US President Barack Obama’s conservative foes pounced on his Nobel Prize win on Friday as an opportunity to lambast his record and alleged celebrity status overseas.
The prize may have placed Obama alongside Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King, but it did little to stem a flood of acrimonious political debate that courses through Washington.
Meanwhile, a US official said Obama will give his US$1.4 million reward for the prize to charity.
No decision has been made yet on which organizations will benefit, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
Republicans and conservatives derided the Nobel committee’s decision to award its venerated peace prize to the 48-year-old president as “unfortunate” and an “embarrassment.”
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele accused Obama of having celebrity status but no “real achievements” that merited the award.
“The real question Americans are asking is, ‘what has President Obama actually accomplished?’” Steele said in a statement.
“It is unfortunate that the president’s star power has outshined tireless advocates who have made real achievements working towards peace and human rights,” Steele said.
“One thing is certain — President Obama won’t be receiving any awards from Americans for job creation, fiscal responsibility, or backing up rhetoric with concrete action,” Steele said.
Republican Representative Gresham Barrett was also critical.
“I’m not sure what the international community loved best: his waffling on Afghanistan, pulling defense missiles out of Eastern Europe, turning his back on freedom fighters in Honduras, coddling Castro, siding with Palestinians against Israel, or almost getting tough on Iran,” he said.
“Hopefully, this surprise award will give the President cause to re-evaluate his current course,” he said.
The announcement, which came in the early hours of Friday in Washington, also dominated conservative media chatter.
Radio host Rush Limbaugh, who attracts millions with his trademark brand of right-wing invective, said the win “fully exposes the illusion that is Barack Obama.”
“They love a weakened, neutered US and this is their way of promoting that concept,” he said in an e-mail to Politico.com.
Fellow conservative commentator Glenn Beck, host of a popular show on Fox News, posted his response to Obama’s win on Twitter.
“Nobel Prize committee awards its 1st ‘participation’ trophy,” he tweeted.
Some moderate Republicans lauded the win.
Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and one-time candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, cautioned his conservative colleagues against “right-wing whining,” while taking a swing at Obama.
“There will be an outcry from those on the right who will say that Obama’s nomination, made two weeks into his presidency, is impossible to justify, but I think such an outcry will sound like right-wing whining,” he wrote in a blog post.
“The better response is simply to allow those on the left to explain what he did in his first two weeks as president that merited such recognition,” he wrote.
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