Charles Krauthammer, the ethics-free psychiatrist who regularly diagnoses his political opponents as insane, says that Al Gore winning a Nobel Prize puts him in the deserved company of rogues, creeps, and ne'er-do-wells of the highest order.
Here is the Smasher of Cabbage yesterday, on the Republican Pravda network (a.k.a. "F*x N*ws"):
Look, let's remember what the Prize is about. Al Gore now joins the ranks of Yasser Arafat, the father of modern terrorism, Le Duc Tho, who signed a treaty on behalf of a government that two years later invaded and extinguished the country it signed that treaty with, and the most disgraceful ex-president of the United States Jimmy Carter, who, forget about Iraq -- I'll remind you in the Gulf War, actively lobbied other countries to oppose his country in helping it in going to war. So, look, this is a treaty that is, has nothing to do with peace, it's about politics. It's the...I'm sorry, the award.
(si, hay mas)
Terrorist, treaty ignorer.... humane, visionary ex-President.
Yeah, that sounds just about right for Dr. Everyone's-Nuts-But-Me.
Of course, the good doctor ignores my favorite Nobel Prize recipient, Henry Kissinger, a member of his own Republicult. Kissinger was awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize along with North Vietnamese diplomatic representative Le Duc Tho, ostensibly for their work negotiating the ceasefires contained in the Paris Peace Accords.
But Tho actually declined the award, saying that his country was still not at peace; Kissinger accepted the award, even though he did not collect the award in person... and more importantly, even though Kissinger was one of the main architects of the secret B-52 bombing raids on Cambodia, in which many thousands of civilians died, with even more made refugees.
But since Kissinger is part of the non-Crazy People in Krauthammer's world, it's more important to slime Jimmy Carter for the 70,000th time.
I will stipulate that yes, of course the Nobel Peace Prize has a political element. It often awards prizes to politicians who the committee believes to be furthering prospects for peace in the year that these awards are given out. Sometimes these awards are appropriate, and the recipients go on to prove themselves true agents of peace, like in the case of Jimmy Carter. Sometimes they are not, and don't, like in the case of Henry Kissinger, pal to the Saudi Arabian dictators.
But does anyone doubt that Krauthammer and his fellow Republicans would be crowing shamelessly if this prize had been awarded to George W. Bush this year? It would be hailed as an important vindication of his grand vision for the Middle East, etc. etc. F*x N*ws would be doing wall-to-wall coverage, its usual suspect tripping over themselves to find ever more grandiose adjectives to describe the significance of Bush's win, and... well, the wingnut propaganda writes itself.
Finally.
If Doctor Demento Krauthammer and his fellow wingnuts are so twisted in rage by Al Gore that they must deny the value of a Nobel Peace Prize for all time, then they need to explain how all of the following recipients * were chosen simply to further some dark leftist agenda:
2007 - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jr.
2006 - Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank
2005 - International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei
2004 - Wangari Maathai
2003 - Shirin Ebadi
2002 - Jimmy Carter
2001 - United Nations, Kofi Annan
2000 - Kim Dae-jung
1999 - Médecins Sans Frontières
1998 - John Hume, David Trimble
1997 - International Campaign to Ban Landmines, Jody Williams
1996 - Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, José Ramos-Horta
1995 - Joseph Rotblat, Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs
1994 - Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin
1993 - Nelson Mandela, F.W. de Klerk
1992 - Rigoberta Menchú Tum
1991 - Aung San Suu Kyi
1990 - Mikhail Gorbachev
1989 - The 14th Dalai Lama
1988 - United Nations Peacekeeping Forces
1987 - Oscar Arias Sánchez
1986 - Elie Wiesel
1985 - International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
1984 - Desmond Tutu
1983 - Lech Walesa
1982 - Alva Myrdal, Alfonso García Robles
1981 - Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
1980 - Adolfo Pérez Esquivel
1979 - Mother Teresa
1978 - Anwar al-Sadat, Menachem Begin
1977 - Amnesty International
1976 - Betty Williams, Mairead Corrigan
1975 - Andrei Sakharov
1974 - Seán MacBride, Eisaku Sato
1973 - Henry Kissinger, Le Duc Tho
1972 - The prize money for 1972 was allocated to the Main Fund
1971 - Willy Brandt
1970 - Norman Borlaug
1969 - International Labour Organization
1968 - René Cassin
1967 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
1966 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1965 - United Nations Children's Fund
1964 - Martin Luther King
1963 - International Committee of the Red Cross, League of Red Cross Societies
1962 - Linus Pauling
1961 - Dag Hammarskjöld
1960 - Albert Lutuli
1959 - Philip Noel-Baker
1958 - Georges Pire
1957 - Lester Bowles Pearson
1956 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
1955 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1954 - Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
1953 - George C. Marshall
1952 - Albert Schweitzer
1951 - Léon Jouhaux
1950 - Ralph Bunche
1949 - Lord Boyd Orr
1948 - The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
1947 - Friends Service Council, American Friends Service Committee
1946 - Emily Greene Balch, John R. Mott
1945 - Cordell Hull
1944 - International Committee of the Red Cross
1939 -1943 The prize money was with 1/3 allocated to the Main Fund and with 2/3 to the Special Fund of this prize section
1938 - Nansen International Office for Refugees
1937 - Robert Cecil
1936 - Carlos Saavedra Lamas
1935 - Carl von Ossietzky
1934 - Arthur Henderson
1933 - Sir Norman Angell
1932 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1931 - Jane Addams, Nicholas Murray Butler
1930 - Nathan Söderblom
1929 - Frank B. Kellogg
1928 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1927 - Ferdinand Buisson, Ludwig Quidde
1926 - Aristide Briand, Gustav Stresemann
1925 - Sir Austen Chamberlain, Charles G. Dawes
1924 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1923 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1922 - Fridtjof Nansen
1921 - Hjalmar Branting, Christian Lange
1920 - Léon Bourgeois
1919 - Woodrow Wilson
1918 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1917 - International Committee of the Red Cross
1916 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1915 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1914 - The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section
1913 - Henri La Fontaine
1912 - Elihu Root
1911 - Tobias Asser, Alfred Fried
1910 - Permanent International Peace Bureau
1909 - Auguste Beernaert, Paul Henri d'Estournelles de Constant
1908 - Klas Pontus Arnoldson, Fredrik Bajer
1907 - Ernesto Teodoro Moneta, Louis Renault
1906 - Theodore Roosevelt
1905 - Bertha von Suttner
1904 - Institute of International Law
1903 - Randal Cremer
1902 - Élie Ducommun, Albert Gobat
1901 - Henry Dunant, Frédéric Passy
Yup, they're all political hacks, the lot of 'em: Albert Schweitzer, Martin Luther King Jr., Elie Wiesel, Mother Teresa, Desmond Tutu, Shimon Peres, Lech Walesa, Nelson Mandela, the Dalai Lama.
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(* If you follow this link to the Nobel Prize site, you can click on links to any of the prize winners above, and get more information. As Krauthammer asserts, they are all leftwing political phonies.)