Health Care BS

I wasn’t going to write a post about the whole Nobel Prize thing, but I stumbled across a good metaphor that I hate to waste.  Today I played in a charity golf tournament and, as they always do at these events, the organizers handed each player a bag of tchotchkes.

It contained the usual junk: a beer koozy, a hideous cap, a frisbee displaying the name of an insurance agency, a cheesy key ring, etc. As I peered resignedly into the bag, I realized that the only thing missing was the Nobel Peace Prize.  That’s how cheap this award has now become.

Anyone who shows up on the world stage willing to recite pre-approved bromides about “cooperation between peoples,” clumsily participate the kabuki dance of “international diplomacy,” and toss a few cliches on the alter of global climate change will duly receive his tchotchke.

Once upon a time, the Peace Prize actually meant something. It meant something when Lech Walesa received it. It meant something when Martin Luther King received it. These two men, and many others who have received the Prize, actually did things that took courage and made a difference.

This is worse than giving it to Jimma. Carter is a buffoon, but at least he did SOMETHING. No matter how Obama’s supporters rationalize this award, it is confirmation that the Prize is now a cheap and meaningless piece of crap one gets for merely showing up and mouthing Lefty platitudes.

UPDATE I:

Chris Good asks those of us who think the Obama choice was “a bit of a reach” (Chris apparently has a gift for understatement) “who do you think should have gotten it?” I agree with a lot of people who think it should have gone to Neda Agha Soltan. As it is phrased in the Washington Post:

A posthumous award for Neda, as the avatar of a democratic movement in Iran, would have recognized the sacrifices that movement has made and encouraged its struggle in a dark hour. Democracy in Iran would not only set a people free, it would also dramatically improve the chances for world peace, since the regime that murdered her is pursuing nuclear weapons in defiance of the international community.

Obama can show himself to be a man of real courage and conviction by refusing to accept the award and publically asking the Nobel Committee to award it to Neda. I know one President who would have had the guts to do it: Ronald Reagan. 

UPDATE II:

Well, it would appear that one must be among the living to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, and Neda’s Iranian murderers deprived her of that qualification. Perhaps, then, we should give it to Christopher Hitchens. But I suppose he’d be better suited for the literature award:

We thus find ourselves in a rather peculiar universe where good intentions are rewarded before they have undergone the strenuous metamorphosis of being translated into good deeds, or hard facts.

Say what you like about Hitchens, the man can write.