Since it was announced that Barack Obama would be awarded this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, the reaction has been furious on both sides of the imaginary political divide. Naomi Klein called the jury “delusional,” while Rush Limbaugh said that “the Nobel gang just suicide-bombed themselves.” Of course, right-wingers have, as usual, put their leftist peers in the dust when it comes to shamelessness, hyperbole, and offensiveness, with one online commentator actually positing that next year’s winner will be a raccoon. (Get it? Think vile racist slang…)

Probably the best take is cartoonist Tom Tomorrow’s, in which he posits that it is the idea of Obama that won the award, not the man himself.

Here are a few things about the prize, however. No, Obama doesn’t really deserve it. He’s only been president for less than a year, and all of his major initiatives have yet to bear fruit, peaceful or otherwise. He also intends to ramp up the war in Afghanistan, and has made it clear he will continue – and even enhance – Bush-era policies on detainees.

But really, it’s the Nobel Peace Prize we’re talking about here. And if you look at a list of previous winners, one thing that becomes clear is that the prize has always been more than a little screwy. After all, Henry Kissinger won the thing, and Ghandi never did.

[Peace image by bitzi.]