[tld221]

Originally Posted by Munchkin03

I wonder how much of it is the European Community "commending" the US, for lack of a better word, for electing the opposite of George W. Bush.

Originally Posted by KSigkid

I think that has a lot to do with it, and I think the President is benefitting from a reversal of the anti-Bush international backlash.
This is completely a "message award;" that doesn't necessarily make it different than past Nobel Prizes, but I think people should at least keep that point in mind.

But I think it's open to interpretation of whether that should actually be the case.

I'll admit that I have a rather limited understanding of the Nobel criteria for each of the categories. My limited understanding, though, is that in other categories (science and literature for example), the prize is given for someone who has either completed or substantially completed something. In the science categories, the individuals involved have either discovered something or substantially furthered the understanding of a concept.

In my opinion, the Peace Prize should be judged by similar criteria. I think that it's incredibly difficult to bring about the type of change worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize, but that's ok with me...it's an extraordinary award that should be given for extraordinary results.

this was the sentiment on Fox News this morning when I heard the news.

I love this though:

The Norwegian Nobel Committee decided not to inform Obama before the announcement because it didn’t want to wake him up, committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland said.


“Waking up a president in the middle of the night, this isn’t really something you do,” Jagland said.