What Kind of Action in the World Justifies a Nobel Peace Prize?

What Kind of Action in the World Justifies a Nobel Peace Prize?

Action in the world ought to trump worlds evoked by words, especially when awarding a global prize allegedly recognizing sustained, courageous effort on behalf of peace in our world's deeply conflicted corners.

We live in an age when the farce of history precedes the tragedy, however, and even a few left-wing media and academic elites realize giving President Barack Obama a Nobel Peace Prize is utter, rollicking balderdash.

Over a lifetime of esthetic agony and ecstasy, a well-wrought world of words might deserve a Nobel Prize for Literature. Literary laureate William Faulkner made that point in his 1949 Nobel acceptance speech:...