Norway's Parliament hands out $1.4 million for ability to sign disaster declarations

I can say with certainty that I was proud to play a part in helping Barack Obama winning this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. No, I didn’t hold up a campaign sign, order a T-shirt, or even cast my vote for the 11 Missouri electors that would have actually voted for him in Jefferson City, had he won 5500 more votes than John McCain.

Instead, I reported on a massive ice storm that blanketed the Ozarks in two inches of ice last January, some of which aired on CBS Radio’s hourly news reports. The system, which caused widespread tree damage and left large swaths of Arkansas, Missouri and Kentucky out of power for weeks, netted a federal disaster declaration from Obama during the second week of his Administration. As it turns out, this was just enough for a qualified nominator to submit Obama’s name to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, and more than enough for the committee to select him as this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Certainly this had to play in the minds of those five Norwegian parliamentarians, huddling in the Storting each time Oslo picks up at least three inches of snow. No way could these five august leaders of this non-EU nation award a prize honouring a lifetime of accomplishments to world peace to someone who merely warms up much of the world with feel-good speeches. Someone whose successful bills in the U.S. and Illinois State senates didn’t include sweeping, world-changing measures like universal healthcare but instead bi-partisan measures on military transparency. How that translates into Obama’s “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples” I’m baffled.

Three U.S. presidents have received the Nobel Peace Prize prior to Obama. Teddy Roosevelt had just negotiated a peace treaty between the Russians and Japanese in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, when winning the award in 1906. Woodrow Wilson, upon winning in 1919, had convinced many of the world’s nations to sign up for the League of Nations, but not the U.S. Senate. And Jimmy Carter received the honour 20 years after his presidency, marked positively by the Camp David Accords but marred more by the Tehran Embassy hostage crisis and his ordering the boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, which resulted in Zimbabwe winning the gold medal in women's field hockey.

All those accomplishments and follies came before they received the prize. Obama, on the other hand, has during his presidency chaired one meeting of the United Nations Security Council, delivered speeches in three foreign capitals before fawning audiences, declared intentions to close Gitmo, make federal disaster declarations in the aftermath of mother nature’s worst, and most importantly not be George W. Bush. A list of accomplishments that, while incredible, seem pale when it comes to defining a lifetime of work for peace. And it would be foolish for the Committee to award a lifetime prize as an advance for the successful completion of a laundry list of lofty goals such as combating terrorism, providing health care for every American, and staving off global warming.

Most of Obama’s accomplishments in the White House have come since the February 1 deadline to submit nominees. Somehow, it’s amazing that Obama had made a contribution during his nascent administration that warranted a prize recognising lifetime achievement. Indeed it’s wonderful that a multi-ethnic child, who spent part of his childhood overseas, went to Harvard and built up communities in Chicago's South Side, overcame prejudice and adversity to become the figurative leader of the free world. Unfortunately, were this a viable reason to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, Chile’s Michelle Bachelet and Baroness Margaret Thatcher are still awaiting theirs.

So it’s between Norway beating the dead horse known as Bush’s legacy and Obama responding to a horrendous ice storm. And it would be just plain selfish for Norway’s five parliamentarians to put their grudges toward America’s cowboy diplomat above the ideals of Alfred Nobel’s will.

Enter the ice storm of January 2009. It had been forecasted days in advance, but its severity wouldn’t be known until it coated every tree branch, road surface, power line and for sale sign between Tulsa and Cincinnati with two inches of solid ice. The storm would find its way across the Atlantic, bringing much of Great Britain to a sliding halt the following week under a foot of snow.

Power crews responded from neighbouring areas as portable generators and wood stoves were in high demand. In Kentucky, where 24 people died as a result of the storm, Governor Steve Beshear called up every unit of the state’s National Guard to respond to the storm. In Northwest Arkansas, crews from as far as Pennsylvania and Minnesota trekked to the Ozarks to restore power and clear fallen branches.

And Obama? He signed the necessary documents on 27 January declaring parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, and Kentucky disaster areas, thus allowing federal aid to assist the recovery. A simple, routine stroke of the pen which further enabled government agencies from federal to town and county levels, churches, power companies, disaster relief agencies and neighbours to clear their streets and get back on the grid. Neighbours and crews which possibly included migrant workers and international representatives to Fortune 500 companies snowed in that week.

Congratulations, Mr. President. By helping 500,000 Americans recover from a vicious ice storm, you’ve just won the Nobel Peace Prize. It might have taken three weeks for some people to get back on the grid, but at least the world is a better place knowing that your disaster declaration kept people warm during the storm. Over cups of hot chocolate and buzzing chainsaws, Americans strengthen ties with themselves and the occasional foreign national, and most importantly cooperated to clear out all the Bradford pear trees which unfortunately couldn’t stand the weight of all that ice.