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As critics continue to mull over whether President Obama deserved the Nobel Peace Prize, Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite says the U.S. Constitution does not allow him to accept the award without the consent of Congress. In a letter to Obama delivered on Monday, Brown-Waite, R-Fla., along with Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., and Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, claim the president is obligated under the Constitution to obtain Congress' approval before he formally accepts the prize. Article I, Section 9, of the Constitution, the emolument clause, states: "And no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent...

In a SPIEGEL interview, Charles Krauthammer, the leading voice of America's conservative intellectuals, discusses Barack Obama's Nobel Peace Prize, the president's failures and the state of the United Nations and the international community.Part 1: 'Obama Is Average'Part 2: 'What the Obama Administration Pretends Is Realism Is Naïve Nonsense'

Many people were left wondering "HUH?" when Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. In this post, I explore one connection that may explain just how BHO was awarded the Peace Prize by the Nobel Committee.

For the first time since he took over in the White House, Americans don't see eye to eye with President Barack on the important issues, according to a new national poll. But the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey does indicate that a majority approve of how Obama's handling his duties as president. According to the poll, which was released Tuesday, 48 percent of people questioned say that they agree with Obama on the issues that matter most to them, with 51 percent saying no. That's a switch from April, when 57 percent said they agreed with the president on important issues,...

Ask the Norwegians who pick the Nobel Peace Prize recipient this question: “Which part of Europe are you from? The part whose butt we saved or the part whose butt we kicked?” They’d have to answer the former but only reluctantly because their answer would open a discussion about the ideology behind their bizarre choice of President Barack Obama as the 2009 prize winner. The Nobel committee has been widely and rightly ridiculed for that choice since the American president has yet to do anything to make the world a more peaceful place. They gave Obama the prize for making...

People can, and undoubtedly will, argue for some time about whether President Obama deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Meanwhile, though, there's a simpler and more immediate question: Does the Constitution allow him to accept the award? Article I, Section 9, of the Constitution, the Emolument Clause, clearly stipulates: "And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State." The award of the peace prize to a sitting President is not unprecedented. But...

President Barack Obama's premature Nobel Peace Prize has catalyzed a useful debate, in which the real question is less the timing of the award than what, exactly, he has won. How are we to reconcile the Nobel's erratic list of laureates, ranging from corrupt terrorist Yasser Arafat to Soviet dissident and human rights champion Andrei Sakharov? The explanation goes deeper than the tilt of the left-leaning Norwegian Nobel Committee's five members, who pick the winners. The prize itself was devised and endowed by Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, a wizard with explosives and a deft hand at marketing. But, like a...

Obama’s pending peace prize was the “big new” overshadowing everything else last week on the foreign policy front. The Nobel Prize Committee awarded the prize to President Obama on the basis of hope for the future rather than achievements of the past. There is a real downside to giving the president a prize before he actually does anything. Public diplomacy, nuclear disarmament, working through the UN, and the quest for Palestinian-Israeli peace were all put forward as hallmarks of the Obama way. The problem is that all these instruments rely on cooperation and dependence on them gives enormous power to...

Christopher Hitchens: 'It would be like giving someone an Oscar in the hope that he would someday make a good motion picture' In his unique and witty style Vanity Fair Columnist Christopher Hitchens drives Hardball's Chris Matthews crazy as they discuss the legitimacy of Barack Obama winning the Noble Peace Prize. This link takes you to the article as well as the video of Christopher Hitchens on Hardball.

In reaction to President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, Ms. Bruce posted about her first thoughts on hearing that the President had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace... She followed that up with another entry, in which she posted a photo of her pet raccooon, Rocky, paw in a box of Cracker Jack, digging for his very own Nobel Peace Prize.

The Holocaust - the systematic annihilation of six million Jews - is a history of enduring horror and sorrow. The charred skeletons, the diabolic experiments, the death camps, the mass graves, the smoke from the chimneys ... In 1933 nine million Jews lived in the 21 countries of Europe that would be occupied by Germany during the war. By 1945 two out of every three European Jews had been killed by the Nazis. 1.5 million children were murdered. This figure includes more than 1.2 million Jewish children, tens of thousands of Gypsy children and thousands of handicapped children. Yet there...

The left's attraction to the obviously false is nothing new. For well nigh a century, in fact, the world's intellectual elite has been crafting and enabling fraud on a wide range of critical subjects and, when the mood strikes, awarding intellectual deceit with Nobel Peace Prizes. When the Nobel Peace Prize committee met to award its 1992 prize, the choices were many and good. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the fall of the Berlin Wall two years prior, committee members might have chosen any of the architects of that empire's demise-Ronald Reagan, for instance, or...

This was Barack Obama’s chance. Here was an opportunity to cut himself free, in a stroke, from the baggage that’s weighed his presidency down — the implausible expectations, the utopian dreams, the messianic hoo-ha. Here was a place to draw a clean line between himself and all the overzealous Obamaphiles, at home and abroad, who poured their post-Christian, post-Marxist yearnings into the vessel of his 2008 campaign. Here was a chance to establish himself, definitively, as an American president — too self-confident to accept an unearned accolade, and too instinctively democratic to go along with European humbug. He didn’t take...

What the Nobel Institute actually accomplished was accentuating the manifestation of the nothingness of Barack Obama, which quite comically, has reached caricature proportions

Was Obama right to accept the Nobel Peace Prize? YES YES NO NO Who Cares?

Did President Obama deserve the Nobel Peace Prize? Yes Maybe someday but not yet Don't know No

To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize -- men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace. But I also know that this prize reflects the kind of world that those men and women, and all Americans, want to build -- a world that gives life to the promise of our founding documents. And I know that throughout history, the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor...

Classy. Rush Limbaugh isn't easily rendered speechless, but the conservative radio host took a few tries to get going this afternoon on his radio show. "Folks, there aren't words for this," said Limbaugh before pausing for a long moment. "Can you imagine, folks, how big Obama's head is today?" he tried again. "I think it's getting so big that his ears actually fit." Ba-dum-bum. Once Limbaugh got going, he was off on two tracks in criticizing the Nobel Committee's decision. The first was that Obama didn't deserve the Peace Prize, the second that no red-blooded American should want the award...

The news Friday that President Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize was met with widespread incredulity and skepticism. "For what?" was the most uttered phrase of the day. The almost universal sense of disbelief was reinforced when word spread that the deadline for nominations had been Feb. 1, less than two weeks after Mr. Obama entered office. By rights, the nomination should have been diagnosed as a symptom of an extreme case of Obamamania and quietly discarded. Certainly there have been less deserved awards of the Nobel Peace Prize, such as the 1994 award to Palestinian terrorist Yasser...

Pulling off a double-parody can be a daunting enterprise, but this one makes a laudable (and humorous) effort to spoof both Britney Spears’ “Womanizer” and Obama’s Nobel Peace Rhetoric Prize. The author proclaims that she was inspired by Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC). Video: Obamanizer

On The MSNBC Friday, Joe Scarborough and Mark Halperin mocked the news that President Obama has been given the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. Scarborough said it is a “joke,” and Halperin said it reinforces the idea that Obama is all about “just words.” Haperin joked you might as well give the award to “Michael Moore.” (video below) Toward the end of the video, Scarborough was told that “a senior White House Official” had sent a message saying Scarborough was acting like an “a**hole.” Video: Joe Scarborough Mocks Obama’s Peace Prize

On The MSNBC’s Ed Show Friday, Representative Alan Grayson (D-FL) discussed Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize. (video below) When asked for his response to “the response of the Republican Party, and how they’ve been so negative,” Grayson answered “I think I understand their disappointment, they’re not going to be winning the Nobel Peace Prize themselves anytime soon, they probably wish that there was a Nobel Prize for fear, a Nobel prize for hatred, a Nobel prize for racism, you know then they’d be in the running.” Although it is tempting to consider Grayson’s remarks as some feeble comedic attempt,...

Sure, sure, there were “politics” involved and politics is petty, but that’s precisely the point. Consider the timing. On one level it might have been designed to influence the Afghan decision. In other words: Nobel Peace Prize Winner Calls For Troop Surge is going to look paradoxical to some, perhaps even the current “decider”. On the other hand I wouldn’t down play the worldwide reaction to he sickening virulence of American Obama-haters. The worldwide web circulation of pictures of thuggish goons carrying guns (yes I know it’s legal, it’as also incredibly stupid), haters screaming down dissenters from their talking points...

President Obama on Friday won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, bringing the relatively novice leader a new measure of prestige on the world stage but also potential complications in carrying out a foreign policy that includes managing two wars. In making Obama the third sitting U.S. president to win the prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee praised the president's cooperative approach to global issues, a clear rebuke of the Bush administration's aversion to international organizations and treaties. The prize comes after Obama has been in office less than nine months, and as he decides whether to send additional combat troops to...

MY FIRST three thoughts upon hearing that President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize were: ■ For what!?!? ■ So this is how low our image sunk under President Bush? ■ This is our Nobel! Even the most fervent Obama supporters have to scratch their heads. The Nobel Committee praised Obama’s “extraordinary efforts’’ on international diplomacy and cooperation, citing his nascent efforts to reduce nuclear weapons and America’s “more constructive role’’ on climate change. The committee said Obama had become “the world’s leading spokesman’’ for international policies the committee has sought to “stimulate’’ for 108 years. Talk about giving...

To the surprise of the majority of Americans and the entire world, on 10/9/09 U.S. President Barak H. Obama was chosen to receive this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. It is no secret to any who follow politics or world events on the Right that the Nobel Peace Prize Foundation is an elitist, secular liberal body with a secular liberal utopian vision for the world and pushes a godless leftist agenda (Isaiah 30:1). The past recipients of this Award undoubtedy reveal this organization’s leftist leanings. All one has to do is to listen to President Obama’s acceptance speech today to understand...

Do you miss those days in Little League when everyone received a trophy no matter how poorly you played? Now glory can be yours, for the Nobel Peace Prize is within reach of even the most incompetent fools. Just open a box of Cracker Jack.

CNN’S WOLF BLITZER: In surprising news, we've just learned this morning that President mmm-mmm-mmm Barack Hussein Obama has been awarded the title of Miss Universe for 2010. Sources indicate his girly pitch at Major League Baseball’s All-Star game this past summer was so stunningly feminine it put him far beyond the talents and beauty of next year’s potential competition, and the Miss Universe Organization decided to award Obama the honor without ever holding the pageant. The sheer elegance of his many appearances on the covers of Newsweek and Time merely added diamonds to his crown. [Holds his hand to the...

A young politician, not yet fully tested, makes important and history-altering moves on the international stage – moves whose long-term outcomes remain uncertain – and is surprised to find himself with a Nobel Peace Prize. That describes Lester B. Pearson in 1957. It describes Barack Obama in 2009. Mr. Pearson's role in creating a United Nations peacekeeping force to resolve the first Middle East conflict won him the award six years before he was prime minister. It didn't change attitudes among Arabs or Israelis, but the Norwegian judges felt it was a symbolically important action that had a good chance...

TIME imagines in photo-illustrations what would happen if award academies around the world adopted the Nobel set of standards for winning Fun With Photoshop: Obama's Other Awards(clicky clicky)

To the surprise of the majority of Americans and the entire world, on 10/9/09 U.S. President Barak H. Obama was chosen to receive this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. It is no secret to any who follow politics or world events on the Right that the Nobel Peace Prize Foundation is an elitist, secular liberal body with a secular liberal utopian vision for the world and pushes a godless leftist agenda (Isaiah 30:1). The past recipients of this Award undoubtedy reveal this organization’s leftist leanings. All one has to do is to listen to President Obama’s acceptance speech today to understand...

Barack Obama may have won the Nobel Peace Prize today, but over in DUmmieland he has also succeeded in winning the DUmmie Pissed Prize! That's right, lots of DUmmies are PISSED that the Nobel would go to that imperialist warmonger, Barack McSame. So that means the loyal Obamabots are busy trying to put down the naysayers and put on a happy face. It all makes for anything BUT peace in DUmmieland, as we see in this THREAD, "Breaking News: Obama wins 2009 Nobel Peace Prize." So let us now watch the DUmmies get a piece of Barack, in Red-Cape-in-Front-of-a-Bull...

The "Rainbow" Tour (featuring the dynamic duo of Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama, and man of the hour himself – Barrack Hussein "I'm So Sorry" Obama) went on an ambitions mission to Copenhagen to make the case for bringing the Olympics to Chicago. Hope was high. Can we bring the Olympics to Chicago? Yes we…can't. Michelle Obama's tears did not persuade the IOC. Nor did Obama's Perry Mason-esque (maybe he should have gone with more of a Matlock approach) arguments that the Olympics should be held in Chicago so he could walk to the Olympic Games without having to drive...

Here is video of Congressman Alan Grayson on MSNBC's "The Ed Show" talking Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize. When asked for his response to "the response of the Republican Party, and how they've been so negative," Grayson answered "I think I understand their disappointment, they're not going to be winning the Nobel Peace Prize themselves anytime soon, they probably wish that there was a Nobel Prize for fear, a Nobel prize for hatred, a Nobel prize for racism, you know then they'd be in the running." (Video)

<p>Sima Samar, women's rights activist in Afghanistan: "With dogged persistence and at great personal risk, she kept her schools and clinics open in Afghanistan even during the most repressive days of the Taliban regime, whose laws prohibited the education of girls past the age of eight. When the Taliban fell, Samar returned to Kabul and accepted the post of Minister for Women's Affairs."</p>

Friday, October 09, 2009 What If . . .    [David Kahane] Every comedy starts with a couple of guys tossing out a series of increasingly ridiculous "What if?" questions, until they get to the most idiotic reductio ad absurdum imaginable. So here goes: What if a guy nobody's ever heard of, from Hawaii no less, with a Muslim African father and a Muslim Indonesian stepfather and a mom from Kansas named Stanley inexplicably glides from Punahou to a short sheep-dip at Occidental to the Frankfurt School's favorite Ivy League haunt, Columbia, to Harvard Law? What if he's such...

President Barack Hussein Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize for his contributions to world peace in the two weeks between January 21, 2009, when he was inaugurated into office, and the February 1, 2009 deadline for nominations. Which is to say, nothing. Zero. Nada. Zilch. And nine months into his only term in office, he’s not accomplished a single thing more. With a nod to “Saturday Night Live”:† Has he halted North Korea’s nuclear program? Uh, no.† Has he gotten Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions? Nope.† Has he stopped the genocide in Darfur? Uh-uh.† Has he achieved peace...

The last thing Barack Obama needed at this moment in his presidency and our politics is a prize for a promise. Inspirational words have brought him a long way - including to the night in Grant Park less than a year ago when he asked that we "join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it's been done in America for 221 years - block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand."

(snip) Mike Huckabee and Tim Pawlenty — both potential 2012 presidential contenders — urged restraint. "There will be an outcry from those on the right who will say that Obama's nomination, made two weeks into his Presidency, is impossible to justify, but I think such an outcry will sound like right-wing whining," Huckabee said in a statement. "The better response is simply to allow those on the left to explain what he did in his first two weeks as President that merited such recognition." Pawlenty, speaking on NPR, said there "will be some people who are saying 'Was it based...

An award that generates as much interest as the Nobel Peace Prize is bound to be surrounded by myths. Geir Lundestad, secretary of the secretive committee that awards the prize, outlines for The Associated Press some of the most common misunderstandings: ... • Myth: The prize is awarded to recognize efforts for peace, human rights and democracy only after they have proven successful. More often, the prize is awarded to encourage those who receive it to see the effort through, sometimes at critical moments.

I just received President Obama's official e-mail response to supporters about winning the Nobel Peace Prize. In just 10 sentences, he refers to himself (I/me/my) 16 times. And that count doesn't include the times he says "we." I've reprinted the whole thing after the jump, but my favorite line is this:But I know these challenges can be met so long as it's recognized that they will not be met by one person or one nation alone.Which is why Obama keeps talking about himself, you see — he knows and that's all that matters. At least he's unified the blogosphere —...

If the world was stunned to learn that President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, it will be even more amazed by all the awards that are still coming his way. A Reason.tv Rapid Response video. Approximately two minutes. Written and produced by Meredith Bragg and Nick Gillespie.

Here is audio of Michelle Malkin on "Brian and the Judge" reacting to Obama being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Malkin said "the only honest and humble thing to do would be to refuse to accept the award, but honesty and humility have not marked the last 8 months, and it's beyond parody." She went on to say this "world apology tour" Obama has been on has "paid huge dividends." Malkin also said "it's almost an insult to joke that Barack Obama has become Jimmy Carter, because Jimmy Carter at least had something to stand on, and this has really...

Every one was surprised that the President who has only served 9 months was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Even more surprising was that he must have been nominated less than 12 days after his inauguration, since the closing date for this year's nominees was 1 February. Strangely enough no one seems to have wondered who actually did suggest Obama as a nominee. Let's have a look at the possible nominators. Here is the list of people and organizations that are allowed to nominate from the Norwegian Nobel site:: 1. Members of national assemblies and governments of states; 2. Members...

For teachers and students at the Hempstead school named after Barack Obama, the surprise Nobel Peace Prize bestowed upon the president was right on time. After all, like the Nobel committee that picked Obama, the school board acted quickly to honor the president by renaming the school Barack Obama Elementary School just after he was elected in November. "When you see the way the world reacted to his presidency, I don't think he represents just the presidency," said second-grade teacher Rosetta Langlois. "I think he represents a new model of harmony, peace and hope." Principal Jean Bligen said some people...

Ten years from now, we will all look back at this day as one of the most hysterical moments in FReeper history.

Can the scientist who denied the cause of AIDS be trusted to cure cancer? --snip-- ...In the past three decades, Duesberg has been described as a genius, a martyr, and a genocidal lunatic—often by the same person, usually amid the fierce debates and international headlines that come with major scientific breakthroughs. In 1971, at the age of 33, he became the first scientist to identify a cancer-causing gene—a biological holy grail that secured his place among an elite group of the country's top researchers. Tenure at Berkeley and a coveted spot in the National Academy of Sciences followed. So did...

Conservative talk radio host Glenn Beck said on Friday that the "tea party goers" and attendees of the 9/12 protest should receive the Nobel Peace Prize instead for stopping President Barack Obama's agenda. The controversial Beck said that the protesters have already blocked Obama from accomplishing the goals for which the Nobel Committee awarded him the prize. "The Nobel peace prize should be turned down by Barack Obama and should be given to the tea party goers and the 9/12 project," Beck said on his syndicated radio show today. "Because of the tea party goers and the 912 project people...

The Democratic party and their allies are mounting an afternoon public relations offensive to counter the jokes and other negative reactions to the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama for no apparent reason or accomplishment.Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi:"President Obama is working to restore American leadership worldwide and build bonds of friendship across the globe. The Nobel Peace Prize is a testament to his leadership and vision and a tribute to American values. I offer my congratulations to President Obama on this outstanding achievement. "Diplomacy and cooperation are the cornerstones of a strong, effective foreign policy....