Nobel Peace posturing. (Scan).

In 2000, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to then-South Korean president Kim Dae-Jung. He was honored with the prize largely because of a celebrated June 2000 meeting with North Korean president Kim Jong-Il, in which the two leaders vowed that their countries would put their long years of bitter division behind them and start down the tough road to reunification. As the Nobel folks themselves put it, Kim Dae-Jung won the Nobel prize for many things, but for "peace and reconciliation with North Korea in particular."

All this seemed good and peaceful and reconciliatory until now, roughly three years later, when the official word came out that Kim Dae-Jung actually bought his historic meeting with Kim Jong-Il. According to a South Korean independent counsel who investigated the matter for 50 days, the South Korean government secretly funneled $100 million to North Korea shortly before the celebrated summit, essentially purchasing the high-profile meeting, perhaps to enhance the outgoing South Korean president's image.

The moral of the story? Do not let your vigilance wane and start putting any stock in the Nobel Peace Prize, for it remains as empty and worthless an award as ever.

Kim Dae-Jung may be the first Nobel Peace Prize recipient to actually have shelled out cold hard cash for the honor, but as far as being an undeserving winner whose main contribution to peace has been aggressive self-aggrandizement rather than actual achievement, Mr. Kim fits right in with his recent fellow Nobel winners.

Take last year's peace prize recipient, Jimmy Carter. He was awarded the Nobel for, among other things, "decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts." Which international conflicts did Carter actually solve? Well, the conflict with North Korea, for one--except for the part where the North Koreans kept working on a nuclear bomb while in talks with Carter. The North Koreans now fully admit to quickly ...