The Nobel Peace Prize

I was shocked when it was first announced that President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. I would have to say that I was not the only person who was caught a little off guard by this decision. After discussing it with several people I decided this would be an interesting topic to blog on in order to see what everyone else thought about this. I decided to do a little research on the topic and found some even more interesting things about it.

First, nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize had to be postmarked by February 1, 2009. This was only 12 days after Obama took office! How can you nominate someone who has yet to make an impact on anything in our country, let alone the world? The next thing that caused this to be a shock, was that Obama was not even mentioned in the front runners for this award. Both of these things make me stop and wonder about the decision that was made. I also found the committee's reasons for choosing Obama surprising. The committee said it honored Obama for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. 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." Jagland said the decision was "unanimous" and came with ease.

Not only was I shocked, but Obama himself was shocked when he found out that he had won the award. Obama is the 4th president, and 3rd sitting president to win this award, but the fact that it came so early in his term makes me question the committee's decision.