Conservative critics of Al Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize have had no shortage of criticisms, accusing the Nobel committee of everything from cheapening the honor to politicizing it.

James Fallows remembers hearing similar reactions in 1964, when the Nobel Peace Prize went to Martin Luther King.

The reaction was, of course, racial at its root. This was a majority-white, minority-Hispanic small town with very few black residents, which went for Barry Goldwater over Lyndon Johnson in the presidential election that same fall.

But the stated form of the objection concerned not King's race but his obnoxiousness as a man. He was a windbag. He was pompous and self-dramatizing, He was holier than thou. Plus, he had started getting involved where he didn't belong, in raising questions about the Vietnam War.

Those criticisms, of course, sound rather familiar; similar assessments are made of Gore quite frequently.

Time will tell if historical scrutiny will make Gore's critics look like King's -- which is to say, petty and short-sighted -- but given what we know, it seems like a safe bet.