Jason C. McLean

Now this may be a dumb question, but how can someone who is currently running two wars win a prize for peace? It seems to me that not being actively involved in the administration of warfare and ultimately responsible for a conflict continuing should be one of the requirements for being recognized as a person of peace. Call me a purist, but that’s just how I see it.

Don’t get me wrong, I generally like Barack Obama. He’s smart, sometimes funny, one of the best public speakers I’ve ever heard and better than the last guy who had his job. He also speaks as though he is on the same of many issues that I am. The problem is that he speaks, but up to now, he hasn’t done all that much.

His plan to turn the American health care system from the ridiculous corporate cash grab it is into something close to what the rest of the world has isn’t going far. He hasn’t cancelled or closed the things he promised to cancel and close, in some cases saying the change will come soon and in others changing plans completely. When it comes to foreign policy, the words are nicer and the locales of focus might be slightly different, but the plan remains the same – war.

So how can the Nobel Prize committee give him the Peace Prize? Wishful thinking? Maybe. As a slap in the face to Bush? Probably. Trying to be cool and get the award more press than it usually does? That sounds like it could be the case. Even Obama didn’t wholeheartedly accept it, though he is going to take the trophy, saying it’s “a call to action.”

If he really wants to earn it, though and live up to all the hope and change he promised, he can do one of two things: reject the award, keeping the door open to receive it in the future if and when he truly does deserve it or make the world a more peaceful place (pull troops out of everywhere, negotiate treaties, etc.) before he picks up the prize in Oslo. He has until December 10th.