The Nobel's 'Affirmative Action Quota'

Erick Erickson suggests Obama won for his race

About 90 minutes after the announcement that President Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize, RedState blogger and editor-in-chief Erick Erickson said he was picked because of affirmative action:

Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize: He’s Becoming Jimmy Carter Faster Than Jimmy Carter Did. I did not realize the Nobel Peace Prize had an affirmative action quota for it, but that is the only thing I can think of for this news. There is no way Barack Obama earned it in the nominations period.

The blowback has been speedy and harsh:

• Mike Madden: "Yeah, Erick, otherwise you'd have won."

• Teresa Kopec: "Red State plays race card on cue."

• Kopec, responding to criticism that liberals ridicule the right: "Yup because of asshats like [Erickson]"

• Adam Serwer: "Erick Erickson wins the wingnut 'obama won the nobel cuz of affirmative action' prize"

• Madden sums up the opposition to Obama's prize: "The Taliban, Hamas and RedState.com."

• Brian Beutler: "It's almost as if [Erickson] doesn't realize there are whole continents of people that aren't majority white."

• Oliver Willis: "Thanks again to racists like [Erickson] for demonstrating why minorities and whites w brains run don't walk away from the right + GOP"

• Media Matters: "RedState's Erickson smears Obama's Nobel Peace Prize"

Erickson was not the only pundit to deride Obama's win. Many liberals agreed that it's a stretch. What did Erickson have to say in his defense? He scoffed, "OMG I made an affirmative action joke. I guess I'll never win the Nobel Peace Prize."