Bill Clinton Must Wonder -- Where's Mine?

When I checked my BlackBerry this morning while stumbling to the kitchen to make coffee, I saw the headline "Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize." My first thought was, "This must be a hoax." When I saw the "News Alerts" from the Washington Post and the New York Times I knew that it wasn't.

As a biographer of Bill Clinton (Clinton in Exile: A President Out of the White House), my second thought was, "I feel his pain." Clinton has lusted after the Nobel Peace Prize for years -- starting seriously at the end of his second term when he thought he could win it if, in the waning days of his second term, he could only bring the Israelis and Arabs together.

Not even as towering an ego as Bill Clinton expected to win it while a sitting president, as Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt had (but not even they came anywhere close to winning it before they had spent even a year in the White House).

For himself, Clinton saw the Nobel as a grand post-presidency honor. On leaving the White House in 2001, once he shed the stigma of his scandals, and particularly the Marc Rich pardon mess, Clinton looked to the post presidency of Jimmy Carter, a man he disliked intensely (see why in an earlier post, "Carter and Clinton: They Genuinely Dislike Each Other") and the international outreach that won Carter the Nobel in 2002.

And Clinton learned from his predecessor. He boldly and effectively has used his Clinton Foundation and his annual and highly successful Clinton Global Initiative to do genuinely important, ground-breaking work in some of the poorest countries in the world.

The main stories this morning in the Times and the Post included not a word about Bill Clinton. President Obama who humiliated Clinton and his wife in the primaries, now stands on the Nobel stage not only with Jimmy Carter , who saw Obama's promise early, but also with Al Gore, who won his Nobel in 2007 and whose relations with Clinton have been frosty since 1998 when the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke, and, especially, since Gore lost the 2000 election and blamed Clinton.

And now Bill's wife, Hillary, is Obama's Secretary of State, battling for position with Obama's various White House Czars charged with overseeing the most explosive parts of the world.

No novelist, not even a Nobel Laureate in Literature, could make this stuff up.

 

 

Comments

[RapidRay]

"They are forever free who renounce all selfish desires and break away from the ego cage of "I", "me" and "mine" Bhadavad Gita. as quoted from George Harrison.
Does that sound like any politician? I think not.
Noble, maybe, who's to judge good deeds. Nobel, maybe not, Norwegians to judge good deeds.

[Charlotte Waldo]

Poor Bill. Just keep your nose to the grindstone and keep doing the good work, that's its own reward. While the right-wing furor over Obama's win is kind of amusing, I do think the Committee probably could have found someone more deserving this round. Let Obama get his feet wet first. I hope that Obama will achieve the promise of this award.

[2Bfair]

"the good work, that's its own reward" ?

Bill Clinton has become a mega milliionaire selling the influence of a former president internationally to the highest bidders. He also constantly talks about and seeks credit for his "good works." His post presidency seems primarily about greed and ego, not really in the spirit of Nobel Peace Prize.

[wreckdiver]

Really? Is that what it "seems like", to YOU ... someone posting almost 12,000 attacks on the Clintons?

wow.

[Carol Felsenthal - Huffpost Blogger]

This is from a friend of mine, a political activist and journalist from Brooklyn, who can not figure out how to post a comment and asked me to post it for her:

"I was astonished by this morning's Obama Nobel Peace news, too. Then I remembered that today is Obama's 4th (of 5 scheduled) "What Do We Do In Afghanistan Next" brainstormings. It would look bad for the new Nobel Peace winner to step up the War In/On Afghanistan -- especially with an aggressive Iraq-like (Vietnam-like) infusion of troops. Maybe the Nobel thinking was: award President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize so as to force him to remove U.S. troops from Afghanistan & Iraq -- soon. (At least get Obama to stop making the insane declaration that we'll be there til "victory"....) Enough lives have already been wasted there -- including [name removed], the son of my dear (Holocaust survivor) friend [name removed] -- on July 4, 2008 -- somewhere in Afghanistan under unexplained circumstances. R.I.P.

[2Bfair]

Does your "friend" remember how long those wars have been going and who started them?

[clevelandchick]

Didn't Bill Clinton bomb the bejeesus out of Serbia? Maybe that's why he hasn't been nominated.

[jhamm1]

Good point. And rather than stop the ethnic cleansing, he actually wound up escalating it as Milosevic became progressively more desperate under the pressure of aerial attacks.

[meinmd]

How do you know if Clinton has ever been nominated? From what I understand, the nominees are not known and will not be revealed for 50 years.

[tel8034]

The point is that Clinton has not been awarded a Nobel Prize ..........­.......... There is NO runner up.

But he must not be happy that Carter, Gore and Obama have received a Nobel Prize, and he has not, especially knowing that he has not been kind to them.

KARMA IS A B****.

[wreckdiver]

The fact that Obama was awarded a NPP probably just makes him laugh, ....

..... like everyone else.

[ChicagoNewsBench]

Nobel Peace Prize for.... what? Seriously, how has Barack Obama earned this prize? Has he ended the war in Iraq as promised? No. Has he pulled the US out of Afghanistan? No. Has he intervened in any way, through diplomatic or military means, to successfully end a war elsewhere? No, he has not. Has Obama brought two adversarial nations together to negotiate a peace treaty? Again, no. Ended hunger and poverty? No. Nothing he's done thus far is deserving of this award, and it seems rather insulting to the thousands of good men and women worldwide who have toiled their whole lives to achieve peace on Earth. The Nobel Peace Prize going to Obama seems to be pure politics, an award given out not for merit but more as a token of the man's popularity among the committee that gave it to him. One wonders if Obama would have the Peace Prize today had the committee been made up of the folks from the International Olympics Committee. (Thanks to Carol Felsenthal for yet another fine bit of writing.)

[tel8034]

Why don't you stop with the parroting and find out EXACTLY what the Nobel Committee said their reasons for their decision was.......­..........

Then you question would be answered.

[2Bfair]

earned is a strange term. Obama was not trying to win the prize. This is not the motivation for most winners. They do what they feel needs to be done for those in need, the cause of Peace, a value system larger than themselves.... which may explain why Bill has never received and never will recived the Nobel Peace Prize.

Bill through his foundation, CGI and personal corporate "speaking and consulting" and shady business deals (wink wink) FIRST AND FOREMOST has sought to make himself RICH. Not true of most winners who share the characteristic of selflessness.

[wreckdiver]

LOLOLOLOLOL....

[Appleblossom]

President Clinton may yet win the prize but I doubt he really is that unhappy over another Democrat winning the prize.

That makes 4 of the 5 US presidential winners Democrats. *smirk* The last and only Republican left the party when they were not progressive enough.

[Carol Felsenthal - Huffpost Blogger]

That's a good point and makes for a good post. My only quibble with it is that Teddy Roosevelt in his attempt to win back the White House in 2012 as the candidate of the Bull Moose party became more, not less, conservative.

[2Bfair]

Freudian slip? It was 1912 for Roosevelt ,right? It's Hillary who is posturing for 2012.

[2Bfair]

Can you let go of the bitter partisan warfare mentality at least to discuss the Nobel Peace Prize?

[buckunstoppable]

The reason Bill Clinton will probably never get the NPP is right in the article; he's actively trying to get it. I'd say that doing NPP-worthy work *because* you want the Prize makes one less deserving of actually receiving the prize. (I'm not making the argument that Obama, by contrast, deserves the prize; even as an ardent supporter, this seems a bit premature.)

[2Bfair]

good point. The Clintons feel very entitled.

[wreckdiver]

Pointing out the obvious doesn't mean he feels "entitled".

Besides, .... apparently they're giving them out to anyone who isn't Bush.

[fya]

Wow, Mr. Obama humiliated the Clintons during the primaries? I think they humilated themselves with some of the junk the pulled during the campaign I don't need to go into specifics. While I will agree that President Obama has not accomplished much to earn this prestigious award yet, I'm not disappointed that he got the recognition. He got the award on HOPE.

[blastit]

Thank you I was going to say the same thing myself, Obama didn't humilate the Clintons they did that all by themselves. Also I don't know why Gore would blame Clinton for not winning the Election, if Gore had of stuck by Clinton and not listened to the GOP, and talked about what was relevent to americans instead of getting caught up in the fake family values mess and had of stood up to George Bush's cheating he would have won the election... I think in time Clinton will get the Nobel Peace Prize, but on the other hand I'm glad he didn't get it, because it gives him something to strive for, something to look foward to and something to challenge him.

[2Bfair]

FYA, thank you for speaking up. Rove style politics backfired on Billary. No way to spin out of it.

[wreckdiver]

Yeah, right....

.... too bad Hopium withdrawal is so severe ...

[NikkiT]

I do agree that Bill Clinton deserves the NPP more for all the successful work he has acheived through the Clinton Global Initiative. But, I also understand why the committe gave it to Pres Obama, he is a symbol of hope for the future and has reversed 8 years of hate, fear, attack and non-diplomacy brought on by the Bush administration. His speeches and rallies have had record attendance, he speaks to not only the youth of the world, but the poorest of nations. His election gave hope not only to America, but to Africa and his speech in Cairo directed at muslim youth was electric. I see Obama as a symbol of hope and diplomacy and I think I agree with and understand the committee's reason for choosing him NOW at this time in our world. Having said all that - I certainly hope that Bill Clinton gets it next year for his work.

[clevelandchick]

Obama has taken US foreign policy off the destructive path of unilateralism and righted onto the path of multilaterism, diplomacy and global cooperation.

Of course, now he's got to do something about getting us out of Iraq and Afghanistan (two Republican wars launched by a Republican Administration). But his policy of reducing nuclear arms and improvement of US/Russia relations is another breath of fresh air for the planet.

People do not understand just how afraid of the US the rest of the world was while the Neocons were in charge. The globe sighed collectively when Obama was elected POTUS.

[2Bfair]

Oh please, the CGI is a creation of ego serving marketing by Bil Clinton. It claims $8 billion in "pledges" that are never monitored or confirm, most of which are just repackaging of current budgets and comments, submitted as admission for the world's largest Party for a Cause. CGI is more about rubbing elbows with power for profit than about global needs and philanthropy. Did anyone say Madoff style HOAX?

[wreckdiver]

Really? Any evidence at ALL, or is that just another ....

..... 2Bfairytale?

[DennyCrane]

Bill Clinton can take consolation in the fact that neither Bushes nor Reagan won the Nobel Prize either.

[2Bfair]

Now that is a high standard. But apt. Clinton is far more like Reagan and Bush than Carter, Obama, Wilson and T. Roosevelt.

[CydMiller]

I think this represents how desperate we are (Globally and in American) that Obama live up to the change he promised.

[SouthernBlueBelle]

Here I thought the Nobel committee were able to select and award the prize to whom ever they chose. I didn't know we had to have a world-wide election process to make it legitimate. Yes, and select someone that Rush & Morning Joe could applaud, like George W Bush or Dick Cheney, Ha!

[trainunderwater]

It seems a little ridiculous that Obama would win after only a year of presidency. What has he really done this year to warrant this prize?

[S1m0n]

It's never about a year. You're thinking of the Oscars. The Nobel prize is always given for the candidate's body of work, not any single event.

[2Bfair]

He personfies the power of democracy. He inspires the world. He repairs the severely damaged US reputation has as value-grounded world leader. He appointed his bitter political rival to his cabinet. I believe it is an important acknowledgement and endorsement.

[BeyondKen]

Of course Obama does not deserve it. After all, when violence broke out in Kenya early in 2008 following an election widely believed to have been stolen by the government, who do you suppose was asked by the US government to deliver a speech to Kenyans over the Voice of America shortwave network, to urge an end to violence?

Senator Barak H. Obama, Jan 2008 speech:
"I have been deeply troubled by the recent news out of Kenya. The instability and tragic violence pose an urgent and dangerous threat to the people of Kenya, and to Kenyan democracy. My family’s thoughts and prayers go out to all who have suffered, and to the families of the victims.

"The Kenyan people have a proud history of supporting the growth of democracy in their country. Their thirst for democracy was on display in this most recent election, when they turned out to vote in record numbers, and in a peaceful and orderly way.

"Kenya’s long democratic journey has at times been difficult. But at critical moments, Kenyans have chosen unity and progress over division and disaster. The way forward is not through violence – it is through democracy, and the rule of law. To all of Kenya’s people, I ask you to renew Kenya’s democratic tradition, and to seek your dreams in peace."

[2Bfair]

of course he deserves it. He has repaired America's damaged international image, demonstrated the power of democracy to open opportunity, showed the merit can overcome the oposition of a rival poitical party and a mean-spirited former president of his own party who puts personal interests ALWAYS ahead of service to the nation.