Prizes: A Bow to Tibet

In the past 20 years, Tibet's exiled leader, Tenzin Gyatso, 54, has been nominated several times for the Nobel Peace Prize. His nonviolent Buddhist philosophy and advocacy of a peaceful approach to determining Tibet's future would seem to make the 14th Dalai Lama (meaning "Ocean of Wisdom") a natural for the honor. So when the Nobel Committee in Oslo finally named him the winner of the $445,000 cash award last week, the question was not "Why him?" but "Why now?" Surely the choice of the Dalai Lama, who has been living in India since he fled Chinese occupation forces in 1959,...