2009 Nobel Peace Prize Nobel Peace Prize is a "premature canonization" and an "embarrassment to the Nobel process." "Slate magazine" blogger Mickey Kaus, "New York Times" columnist David Brooks and former U.N. ambassador John Bolton amongst others, called for Obama to not accept the award; pundit Michael Crowley argued that it was a "mixed blessing". Subsequent to the award many Americans now consider that Obama did not deserve it in the light of following events. Opponents of the award cite the expansion of the War on Terror and the large increase in the number of drone strikes carried out under Obama, specifically in Pakistan.
Nobel Peace Prize Norway has been able to use the prize as an instrument for nation building and furthering Norway's foreign policy and economic interests. In another 2011 "Aftenposten" opinion article, the grandson of one of Nobel's two brothers, Michael Nobel, also criticised what he believed to be the politicisation of the award, claiming that the Nobel Committee has not always acted in accordance with Nobel's will. Norwegian lawyer Fredrik S. Heffermehl has criticized the management of the Peace Prize. The awards given to Mikhail Gorbachev, Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Menachem Begin and Yasser Arafat, Lê Đức Thọ, Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Carter, Al