PrintOctober 12, 2007
Al Gore - Warrior for Peace ( substantially updated)
Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize. *
He follows a long line of illustrious humanitarians who have selflessly and with no thought of personal reward, served the needs of humanity through the sheer goodness and purity of their souls. Or, in Gore’s case, those who have shamelessly promoted themselves as saviors of the planet when they have been proven in a court of law to be nothing more than alarmist charlatans.
Dedicated peace activists like the Dali Lama, Nelson Mandela, and Mother Teresa have preceded Mr. Gore in winning the Prize. As have not so dedicated peace activists like Yassar Arafat (who could have been described as a “piece” advocate due to the condition of the bodies of his victims after they were blown to bits), Mikhail Gorbachev – the first time a Peace Prize was awarded to a dictator for not sending in tanks to crush liberty, and Kofi Anan whose contributions to the peace of such places as Rwanda and Darfur will long be remembered – at least by those lucky enough to be left alive following his spectacularly inept and corrupt leadership.
But Gore's award - despite a British Court ruling that debunked major portions of his film An Inconvenient Truth - may serve as a catalyst for a late run for the presidency:
Though Gore’s name has been frequently mentioned in presidential politics this year, potentially as a “draft” nominee, he has declined to enter the contest.
But the Nobel is a huge honor recognized worldwide and gives him even more stature. It gives him a moment to reconsider the race for the Democratic nomination, now led by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Gore has not completely ruled out running, saying in the past he had “no plans” to be a candidate and shying away from the fund-raising extravaganza that now is central to American politics.
At one point, he even said that he is “not very good” at politics. Critics often lampooned him as wooden as a campaigner.
Just another in a long line of puzzling choices made by the clowns on the Nobel Committee.
* Parts of this post were printed originally at my personal blog Right Wing Nuthouse.
Update: Greg Richards adds:
If there were any real sacience here, aside from the warming of the earth since the last ice age which we have been experiencing for the last 10,000 years and is coterminous with hujman civilization, this subject would have been covered under one of the hard sciences and there would have been a CITATION of a PAPER "on man-made influence on global climate." Instead, we have a piece of agitation, which has just been discredited as SCIENCE in the UK.
Just a thought. Couldn't restrain myself.
Update: Marc Sheppard writes:
Contrary to all the media gushing, Al Gore's Nobel Peace Prize is no more an affirmation of his greenhouse gas beliefs than Yasser Arafat's 1994 award was a disavowal of Israel's right to exist. Nor is it any less worthy.
According to the 1895 will of the Prize's founder, Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel, the Peace Prize is to be awarded,
"to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses."
Surely, early winners like Red Cross Founder Jean Henri Dunant, U.S President Theodore Roosevelt and missionary surgeon Albert Schweitzer fit that mold nicely. But the award committee has devolved into a political tool of Europe's left, and has allowed its personal goals to conduct its judgment.
So, worthy or not, Gore's victory comes as no surprise at all, particularly with the majority of the media serving as his campaign machine. And naming the United Nations' International Panel on Climate Change as his co-honoree only serves to further prove that the selection was made with the left's cause du jour in mind rather than the intentions of Alfred Nobel.
Besides, with Kofi Annan bringing home the gold in 2001, Jimmy Carter in 2002 and Mohamed Elbaradei in 2004, this has been the century of giving those warmongering right wing Americans the what for they so richly deserve. In such grand Bush-bashing tradition, to whom would you expect them to award the prize, Irena Sendler, the 97-year-old Polish Catholic nominated for saving 2,500 Jews during the Holocaust?
Anyway, even were the committee's motives pure, their recognition of Al Gore's work "to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change" does no more to "settle" the debate over anthropogenic global warming than did Gore's recent Emmy award. To the contrary, it's just another arrow in the eco-maniac quiver they'll aim at their target of shutting down further discourse on the subject.
Just as both of this year's Laureates' have manipulated public opinion with agenda driven fact manipulation, so, of late, has the Nobel Committee.
Ultimately, Al Gore, the IPCC and the Norwegian commission that chose to honor them are all cut from the same incredulous cheesy cloth.
