Nobel Peace Prize Committee Chairman Thorbjorn Jagland holds a picture of President Obama. Nothing like heading into a three day holiday weekend with a big splashy story like President Obama wining the Nobel Peace Prize.  Even for those that greatly admire the President, like myself, the immediate reaction is one of disbelief or even being a little bit embarrassed.  It feels premature, or worse, that the most prestigious award in the world got caught up in something of a fad.  However, that reaction stems in large part due to the raucous noise of American politics, which has a tendency to boil everything down into dichotomies (either he's MLK 2.0 or a failure 9 months into his administration) and simplify complex issues into gut caricatures without appreciating the subtleties of the issue in question.  The right question is: what is the purpose of the Nobel Peace Prize and is Obama a good choice given that purpose?  What effect this will have on domestic politics, should he accept it (Seriously? The President of the U.S. refuses the Peace Prize, that's your advice?)  or just the derogatory "for what?", are questions of a postmodern world that values perception over reality.

In his will, Alfred Nobel said the Peace Prize was for "those who do most for fraternity between nations, the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for peace congresses."  In recent years however, the Prize Committee broadened the scope to include things like climate change and microfinance, which made it seem like winning the Oscar for "best person" rather than an award for peace.  However, there was speculation in the lead up to the award that this year they wanted to get back to the original intent of the award and further, they were going to attempt to use the award itself to further its stated purpose.  So rather than reward past accomplishments, the committee wanted to spur on future developments. 

The Nobel Peace Prize could not go to anyone but Obama.  His accomplishments seem ephemeral, but the world that Obama hopes to leave behind is clear and clearly Nobel.  More than anyone though, Obama should thank President Bush once again for something he's won.  After 8 years of unilateral American military adventurism and climate change denial, the polar opposite of Nobel's goals, Obama's modest moves and grand gestures towards building international cooperation, nuclear disarmament and climate change legislation suddenly seems transformative.  While his major accomplishments are still to come, he has already done more to further fraternity between nations than anyone in a decade just by changing the tone of American foreign policy, which at this point is the better part of global foreign policy. 

Further, as evidenced by Hamas immediately saying he did not deserve the award, the Nobel still has some juice in it.  That Hamas says that Obama's peace prize should hinge on securing Palestinian rights shows that he has succeeded in being seen as the arbiter, if not a completely fair one.  For someone known more for messianic imagery than humility, Obama seemed to grasp what a tricky, but potentially powerful, position winning the award put him in.  His speech hit all of the right notes:

I am both surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the Nobel Committee. 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 people in all nations.

To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize -- men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.

Conservatives will have to criticize the choice, but its just pro forma when the award is expressly for progress in international cooperation, climate change and development in the third world; do they even want to win that award?  John Derbyshire Conservatives, an exclusive club to be sure, probably wish the award did not exist at all.  Giving it to Barack Obama just makes it easier for them to ignore. 

He's not Nelson Mandela, but he was the right choice this year.