Nobel Peace Prize Continues Its Slow Self-Degradation

Award to Al Gore Solidifies Its Role as Naked Vehicle for Left's Political Agenda

By awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore, the Nobel Committee confirms its long, slow transformation into little more than a boilerplate political outburst. 

After all, regardless of one's position on climate change hysteria, did Gore's political polemic "An Inconvenient Truth" really do more to advance the cause of worldwide "peace" than other deserving recipients?  Or was this simply one more opportunity for international leftists to bang their dissonant political gong? 

Originally bequeathed by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the Prize is awarded annually in Oslo, Norway.  In his will, Nobel specified that the Prize should be awarded "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." 

That seems simple enough, and worthy of great praise.  But precisely what did Al Gore do to satisfy these straightforward award requisites? 

Did Gore's hopelessly defective film foster "fraternity between nations," or instead advance a political agenda that will only further impoverish developing economies and limit prosperity in industrialized nations?  Did he somehow achieve progress toward "the abolition or reduction of standing armies?"  Short of these, did he at least break new ground "for the holding and promotion of peace congresses?" 

Obviously not. 

Instead, the Nobel Committee rationalized its curious decision on the basis of Gore's "efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change." 

Gore has simply globetrotted in his private jet, thereby compounding the very carbon emissions that he purports to oppose, making millions upon millions of dollars via this convenient (pardon the term) enterprise.  Gore's mansion and pool were also revealed to expend exponentially more energy than the average American household consumes each year.  "Do as I say, not as I do," perhaps.  Worse, he has flatly misstated facts in his thinly-veiled effort to impose more global government upon America and entrepreneurial freedom worldwide. 

Meanwhile, other praiseworthy figures across the world have risked their lives and sacrificed immensely in pursuit of the peaceful accomplishments that Alfred Nobel originally envisioned.  This year, Burmese monks peacefully and bravely confronted their nation's military dictatorship, vividly illustrating to the world the ideal of nonviolent protest.  Meanwhile, Britain's Tony Blair and Ireland's Bertie Ahern achieved long-sought joint Protestant/Catholic governance in Northern Ireland. 

Or, if one accepts the increasingly-politicized nature of the Prize, how about the thousands of American and Coalition soldiers who are single-handedly establishing security and democratic rule in Iraq and Afghanistan? 

Perhaps we should not be the least bit surprised, however.  After all, this is the same Nobel Peace Prize that has been recently awarded to none other than Yasser Arafat.  Arafat is the man who fathered modern international terrorism and current anti-Israeli violence. 

Although some may be inclined to forgive Arafat's horrific misdeeds and consider him a "changed man" by the time that he received his Nobel Prize, keep in mind that he subsequently re-initiated the Intifada's campaign of bloodshed and terror against Israel.  Additionally, he continued to preside over the kleptocratic dictatorship that we know as the Palestinian Authority.  By doing so, he consigned millions of Palestinians to severe poverty, oppression at the hands of his government, war with a superior Israeli force, and generalized misery. 

Given this profile, Yasser Arafat serves as Exhibit A in establishing the increasingly fraudulent nature of the Nobel Peace Prize.  Other Nobel nominees have included Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Benito Mussolini, demonstrating the oftentimes-farcical and politicized nature of the Prize. 

Notably, the Prize was awarded to Mikhail Gorbachev, but not Ronald Reagan. 

Therefore, Al Gore merely serves as the latest illustration of the sad decline that characterizes the Nobel Peace Prize.  Like other institutions such as the United Nations, the mainstream media and university faculties, the Nobel Committee has abandoned the wonderful ideal upon which it was established in favor of a tired leftist political agenda. 

Hopefully, the Committee can correct its course before the Prize's irrelevance becomes irreversible.