Obama’s Nobel Prize

Saturday, Oct. 10, 2009 | 2:07 a.m.

News that President Barack Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday came as a surprise to much of the world, including Obama himself and many of his supporters who saw the award as “premature.”

Obama’s right-wing critics, led by radio blowhard Rush Limbaugh, took a harsher tone. Limbaugh, who said the president had done “diddly-squat,” called the award an “embarrassment” and said Obama was “judged on wishful thinking.”

Limbaugh lined himself up with the Taliban, which mocked the award and said Obama had done “nothing for peace in Afghanistan.” As usual, neither the Taliban nor Limbaugh is correct. Nor are those people who dismiss the award as premature.

Thorbjorn Jagland, a former prime minister of Norway and chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said the award was not for what Obama might accomplish. He said the president had done plenty to unite the world.

“The question we have to ask is who has done the most in the previous year to enhance peace in the world,” Jagland said. “And who has done more than Barack Obama?”

The committee lauded Obama for creating “a new climate in international politics,” as well as his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people.”

If there was any question about whether he was deserving of the award, Obama’s moving remarks Friday made the choice clear.

Saying he was “both surprised and deeply humbled,” Obama said he does not “view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations.”

Obama has restored America’s reputation and international leadership role. By galvanizing America’s clout, he has brought a new hope for peace, particularly with his efforts to reach out to both enemies and allies to find diplomatic solutions to the world’s problems.

Obama said the Nobel Peace Prize is representative of the kind of world that “all Americans want to build, a world that gives life to the promise of our founding documents.”

Indeed, it is, and it is that vision and the way Obama has changed the world’s political climate that makes him a worthy Nobel laureate.