By Bethany Shenberger
Staff Writer
On October 10, 2009, President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. The question on everyone’s mind was “What has he done to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?” I know for me the first thing that popped into my head was that he hadn’t done anything to deserve it. The Nobel peace prize is supposed to be given to someone who has done outstanding acts for peace and not just talked about it.
In my opinion, President Obama did not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize for many reasons. For one, he hasn’t done anything but talk about making peace. Second, we are at war with Afghanistan so how is that promoting peace? Third, he was nominated for the prize only eleven days into his presidency for acts of peace as President. Now my big question is, what acts had he done in those eleven days? I am pretty darn sure that he didn’t do a thing.
I know I am very biased as a Republican, but even democrats are voicing that he didn’t deserve it. I was actually in Washington, D.C, the day that Obama was announced the winner. I remember watching CNN, the most liberal of all news-casts, voicing that they didn’t know why he won. If that doesn’t say something, I really don’t know what does.
I really thought about it, and I wondered how many other students felt the way that I do. And what I found out was pretty believable. I found that most students that I talked to about it felt the same way and had the same opinion, and there were a few that did feel that Obama deserved the award. For those that had the opposite view, I asked them why they felt that he deserved it. Some said that Obama deserved it for all of the traveling out of the country to do peace talks before he was elected, that having supposedly shown Obama trying to make peace. But, how does that relate to his winning of the award for acts as president? Answer: it doesn’t.
In the end, I can’t do anything about Obama winning but to complain. I have my opinion about it and so do many others. But what is done is done. I guess the only good that came out of it all is that Obama decided to give the monetary winnings to charity.
