Isn't it time to do away with the Nobel Peace Prize? Or at least to pay it no mind?

Now and then a deserving recipient wins, but for the most part the award reflects the left wing, anti-U.S. bias of the Norwegian committee that decides the honor. The choices of Jimmy Carter in 2002 and Al Gore last year were clearly slams at the Bush administration.

Now this year's choice indicates that the panel's judgment is not only politically clouded, but can be manipulated, if not intimidated, by powerful outside forces such as communist China.

The Peace Prize went to former Finland President Martti Ahtisaari who, to be fair, is not undeserving. He has done much in office and out to build lasting peace accords around the world.

But this was the wrong year for the 71-year-old Ahtisaari to get it. Here's why next year would have been much better. It was widely expected in the year 2008, marking the 60th anniversary of the signing of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights, that the Nobel committee would cite one or more dissidents facing persecution in nations such as China, Russia or Vietnam.

Speculation finally settled on Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng and AIDS environmental activist Hu Jia, nominated by Edward McMillan-Scott, a British member of the European parliament and founder of its Democracy and Human Rights Instrument.

The global human rights community was stunned when the dissident issue was ignored. "It is an opportunity missed to change the world for the better by encouraging reform in China," lamented McMillan-Scott, "there was intense diplomatic pressure from Beijing after widespread reports - welcomed worldwide - that Chinese dissidents were being nominated."

This prompted the Chinese foreign minister to say, a few days before the Nobel announcement, that his country did not want Chinese dissidents receiving any peace prize. The award, he said, should go to the "right people" - in other words, anybody but dissidents. And so it did.

Clearly the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, when it's not a prisoner of its own far left ideology, can be easily bullied by far left dictatorships. Its independence is not just compromised, it's shattered. Its award is devoid of any peace or moral value whatever.