Al Gore Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize

The title says it all. Think, as Brent Budowsky invites us, what this could mean not only for the Democratic party and the candidates that we're fielding but also how it could help heal the wounds inflicted on this nation and perhaps even the ones inflicted by us on the world at large.

Well, winning the Nobel Peace Prize would be quite a way to finish a year that saw the former Vice President accept an Academy Award for An Inconvenient Truth, quite possibly the best environmental documentary ever committed to celluloid.

Yet at the risk of acting like a nay-saying cold blanket, I'd also like to remind Mr. Budowsky that when President Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize himself just five years ago, it was just over five months before our barging into Baghdad under the pretext of looking for WMD's that were even more non-existent than the al Qaida terrorists and Saddam's connection to them. The Republicans largely responsible for the most self-destructive and Draconian legislation in the history of our republic retook a majority in the Senate and tightened their grip on the House less than a month later. Over a month after that, Carter, in his acceptance speech, quoted Ralph Bunche who'd presciently said,

"To suggest that war can prevent war is a base play on words and a despicable form of warmongering. The objective of any who sincerely believe in peace clearly must be to exhaust every honorable recourse in the effort to save the peace. The world has had ample evidence that war begets only conditions that beget further war."

Obviously, those worthy words had fallen on deaf ears or those already dedicated to the incessant beating of war drums from both the White House and its stenography pool.

The 2002 midterm elections were essentially a hit job on Democrats unfairly blamed for September 11th as the 2006 midterm elections were more fairly a hit job on the Republican party for their own bungling on Iraq and their countless corruption scandals (indeed, it can be plausibly advanced that the last several election cycles have been motivated not so much by liberal progressiveness or conservative values as by fear and vengeance). Jimmy Carter's Nobel Prize, while certainly nice to gaze upon on the Democrats' collective mantle, did not in any way, shape or form elevate our nation's standing on the world stage, certainly not in the Middle East, nor did it help avert us by even as much as an inch from war with Iraq.

Granted, a lot has changed in the five years since President Carter won the highly prestigious award and perhaps if Vice President Gore follows in his footsteps it will restore some credibility and spread some desperately-needed salve on the wounds of the nation. And, on a more superficial level, it will also be heartening to think of the humanitarian efforts pursued by former Democratic Presidents and Vice Presidents who seem to become even more productive once they leave office (Habitat for Humanity, global warming, President Clinton's Climate Initiative, not to mention the work all three men have done for Hurricane Katrina victims), while Republicans like George Bush are already salivating over how much money they'll make on the rubber chicken circuit.

But another Democrat winning another Peace Prize will not do a damned thing for Iraq or Afghanistan or help bring back the one million people that we've directly or indirectly killed in those countries alone. And only a Pollyanna would believe that Gore being made a Nobel laureate would help avert us by even so much as that elusive inch from a new war, this one with Iran.