Rather than directly confront the increased weight given to concerns about global warming with the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore, Saturday's Wall Street Journal (subs. req'd; alt. free link) runs through a list of causes -- carefully chosen to not be anything that George W. Bush might be against -- that did not receive the prize this year. Indeed it is true that with only one prize per year, the committee has to decide on one that is of particular global significance. It's not as if the other causes lose legitimacy from not getting a prize. Anyway, some of the suggested recipients have been busy giving awards to each other:
[not given to] Or to Britain's Tony Blair, Ireland's Bertie Ahern and the voters of Northern Ireland, who in March were able to set aside decades of hatred to establish joint Catholic-Protestant rule in Northern Ireland.
Well, Tony and Bertie had their love-in during Tony's swan-song earlier this year, and the Northern Ireland cause has been recognised previously in awards to John Hume and David Trimble.
Here's another --
In Olso yesterday, the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was not awarded to the Burmese monks whose defiance against, and brutalization at the hands of, the country's military junta in recent weeks captured the attention of the Free World.
Thus they do not know, or do not care, that the prize was awarded to Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991. 16 years later she's still under house arrest and the thugs are still in charge. If the Nobel committee was part of the UN, they'd be citing this as proof of its ineffectiveness.
Perhaps the strangest thing about the reaction of the American right to Gore's prize is their view that a win for Gore is a loss for them. He's moved on from 2000. They haven't.
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