I heard it this morning and my first thought was "For what?". I was not trying to be funny and don't dislike him at all, but was wondering if it was a slow year for them to select him. Below are three excerpts of a CNN article that I found interesting.
The link to the whole story is :
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/10/09/nobel.peace.prize/index.html The Norwegian Nobel Committee said it honored Obama for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." The decision appeared to catch most observers by surprise. The president had not been mentioned as among front-runners for the prize, and the roomful of reporters gasped when Thorbjorn Jagland, chairman of the Nobel committee, uttered Obama's name. Nominations for the prize had to be postmarked by February 1 -- only 12 days after Obama took office. The committee sent out its solicitation for nominations last September -- two months before Obama was elected president.
The Nobel committee recognized Obama's efforts to solve complex global problems including working toward a world free of nuclear weapons. "Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said. Jagland said the decision was "unanimous" and came with ease.
The last sitting U.S. president to win the peace prize was Woodrow Wilson in 1919. The other was Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. Jimmy Carter had been out of office for more than two decades when he won in 2002. This year's Peace Prize nominees included 172 people -- among them three Chinese dissidents, an Afghan activist and a controversial Colombian lawmaker -- and 33 organizations, the highest number of nominations ever.
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