Leymah Gbowee: Liberian peace activist, author, Women in the World headliner, and now a Nobel Peace Prize winner, alongside Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first woman to win a free presidential election, and Yemeni anti-government protest leader Tawakkul Karman.

(Source: cheatsheet)

They’ve given the prize to terrorists (Yasir Arafat), warmakers (Le Duc Tho), and frauds before, as well as many true heroes of peace (Martin Luther King Jr., Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, and on and on). But this may be the first time the Olympics committee—whoops, I meant the Nobel committee—has awarded the peace prize to an infant. I mean that metaphorically, of course. (more…)

Twitter has been buzzing about the President’s Nobel prize this morning, and it’s been enormously entertaining. Read a sampling of our favorite tweets so far.  

No matter what you think of Obama, the man has done nothing, at all, to deserve it.

America awoke this morning to the stunning news that President Obama had won one of the world’s most coveted distinctions, the Nobel Peace Prize. According to the Nobel committee’s citation, it was awarded for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” with particular emphasis on Obama’s “vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.” It’s a remarkable justification for the award, given he’s made so little progress in achieving either goal. After all, he’s not even been President for ten months yet.

Although many past winners seem beyond dispute—Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Teresa come to mind—some were controversial at the time, while others did things that undermined their reputation after being awarded the prize.  Here are a few candidates for the most dubitable awards in Nobel Peace Prize history. (For our money, we’d place Obama closer to Woodrow Wilson than Yassir Arafat on the “Wait, seriously?” spectrum of winners. (more…)