(2009-10-09) — United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today rejected in the strongest possible terms the deployment of the Nobel Peace Prize to U.S. President Barack Obama, which he said was “reminiscent of George W. Bush’s disastrous doctrine of preemption.”

“The Nobel committee, perhaps persuaded by faulty intelligence and a hyped sense of urgency, made an historic blunder in its rush to judgment,” said Mr. Ban. “When Obama was nominated in February, he had just taken office…so the prize was awarded based on his speeches as a presidential candidate, not even for the good intentions that he has implemented in the past eight months.”

Wei Jingsheng, a Chinese dissident known as ‘the father of Chinese democracy’, is among the 176 nominees who lost to Mr. Obama, but said he was honored to have been edged out by “a man of such staggering accomplishments.”

“I was imprisoned more than 15 years for speaking out against a totalitarian communist regime,” said Mr. Wei, “A book of my essays was published from my writings, initially scribbled on toilet paper in jail. But I have to admit that Barack Obama has written two books and given hundreds of autobiographical speeches with thinner material than that. I bow respectfully to the father of global peace.”