Obama and his Prize

With the announcements of the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize recently, many people in the United States have one thought on their mind: Why did President Obama receive a Nobel?? With good reason, I might add. As I have nothing against Obama, I think it is rather ridiculous that he would win a Nobel after having been in office for a couple weeks at the time. As I was researching the op-eds for The Washington Post, I found an article all about this topic: An Unconstitutional Nobel by Ronald D. Rotunda and J. Peter Pham.

The writers clearly lay out the facts. A president receiving a Nobel is unconstitutional. I would not have necessarily believed this on hearing the phrase, but the evidence is concrete. Rotunda and Pham including a quote from the Constitution in their article, stating, “"And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State."

Because of the newness of this opinion piece in the news, I only found one opposition article on the Opposing Viewpoints Research Center. (In searching for future articles for arguments of fact, however, I will make sure to pick a topic that has many viewpoints.) This article I found, called President of Planet Earth, is extremely pro-Obama. In his byline, writer Howard Fineman describes his article as “why Obama’s Nobel was inevitable.” He continues to explain all the things Obama has done during and well before his presidency that put him in the ranks for the prize.

Although I was not overly swayed by the opposing article, I found reinforcements to my idea that I can support President Obama while still being a Republican. The opposing article did not have any “concrete evidence” like the first article did, but it was persuasive in its own way. I also came upon support of my beliefs: everyone has different opinions about everything.