More accurately, they are usually taking the politically fashionable stand on controversial topics. If you can imagine a Nobel Peace Prize being granted to a vocal defender of apartheid or a staunch opponent of abortion, you imagine a world very different from the one we live in.

If you think, "and thank God for that", it simply means that your political beliefs are fashionable, too. Being on the "right side of history" just means that your side won. Louis XVI was on the wrong side of history, but that doesn't mean we should all become Jacobins—although, in many ways, we have. (I'd guess the Nobel Peace Prize committee would have little problem endorsing liberté, égalité, fraternité.)