Nobel Peace Prize: Obama’s No King?

Though no one in the media punditocracy found fault in President Obama’s acceptance speech in receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, author and pastor Byron Williams, writing in The Huffington Post, makes clear that President Obama shares little with the two African Americans receiving the prize before him, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Bunche:

For those who own mementos from the 2009 presidential inauguration such as key rings, bumper stickers and buttons depicting the images of Martin Luther King and Barack Obama as a way to illustrate that the civil right icon’s “dream” has been fulfilled, now would be the appropriate time to discard them into the ash pile of irrelevance.

Any doubt you may have had was put to rest by the president himself. Last Thursday, President Barack Obama became the third African-American to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, joining King and Ralph Bunche. Here is where the similarities end.

Bunche was awarded the prize in 1950 for his successful mediation of a series of cease fire agreements between the new nation of Israel and four Arab neighbors — Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. King was awarded the prize in 1964 for his commitment to nonviolent civil disobedience in response to often-violent Jim Crow segregation.

Obama’s award was a derivative prize. Like the highly speculative financial instruments that were used to invest in high-risk mortgage securities, the Nobel committee placed a side bet on what they believe Obama could do at some future date, more so than what he has actually accomplished.

Too harsh?

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