Nobel Peace Prize Analysis

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The Nobel Peace Prize is just some worthless piece of metal. Anybody can achieve it, yet some of the people who have received it accomplished feats that anyone could do. Watson and Crick did not have to discover DNA, anyone could have done that, and Gandhi did not have to invent the nonviolence movement, that’s so easy. Tom Toles illustrated a political cartoon in the Washington Post and Michael Binyon wrote an article in the London Times claiming that the prize the Nobel committee gives to Obama makes it a worthless piece of metal. The cartoon and the article both use libel in order to discredit Obama and make their argument more valid. Toles utilizes the caricature of Obama in his cartoon in order to make him look stupid and unqualified. …show more content…
The author throughout the article refers to Obama not as President, but as “Mr.Obama.” This essentially strips him of his importance and credibility and ignoring the fact that he was in a position of power at the time. Men typically use the title “Mr.” , unless they have a doctorate, in which it is up to his discretion to use the term “Mr.” or “Dr.” This norm does not apply to those in power, in which others use their position to address them, such as “King,” “Councilman,” or “President.” Binyon demotes Obama to that of an ordinary person, and since the Nobel Peace Prize goes to people who do extraordinary things, he claims that Obama cannot fulfill this position. His audience would look down on Obama by referring to him as “Mr.” and not a weighty title like “President,” asserting the idea that he is a common person and not unique enough to earn the Nobel Peace Prize. The author also attacks Obama by claiming that “There is a further irony in offering a peace prize to a president whose principal preoccupation at the moment is when and how to expand the war in Afghanistan.” He uses a hasty generalization to oversimplify Obama’s job to focusing on a conflict outside the first priority that is HIS COUNTRY, it attempts to claim how Obama does not deserve the Nobel Peace Prize. He does this to make his audience perceive Obama negatively, and agree with this

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