Can anyone take the Nobel Prize seriously now?

First Al Gore, and now this.

President Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. And the question is being asked all over America and the world: "For what?"

In reality, it's not for anything he's done- other than giving in to tyrants and bullies at every opportunity, he hasn't really accomplished anything worth mentioning in the international arena, any more than he has at home- but rather, in Chris Wallace's phrase, for "not being George W. Bush."

Yes, the role of the United States in the world has changed under Barack Obama. It has diminished. Other countries don't have to take us nearly as seriously as they used to. And that's what President Obama got the Nobel Prize for.

At least some in the UK, anyway, understand just how silly this award is- and what a mockery it makes of what was once a prestigious award. And in an unguarded moment, one White House staffer responded to the news by asking, "It's not April 1, is it?"

HT: Real Clear Politics, Drudge