough to convince elucidator that there is a large group of people on the planet who feel that giving the Prize to Obama was a joke and an insult to those who actually did something to deserve the prize. In response, all I get is f*cking clueless nit-pickers who say things on the order of ‘You only posted 8 of those citations, that’s not enough’ and ‘If I posted 10 positive opinions I’d win the debate’ and ‘You didn’t say disgusted with, you said sick of’, and 'You claimed 45% said no but you didn’t say 55% said yes, what are you hiding" and ‘The Peace Prize has never been based on a poll’ and the like … and you think I’m obsessed?
So Knorf, do you agree with elucidator that there is not widespread opposition, dissatisfaction, and unhappiness with Obama getting the prize?
Finally, you say I am not trying to “find any insight into the actual situation” … OK, I’ll bite. What insight do you think I am missing? What insight do you have to offer here?
That Obama is a good guy? I know that, I voted for him.
That Obama shows great promise? Yes, he does, and I suspect that some day he’ll live up to that promise.
That the Norwegians have so little faith in him that they think he needs encouragement to stay on the right path? That’s obvious, they gave him the Prize for that very reason, although also obviously, I have more faith in him than they do …
It’s not an insult if in fact you do know better than they do … and who would know better than the recipient … who in this case has already said he didn’t deserve it?
He already told them that he didn’t deserve the Peace Prize, he just hasn’t got the stones to do what one should do when offered an undeserved award, which is to graciously decline it.
Instead, he’s like the guy whose bank mistakenly deposits a million dollars in his account, and who just keeps it because he doesn’t want to “insult the bank” by claiming he knows better than them …
This analogy is stupid. A better analogy: the bank decides to give him a million dollars as an Awesome Customer Reward, and he is like, “No, seriously, I’m not that awesome. Here, keep your money.”
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Obama does something truely momentus in the remainder of his presidency (as in brings about a genuine two state solution, North Korea merges with South Korea, or similiar), should he be nominated for a second prize?
How would conservatives react if he won the award a second time?
Yo dawg, I heard you like making tired pop culture references. So I put a tired pop culture reference in your tired pop culture reference so you can be annoying while you be annoying.
Anybody want to take bets on whether or not **Shodan **will have the balls to come back and either apologize or admit to making an eye-poppingly racist statement?
You just wait. SHODAN will come back and show how affirmative action was the reason a stupid person with no accomplishments ,like Obama ,was able to succeed. Otherwise you might accuse bigotry. But no that could never be. SHODAN should be posting in the thread about Buchanan. That would be proper.
Hey, we finally got an actual poll on the question. Not an internet poll. A Gallup Poll.
Almost two-thirds of the Americans polled said that Obama didn’t deserve the award. So yes, as I have been saying all along, there is widespread disagreement that the award was deserved. In fact, it’s worse than that. There is widespread agreement that the award was not deserved.
Happy now, elucidator? Care to retract your nonsensical claims? No, I thought not …
Since you have demonstrated your inability to use Google, here’s what you call the “linky-dinky parley vooz.”.
PS - Knorf, you remember you said that internet polls were of “negligible (at best) statistical value”? Remember that I said “I would have thought that some of the liberal sites would have shown a large number of people saying he deserved the award, but I didn’t … not proof of anything, but it does give an insight into the situation on the ground.”?
Well, I went back and looked at the internet polls. The average of the twenty-seven internet polls I referenced was that 62% of the people who responded said that Obama didn’t deserve the Peace Prize. When I take out the non-US polls (Al Jazeera, AftenPosten, UK Daily Mail, etc.) the average is 56% … negligible value, my ass. I don’t claim that means internet polls can replace actual polls, it doesn’t … but the internet polls were certainly in the ballpark.
Yeah, I didn’t specify the exact words they used like you wanted … yeah, I didn’t provide citations for the Google-challenged like elucidator wanted … yeah, I know the Boston Herald Pulse asked curious questions … yeah, I know I didn’t fulfil all of the wonderful restrictions about exactly how many and who and where and what that some of you jumped up and down and crowed about to try to avoid the obvious and mislead the credulous …
But at the end of the day, 61% of Americans don’t think he deserved the Prize. Which is what the internet polls said.