Affirmative Action on Steroids

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2009
Reprinted in light of recent events.

In the good old days one had to apply to a school, for a position, a contract or a promotion in order to take advantage of affirmative action. You had to do something. There was a national debate about qualifications, fairness, equal opportunity and constitutionality. As President Clinton famously equivocated in his usual way, “mend it, don’t end it”. But all that is far to complicate for the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. Who needs qualifications and deeds to qualify? To win this juicy prize, one needs to utter the appropriate vacuous platitudes about multilateralism, praise the morally corrupt U. N. and pander to despots. Apologizing for American strength and resolve is a plus. Patronize those who sidle up to terrorists is always a good idea. Agree to sit down with those who negotiate in bad faith. That just might be the piece de resistance for serious consideration.

We knew the fix was in because President Obama was nominated just days after taking office. That’s right, before he did a thing. So we can only conclude the award is given for the right speeches, unless of course the committee is clairvoyant. Like all affirmative action the most deserving candidate must lose to the politically correct candidate.

It’s kind of like international affirmative action on steroids. You “earn” (get) the Peace Prize by appealing to the European left, rather than having done anything to bring peace to anyone or any place. Our President walks away with a prize that he correctly observed he did not earn. Mind you, I don’t blame the President. But this process is very instructive about our President’s overseas support.

Envy of American power and resolve is at the core of this choice. Hence, in order to conform to the winning formula criticize and downplay America’s use of power. Any intellectually honest observer, even those who support the President’s approach of weakness and accommodation, has to acknowledge that there is no evidence to suggest the President’s foreign policy has garnered any results. North Korea is more petulant than ever. Iran has been working on what was a secret reactor. Afghanistan needs 40,000 more troops. The democrats in Honduras have been abandoned. The Iranian protestors were largely ignored. And we have acquiesced to Russia’s demands on missile defense having received nothing in return.

Of course if the prize is given for allowing some to feel good, totally unrelated to peace, then I am way off base. I just assume a peace prize should have something to do with achieving peace somewhere.

For those who cling to the notion that this is not a politically driven Prize, please consider the fact that over the last 40 years Bill Clinton is the only Democrat President not to receive the prize. The President who was most responsible for freeing Eastern Europe from the yoke of communism did not receive this Prize. The President who freed 50 million Moslems from despotic and theocratic persecution and provided billions in aid to Africa was reviled rather than nominated.

Least we forget Al Gore got the Prize for promoting global warming hysteria. Arafat received the Prize as a master illusionist. Speaking peace in English while fomenting jihad in Arabic. And of course we can’t forget the guy who unleashed the theocrats in Iran who have become the world’s number one financier of terror. You know the guy. He is now an expert on racism in other people’s hearts. If he had only stuck to the lust in his own heart, we would all be better off. But I digress.

The final elements that assured a win for Mr. Obama must have been a poll showing Israeli support for him of about 4% accompanied by words of praise from Venezuela’s Chavez and Cuba’s Castro.