The "long marchers" belong to the permanent grievance clan that insistently claims its members are repressed and oppressed by (fill in the blank) capitalist, traditionalist, colonialist, sexist, Western or (when they are really on a roll) "Amerikan" values.
Now it's 2009, they've marched, sagged in the belly and jowls, and Obama's Nobel is a clue they've created a self-rewarding circle of cronies, giving attaboys and prizes to their pals. The joke is on everyone except the classicists --geniuses like Sophocles, Shakespeare and Faulkner -- who understand the permanent grip of human flaws, especially self-aggrandizing power.
What kind of action in the world justifies a Nobel Peace Prize? Averting nuclear war between India and Pakistan ought to earn one, and a good case can be made that George W. Bush's administration did just that in 2002.
An Islamo-fascist terror attack on India's parliament in New Delhi ignited the confrontation. The administration's intricate diplomacy helped defuse that Armageddon (and it may have done so again following the terrorist attack on Mumbai in 2008). However, long marchers don't give Nobels to Republican presidents because Republicans are (fill in the blank) capitalist, traditionalist, et cetera.
Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai ought to have won the 2009 peace prize, and the fact he didn't is damning. Giants among us like Tsvangirai demonstrate that "peace warrior" is no oxymoron. Since the presidential election of 2008, which Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe stole, Tsvangirai has provided a global lesson in physical courage and long-range vision.
Despite beatings, jail and the death of his wife, he has refused to let Mugabe's "machinery of violence" stall his steady, peaceful Movement for Democratic Change. A prime minister with little political power, Tsvangirai's adroit participation in a "unity government" has prevented (so far) a civil war. A Nobel would have provided protection for him, as well as forwarded his quest for peace.