Friday's front page of The New York Times carried this headline:
Nobel Peace Laureate's Wooing of Trump Annoys Norwegians
Which means it also annoys the Trump-hating Times. The Norwegian socialists are their kind of people. It's a rare conservative-pleasing headline on the front page! Inside on A6, the header was "Nobel Peace Laureate's Wooing of Trump Vexes Norwegians."
Reporters Max Bearak and Henrik Pryser Libell channel all the Norwegian angst.
“A Nobel committee can never guard against peace prize laureates committing acts that run counter to the intention of the prize,’’ Lena Lindgren, a columnist for the Norwegian weekly Morgenbladet, said in an interview. “But what is new now is that the prize is being used in a political game, a warlike game.”
….What makes the dispute swirling around Ms. Machado unusual, according to Asle Sveen, a former researcher at the Nobel Institute, is Norwegians’ particularly dim view of Mr. Trump.
Ms. Machado “has dedicated her Peace Prize to a highly controversial president, to put it mildly,” Mr. Sveen said. “It is nearly universally accepted in Norway that Donald Trump attacks liberal democracy.”
One poll showed Norwegians would have voted for Kamala over Trump, 70 percent to 15. Once again, Norway sounds like the "news room" at the Times -- except they may have no Trump voters on staff. How much do the Norskies hate Trump? This much:
A Norwegian tabloid, Nettavisen, conducted a poll before the announcement of the award that found three-quarters of respondents were against it being bestowed on Mr. Trump, even if he were instrumental in orchestrating a peace agreement in Ukraine or Gaza.
There's literally nothing Trump could do to deserve it, which underlines who has a "closed mind" on geopolitics.
“The Nobel Committee has compromised the prize” by not foreseeing how Ms. Machado and Mr. Trump would use it to justify military intervention in Venezuela, Ms. Lindgren said. “Norway has been politically embarrassed and has failed to manage the symbolic capital.”
Machado is scorned for how she "remained mum about a bombing campaign against boasts Mr. Trump says are smuggling drugs. The American strikes have killed more than 100 people." Obama's drone strikes killed around 500 after he won the Nobel.
Machado was later accused of spreading dreadful "misinformation" in her wooing of Trump:
But she has also embraced Mr. Trump’s military buildup in the Caribbean, repeated debunked claims that Mr. Maduro manipulated U.S. elections, and parroted the Trump administration’s claim that Mr. Maduro manipulated U.S. elections, and parroted the Trump administration’s claim that Mr. Maduro simultaneously led two drug organizations, despite scant evidence.
Her assertions fueled accusations that she was amplifying misinformation in what, until now, seemed a failed attempt to gain the American president’s support.
The Times acknowledged there was "global outrage" when the Nobel committee picked President Obama in 2009 as he "was presiding over military engagements on several continents" (like Afghanistan). At the very end of the story, Bearak and Libell threw in an opposing Norwegian view from Marianne Dahl of the Peace Research Institute:
“It is easy to sit in comfortable Norway and criticize her for talking sweet to Trump,” Ms. Dahl said.
That, she noted, is exactly what many European and even Norwegian leaders have done. “And they don’t have a repressive regime pursuing them, as Machado has had,” she said.
