No Prize

What should embarrass Barack Obama most about winning the Nobel Peace Prize? That it necessarily invites people to compare him to other winners whose sacrifices and achievements make his life seem flimsy? That it extends and magnifies his unbroken streak of unearned distinctions? That it proves more egregiously than ever the brazenly dishonest agenda of the Nobel Prizes?

Barack Obama, who already seemed ridiculous bearing the title "President," has inspired even more laughter since breaking another historical barrier and winning a Nobel Prize for doing absolutely nothing, zilch, bupkus. But as the surprise wears off I find less and less in it to laugh about.

Obama himself is something of an innocent bystander to this travesty. After all, he didn't choose himself. Was that Oslo committee simply swept off its girlish feet by the American president's charisma? Were they so snowed by his windy cliches, or rebounding so hard from their last presidential relationship, that they momentarily imagined that Obama's promises were accomplishments? Actually, there was nothing naive about the Nobel committee's choice of Obama. They didn't award the new U.S. President the Nobel Peace Prize because he's irresistible. They did it to influence him, by paying him in advance for his performance in the international play they have planned. Many commentators have mentioned the possibility that the award might influence the president. But so far only a few have used the correct word for it. Obama's Nobel Peace Prize is an open bribe in symbolic currency.

As an American I am deeply insulted that the Nobel Peace Prize committee should even think that the President of the United States could be bribed with the offer of an honorary title. Do they think this is North Korea? Don't they know that the President is elected by the people and sworn to serve them and uphold the U.S. Constitution? Don't they know that the President's authority in conducting foreign affairs is shared with the elected houses of Congress? The president doesn't own the United States. He isn't even the CEO. The role of the U.S. in international affairs ultimately depends upon the wishes of the American people. So it is an insult to the United States and its people for the Nobel Peace Prize committee to imagine that they could influence the policies of this country by bribing the guy that we have entrusted with the nation's business. The nerve of them.

Of course it was no compliment to Barack Obama either, imagining that a statesman lucky enough to have won the trust of the world's most experienced democratic citizenry would allow his head to be turned by a pompous-sounding title conferred by a pretentious little committee. They must think Mr. Obama's quite a sucker for prestige, as little respectful of the American people as they are, and easily corruptible. I'd hate to think our president could have done something to give them that idea.

No doubt plenty of people and entities would like to exercise improper influence on an American president, and some have succeeded to one degree or another. But a president who accepts a bribe openly places his integrity under permanent suspicion. President Obama stated yesterday that he would accept the Nobel Peace Prize, but he should be encouraged to change his mind. Indeed there is a provision of the U.S. Constitution that subjects the President's acceptance of titles and gifts to the approval of Congress. If President Obama is not honest or smart enough to drop this bribe like a hot potato, members of Congress, including his friends, should slap his wrist before he burns himself even worse than he has already. I hope our representatives in Congress are keeping abreast of their responsibilities. For my part, I shall be writing to Senators Voinovich and Brown to point out that a foreign entity has offered the President a coveted title as a bribe to influence his conduct of the nation's business, and that the Congress has the power to prevent him from accepting it.

Our president should tell the Nobel Prize Committee publicly that their prize is an insult to him and the people he represents, because it is an insult, and everyone knows it, including and most of all the Nobel committee itself. Of course there is little chance the president will do that, or that the Democrats in Congress, so deep in lies and corruption themselves, would suddenly decide to declare the nudity of their own emperor and prohibit him from accepting the poisoned gift from Oslo. But for the rest of us, it's important that we tell the truth, now, the next day, and often: the President of the U.S. has been offered a bribe, publicly, for all to see, and when he accepts it in December, he will have accepted a bribe. Let him spend the rest of his life explaining that it never influenced his conduct of the Presidency.