The Five Funniest Reactions to Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize

So as you’ve probably heard, one Barack Obama is this year’s Nobel Peace Prize recipient for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”  Good job! some people say.  Too soon! some people say.  I still hate you! quite a few other people say.  In fact, the world’s major news outlets seem bent on giving you the scoop of what everyone has to say.

The five funniest reactions to the news, after the jump.  

1) Hamas.

A Hamas official in Palestine said, “Obama has a long way to go still and lots of work to do before he can deserve a reward. Obama only made promises and did not contribute any substance to world peace.”

Haha.  Right back atcha, Hamas!

2) The Taliban.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said it was absurd to give a peace award to a man who had sent 21,000 extra troops to Afghanistan to escalate a war.

“The Nobel prize for peace? Obama should have won the ‘Nobel Prize for escalating violence and killing civilians’,” he told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.

More like the Nobel Violence Prize, am I right??  The Reuters reporter definitely heard the sound of a high-five in the background of the undisclosed location right after this remark was made.

3) Mark Halperin.

“I predict right now that he will find a way to basically turn it down,” Time’s Mark Halperin added . “I think he is going to say, I share this with the world or whatever. I don’t think he’ll embrace this. Because there is no upside.”

“The damage is done,” Brzezinski responded.

Yes, pretty catastrophic to win that Nobel Peace Prize.  No upside?  How about that sweet $1.4 million jackpot you get to crush when you win? That money is going to brighten the day of a lot of high-ranking GM executives (a little bailout joke for you this morning).  It’s true that the award is kind of awkward and it won’t win him points with the people who already hate him (See?  The socialists worship him as their god!), but it’s hard to imagine that anyone will be particularly put off from Obama by this.  ”President Obama is being awarded for his efforts to foster friendly and peaceful relationships between nations of the world?  THAT’S THE LAST STRAW.”

4) More Hamas.

Hamas official Ahmed Yousef also congratulated Obama, “though it is early for him to be awarded this prize.”

“He reached out to the Muslim world in his Cairo speech and said many of the right things” and said, “this is a man who thinks of achieving world peace.”

He said he believes Obama represents a “new era in American politics,” but thinks “the president has done nothing to push forward peace between Israeli and Palestinians” even though the “intention is there…it is an uphill battle with the Jewish lobby and Congress.”

Way to make this about you, Hamas.

5) Josh Greenman.

“Any adviser with 10 brain cells will tell him he has only one alternative: to decline the prize and urge it be re-awarded to someone whose life is a true tribute to peace. Like the dissidents who bravely flooded the streets this summer to protest Iran’s election. Or a leader in nuclear non-proliferation.”

I’d actually argue that any advisor with 11 brain cells would tell Obama to not decline the prize, since that would be seen and condemned as a gesture of incredibly bad faith toward the international community.  But I’m no New York Daily News editorial columnist.

Look, obviously Obama is a weird choice for the award.  Clearly, the award is being given this year as a token of approval for a task in progress than as a thumbs-up for a job well done.  This is not how the Nobel usually works.  But I don’t necessarily think that it’s a bad thing that an honor typically given long after the fact and relevance of whatever earned it is being used here “politically” to encourage and ratify a peace that is still in the making.  Isn’t encouraging peace the root objective of this prize, after all?