NOBEL PRIZE: FIVE FOR FIGHTING

Dear Readers,

The uproar over President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize win only goes to show how misunderstood this honor is in this country. The cries of 'What has he done to deserve it?' tend to obscure the sometimes subtle motivations behind the selection of a Peace Prize recipient. In addition, the frenzied, childish and hysterical reaction from the schoolyard-bully, 12-year old mentality of right wing Republicans and their shills - like Rush Limberger, Glenn 'What-The-Heck' Beck and Sean Hate-etty- only go to underline the importance placed on this most maligned of prizes even when the motives for it's presentation are unclear.

Despite the rather flimsy explanations offered by the weedy Norwegians who give out these prizes, the real reason Mr. Obama won is that the whole world is so damn relieved that George W. Bush is no longer the US President and that the current occupant does not dance to the tune of the crypto-retrograde, would-be dictators like Dickhead Cheney.

To my way of thinking, this is a perfectly sound excuse to award the prize to Obama, and I only wish that the Oslo committee had not been so feckless in avoiding saying so. The GOP and other hate groups probably realize the real reason he won, and besides, they're always going to be freaked out by any success that this President might have. They discount the fact that Obama did not lobby or campaign for the prize and despise him not only for winning, but being perceived as a man who stands for peaceful relations - an anathema to the belligerent neocons.

As a matter of fact, many other Americans have won the Peace Prize over the years, and yet a fair number of them have won the honor by fighting. Here's a partial list:

1925 - Then Vice-President Charles B. Dawes fought for the Kellogg-Briand Treaty, which renounced war as an instrument of national policy.

1931 - Settlement house movement leader Jane Addams fought for women's rights through the Women's International League for Peace And Freedom.

1945 - Secretary of State Cordell Hull fought against US isolationism before America entered World War II and started kicking Nazi butt all over the place.

1962 - Linus C. Pauling, chemist and vitamin-C freak, fought against nuclear weapons.

1997 - Jody Williams fought for the banning and clearing of anti-personnel land mines.

That's a heck of a lot of fighting in order to win a peace prize, ain't it? So ease up on President Obama already, after all, isn't this country all about winning? I never heard such a hoo-ha over somebody winning something. Sometimes winners win undeservedly, but a win's a win, yeah?

In addition to bagging the Peace Prize, Obama collects a cool $1.4 million off a guy (Alfred Nobel) who invented dynamite - plus, that geezer was a foreigner! Even Rush ought to applaud that.