Obama's Nobel

The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to our president, Barack Obama by the committee in Oslo Sweden. President Obama became the 4th U.S. President to win the award, and the first to win it in his first year in office. The three preceding President Nobel Laureates ( Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter ) all had won the prize for outstanding achievements while in office. President Obama’s was unique in that he had been nominated for the award only 11 days after election to office.
The committee gave President Obama the award for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples…. ( with ) special importance to Obama's vision of, and work for a world without nuclear weapons”. During a press conference, President Obama confessed that he “did not view at as a recognition of his own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations…..I do not feel as though I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who have been honored by this prize.” The president plans to donate the 1.4 million dollars of prize money to charity.
The nomination of President Obama has given rise to a great deal of controversy. Many argue that it was presumptive to give the president the award 11 days after becoming President. No real actions were taken within that time period and most do not believe that a campaign slogan can be Nobel Prize worthy.
Being an American, I have to feel a bit skeptical about this award. The President has failed to accomplish most of his campaign goals, including some he claimed would be fixed on his first day in office, like closing Guantanamo Bay. Political parties aside, you must concede that his presidency has not been as productive as we would have “hoped”.
I have not spent time overseas however, so I do not know how the rest of the world views our president. This award has led me to the conclusion that while maybe the president has not done amazing things yet for America, the award signifies that other parts of the world have gained hope through his presidency. This does not mean that he already deserves the award, but maybe it will humble him, and pull him out of his White House honeymoon enough to really start changing things. Like it or not, President Obama is our president for the next four years, so I think as proposed by Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly during the Bush administration, it is unpatriotic not to give him our support when he is making the decisions for our country.
To argue back and forth over whether or not the president deserves the award this early is rather pointless, because he is going to get the award anyway. The real question is: will he live up to it? Only time will tell.