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On Friday, South Korean President Moon Jae-in signed a historic peace accord with North
Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the rival countries pledging to officially end the Korean War
that began in 1950. It would seem like a time to celebrate, but former U.S. President Barack
Obama is doing no such thing. Instead, he is fuming after what Mr. Moon just let slip
about President Donald Trump in a cabinet meeting.
Donald Trump should win a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the standoff over North
Korea’s nuclear weapons program, South Korea’s president has suggested. According to The
Independent, President Moon Jae-in said he was “confident a new era of peace will unfold
on the Korean peninsula” following a historic summit last week during which Seoul and Pyongyang
pledged to end decades of hostilities and work towards “complete denuclearization.”
President Moon had previously said that Trump “deserves big credit for bringing about
the inter-Korean talks,” which were the first between North and South Korea in more
than a decade. The South Korean president echoed the same sentiment during a cabinet
meeting on Monday, telling Seoul officials, “President Trump should win the Nobel Peace
Prize. What we need is only peace.”
In the first small steps towards reconciliation, South Korea said on Monday it would remove
loudspeakers that have blared propaganda across the border for decades, while Pyongyang is
to shift its clocks to align with its southern neighbor. South Korea turned off the loudspeakers,
which have broadcast a mixture of news, Korean pop songs, and criticism of the North Korean
regime, as a goodwill gesture ahead of the summit. It will begin removing them on Tuesday.
“We see this as the easiest first step to build military trust,” said South Korean
defense ministry spokeswoman Choi Hyun-soo, adding that Seoul expected North Korea to
follow suit.
Meanwhile, North Korea will shift its time zone 30 minutes earlier to align with South
Korea starting on May 5. The North’s time zone was created in 2015 to mark the 70th
anniversary of Koreas liberation from Japanese rule after World War II.
Now, much hinges on Kim Jong-un’s upcoming summit with President Donald Trump, which
is planned to take place in late May or early June. Any deal with the U.S. will require
North Korea to demonstrate “irreversible” steps to shut down its nuclear weapons program,
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday.
President Barack Obama was given a Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, an honor which most hold that
he did nothing to earn. At the time, Tommy De Seno wrote for Fox News, “Barack Obama
won the Nobel Peace Prize this morning… President Obama has broken new ground here.
Nominations for potential winners of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize ended on February 1. The
president took office only 12 days earlier on January 20.”
A timeline of Obama’s schedule during the first twelve days of his presidency is unimpressive:
January 20: Sworn in as president. Went to a parade. Partied.
January 21: Asked bureaucrats to re-write guidelines for information requests. Held
an “open house” party at the White House.
January 22: Signed Executive Orders: Executive Branch workers to take ethics pledge; re-affirmed
Army Field Manual techniques for interrogations; expressed desire to close Gitmo (how’s that
working out?)
January 23: Ordered the release of federal funding to pay for abortions in foreign countries.
Lunch with Joe Biden; met with Tim Geithner.
January 24: Budget meeting with economic team.
January 25: Skipped church.
January 26: Gave speech about jobs and energy. Met with Hillary Clinton. Attended Geithner’s
swearing in ceremony.
January 27: Met with Republicans. Spoke at a clock tower in Ohio.
January 28: Economic meetings in the morning, met with Defense secretary in the afternoon.
January 29: Signed Ledbetter Bill overturning Supreme Court decision on lawsuits over wages.
Party in the State Room. Met with Biden.
January 30: Met economic advisers. Gave speech on Middle Class Working Families Task Force.
Met with senior enlisted military officials.
January 31: Took the day off.
February 1: Skipped church. Threw a Super Bowl party.
“So there you have it. The short path to the Nobel Peace Prize: Party, go to meetings,
skip church, release federal funding to pay for abortions in foreign countries, party
some more. Good grief,” wrote De Seno.
If President Donald Trump is not given the Nobel Peace Prize for his instrumental role
in bringing peace to the Korean Peninsula, it will only serve to cement the fact that
Obama was given his award for doing nothing at all. Indeed, there is perhaps no one less
deserving of such a prestigious honor than Barack Obama.