Rick Lowe

A friend posted a note on my Facebook page with the headline "Barack Obama is deserving!" of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Of course his "note" had the usual Bush bashing, and he sure deserves  a lot of it, but to suggest that people are disagreeing with the selection because they are jealous, or racist and have a zeal to see Mr. Obama fail is a bit of a stretch.

Does this mean all the black people that object policies of a white president do so on the same grounds? That's a non sequitur right?

Regretfully, Mr. Obama may have started this "it's because I'm black" conspiracy himself during the last US Presidential election campaign in June 2008 when said:

"They're going to try to make you afraid of me. He's young and inexperienced and he's got a funny name. And did I mention he's black?"

See the Reuters link here…

Oh sure there are racists out there, and undoubtedly campaigners would have attempted to use whatever they could to detract from Mr. Obama, just as they would have done to detract from Mr. McCain. That's regretfully the nature of politics. But both black and white people would stand accused of this.

It is a shame that any legitimate discussion about the results Mr. Obama has produced to make him deserving of this high honour is dispensed with the line that one is racist because they are white and happen to disagree.

This is a cop out.

If Mr. Obama is deserving for legitimate reasons other than a backlash to the Bush mistakes or hopes and wishes of the majority of people, lay the facts on the table. As noted earlier, there's got to be more to receiving the Nobel Peace Prize than hopes and wishes.

Maybe after Mr. Obama completes his term and there is peace in the world, or significant progress in the Middle East, I'd be the first to cheer him on. Even though the people over there need to figure it out.

But after eight months in office? Come on.