Barack Obama, Nobel Peace Prize Winner

October 9, 2:20 PMLiberal ExaminerMarlene Phillips

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Nobel Peace Prize Winner President Barack Obama AP Photo/Alex Brandon 

At 6:00 a.m. President Barack Obama woke to extraordinary news: he had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

The honor is a great one; between 1901 and 2008 the award has been awarded 89 times to 119 Nobel Lauriets. The name of the current United States president is now part of a select list of extraordinary people including Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Even before the President thanked the committee for bestowing this enormous honor on a sitting United States president, the Republican party had released a statement questioning the President's leadership. 

And the right wing site RedState.Com released this embarrassing statement: "I didn't think the Nobel Prize committee had an affirmative action quota but that is the only thing I can think of for this news."

This decision by the Nobel committee is a very straightforward statement. President Obama understands it; in his remarks this morning he said: "Let me be clear. I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by by people of all nations." He called it "a call to action, a call for all nations to confront the challenges of the 21st century." In announcing the news this morning, The New York Times correctly observed the award was also in a sense " a rebuke to the foreign policies of President Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush."  The Times probably based that observation on words like these, in the Committee's announcement: "President Obama's diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."

Although the award is granted by a small committee, based on my own personal experience I'd say if the people of the world had been able to vote the outcome might well have been the same. I've been fascinated by the reaction to the election of Barack Obama from ordinary people I've met in Europe, Africa and the Middle East: shopkeepers, restaurant owners, cab drivers, security guards and college students all told me openly they look to our country to help forge a path toward a better world for all. For the last eight years they felt our leaders had led the world backwards. But the election of Barack Obama changed that, not just with his election but with his subsequent actions. as the Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee said, "We are not awarding the prize for what might happen in the future, but for what he has done in the previous year. We would hope this will enhance what he is trying to do."

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to President Barack Obama this morning, because "he has created a new international climate." America should be very proud of that statement, and of their president.