Stockholm Syndrome

It's the one bit of news that has distracted the right-wing blogosphere from the cartoon crisis: UN Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Powerline ("Deacon") exults:

Bolton has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his major role in exposing Iran's secret plans to develop nuclear weapons. Elements of the MSM acted as cheerleaders for the anti-Bolton mugging. Don't expect the MSM to have much to say about Senator Voinovich's latest comments or the Nobel nomination.

Well, certainly don't expect anything if the MSM is following Powerline's advice on the meaningless of Nobel Peace Prize nominations ("Trunk"):

Come professors, judges, please heed the call: Patterico [unfunny blogger] requests your assistance: "Please nominate Patterico for a Nobel Peace Prize." He explains:

--I’m not asking because I think I somehow deserve it. I just want to mock the idea that being nominated is some great distinction. For example, I keep reading that murderer Stanley “Tookie” Williams was nominated for one, as if this is somehow relevant to whether he should be executed.

It’s not — because anyone can be nominated.--

Frey adds a helpful P.S.:
[W]hat will the application say? Well, if I were really trying to get it, you’d have to make some claim that would really impress the committee. You could say, for example, that I have killed more people than Tookie Williams and Yasser Arafat put together. But since I haven’t really killed anyone, you could simply note that fact, and argue that I am therefore even more “peaceful” than Arafat.

We wrote about Nobel Literature laureate Elfriede Jelinek in "High anxiety" and "Nobel Literature prize goes to Communist." Thinking along the same lines as Patterico, I'm wondering if we might be able to find readers to nominate us [Powerline] for the Nobel Prize for Literature next year -- on the ground, of course, that we bring even greater "linguistic zeal" than she "to reveal the absurdity of society's clichés and their subjugating power."

At least it's not the Nobel Peace Prize in Medicine.

UPDATE: The sudden increase in prestige associated with Nobel Peace Prize nominations was noticed in Ireland.