I do believe Obama believes in peace more than the likes of that idiot Bush Jr or a few other ex presidents not named Jimmy Carter.

Having said that, I think the Nobel Peace Prize has usually been a massive joke.

Obama is certainly not the worst of the winners, but he is undeserving as of now. The military industrial complex is still thriving despite defense contractor scandals dwarfing those of the worst of Acorn's. And not to mention that the defense industry is thriving regardless of the fact that their purpose has become less important than more peaceful activities like intelligence gathering.

While being a avid Hillary Clinton supporter during the primaries (mainly due to her policy wonkiness and the Health Care Reform), I'll have disagree that Obama's health care was a disaster since nothing this big has happened concerning Health Care (e.g., this even includes Medicare and Medicaid).

So, unless you can make a plurality of 100 senators follow a different or better path, then, I'll have to say hold back on the void criticism. Hell, he's already doing better than Hillary by at least getting something passed. Never miss the forest for the trees.

If you want radical change, you need to develop a strategy that will beat the radical conservative think tanks for the next four election cycles at the lower echelons of government.

First place, galvanize the disk jokeys to be more politically active, especially in minority communities. I'll have to give Tom Joyner and another disc jokey (name can't recall) kudos for starting something very similar to another wave in the political movement.

Bizarre. makes no sense. You cant give someone nobel peace prize becuase they talked about something. Thats essentially what this is. It just makes the prize look silly.......I'd be embarrassed....

There is plenty of things we can criticize Obama for but turning a Dairy that should be celebrating this honor into a rant against our President is distasteful. Obviously you anticipated the blowback you would receive by suggesting anyone who challenges it is an "Obama can do no wrong" sycophant. Many Americans myself included feel honored out President has won this award and would like to discuss what this achievement will have on our relationship with the world. There is plenty of time to critique Obama in future Dairies but lets not try to smear this achievement with unrelated issues, you come off sounding petty, and more like a wingnut than a progressive.

This will provide the Republicans a new opportunity to appear small, petty, ungenerous, provincial.  I am sure they will seize it.

The world is truly a safer, more peaceful place with Obama in charge rather than Bush/Cheney. All that disappointment that we impatient progressives might feel with the pace of his domestic agenda is irrelevant to the state of peace in the world. [It's also somewhat unfair to him, given that he is president and not King, but that's a different argument.]

It's not intended to be a celebration of his domestic policy achievements (or lack thereof). It's a celebration of what he has already brought to the international stage, and in particular to his commitment to peaceful means to solve issues.

I'd have to hear what the committee said, but my first reaction was "ah, okay, he won it for being a minority President in an anglo-european country."

Really is that all that absurd?  Henry Kissinger wins the Nobel Prize 37 years ago, but THIS is making it into a joke?

Congratulations to the president .

I don't really care about the award ......More important things to deal with it like listening to the Generals and sending more troops to support the military in Afghanistan...

Look at the upside ( or Downside ) SNL and late night comics would have funnier material than what was put out last week....

World of international polity. By cooling down the heated rhetoric that was synonymous with the Bush administration, bringing back America to the multi-lateralism and international cooperation table, recognizing the ills of global climate change and America's role in it et al. America carries a big stick in the World, it is not apparent to us, but the rest of World can be both amazed or terrified by what we do sometimes..Obama's greatest contribution thus far is reaching out to the Muslim World, restarting Israel-Palestinian peace process, starting back channel talks with Cuba and Iran, making sure the multilateral cooperation energized to take care of North Korea's nuclear proliferation problem et al.

While this was a surprise, I think Obama fully deserved the Nobel Peace Prize.
 

First off, this is the Nobel panel's way of giving Dick Cheney, and the entire conservative agenda for the last 40 years, the finger, in public for all to see.  Fitting, in my book.  Obama has, by doing things differently in DC, exposed the reactionary, hatefull side of America we have been hiding and not dealing with for much of the last 40 years.  Obama is engaging the world as if we are all equals and grownups, and dealing with those countries leaders who do not act the same.  As the leader of the largest economy on earth in a time of economic crisis; as the leader of the worlds most powerfull military in the time of two wars; and as the leader of the country that had determined to force its political ideas on the rest of the world, He has reset the image of the US and its purpose in the world.  So that you can hear this properly, HE HAS, AS THE LEADER OF THE WORLD MOST PEOPLE ON EARTH HAVE ACCESS TO SEEING, RESET THE IDEA OF WHAT A LEADER OF THE WORLD SHOULD BE LIKE.

Worth a Nobel prize, on its own merits, right there.  He gets his agenda through, give him another, especially in regards to Iraq and Afghanistan.  (And if he survives the attacks of the far right AND the Blog left, give him two more!)

I am no rabid fan of Obama.  But he represents a bright warm shelter after 8 years (or 40) of pissy, cold, dark, wet politics.  I was never so depressed, in all of the years I have been alive, as when W won again in 2004.  And never so damned happy when Obama, and Franken, won in 2008.  DON'T FORGET WHAT WE JUST EMERGED FROM...WE CAN SLIP RIGHT BACK IN.

As for Obama's current agenda...I can see how it pisses off a lot of bloggers.  He is doing things that are almost anathema to the blogging world:  Being patient and engaging his ideological opponents (the moderate right disguised as Independants, not the far-right nuts) in a thoughtful and considerate way.  He is working to bring the country together.

The test is to see who gets elected in 2010.  Unless, of course, it burns your ass to help the President achieve similar goals in a way that is not your own.

A lot of the reaction is just funny.  Anyone who's been here for longer than a year could have predicted The Blogfather writing what amounts to a damage control piece about it.  There's a visceral hatred of the President, and when it comes from places with no influence and no constituency it's sort of fun to watch.  Which reminds me - I'm also going to check on Goldberry this morning, maybe for the first time in about a year.

The regular political repurcussions will be interesting - on Morning Joe they were wondering whether Obama could offset "the damage" of winning the award; the fact that it would be damaging was just taken as a given.  The optics here are familiar - I'm recalling "a million cheering fans in a European capital" being used as a negative during the Presidential campaign - without much success it's true, but we've been here before.

This announcement baffled me, and I'm sure I was not the only one to think I was seeing an Onion headline.  Obama will surely not go down as an "infamous" winner of the award like Kissinger or Arafat, but at least someone could point to specific accomplishments that those individuals got the award for.  I think a lot more people than just the haters will be like, "Wait, what has he actually done?"

This is sort of a combination between the "He's not George Bush award" and the "His heart seems to be in the right place award."  I wish I could take this as an indication that the world will now be giving us a free pass for stuff like continuing the war in Afghanistan, but somehow I think that attitude might be limited to elites like the Nobel Committee.

I echo the sentiments of so many above: I am much honored for our country by this Nobel Peace Prize and for the Obama administration's great hope for progress in reversing eight years of reactionary Bush rule.

I hope that in receiving this singular distinction, President Obama is further compelled to avoid reactionary calls, be they from entrenched Insurance-industry controlled Democratic and Republican Senators, or frrom members of the Military-Industrial Complex, driving us ever more into an Afghanistan quagmire.

President Obama is brilliant man with a supreme oratory.  This I always acknowledged, even though I remain a passionate Clinton advocate.

Indeed, the fact that former President Clinton has never won (and is not likely ever to win) the Nobel Peace Prize, though I believe his key effort on behalf of the Irish Peace Accords (culminating in a 1998 Nobel Peace Prize to Irish government leaders) and certainly his Clinton Global Initative alone would make him a worthy recipient, does not lessen my admiration for Nobel Peace Committee's three-strike slap at the Bush administration in selecting three Bush adversaries in just seven years--former President Carter in 2002, former Vice President Gore in 2007, and now President Obama.

Still, President Obama was obviously recognized more for his promise than any diplomatic accomplishments.  Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were into their second terms when each received the Prize, and in any event Teddy Roosevelt is viewed today as more a jingoist than a peace crusader.  

Dr. Henry Kissinger's being a co-recipient of the 1973 Prize in his efforts to bring a resolution to the Vietnam conflict, although himself an architect of that war's protracted terribly misguided mission, was met with such derision that two of the five-member panel that year resigned in protest--thus revealing the true vote.  It may be said that the three who decided it never lived down their stupidity.

Many of the Nobel Peace Prize winners were absolutely silly choices; in retrospect even disastrous selections. Argentina's Carlos Lamas in 1936 did not, even remotely, bring about accord between Bolivia and Paraguey, but he was conferred the prize anyway, evidently having circulated with thr right crowd of Scandinavian emissaries.

Indeed, one can peruse the history of this Prize and note the tortured logic in the Committee's decision-making processes.  If one has any doubts of just how tortured that logic is, either in selecting or not selecting candidates, I would urge you to proceed to the Nobel website, wherein one finds a several-page mea culpa as to why Mahatma Gandhi was never selected.  He is now referred to as "The Missing Laureate."  But I assure you that you find the rationale concerning the omission an absolute hoot.

Thus, in conclusion, be very proud of the selection of President Obama as it strikes yet another blow at American reactionaries.  But do take the award with a grain of salt.  The Nobel Peace Prize history is checkered indeed--revealing all too often the checkered motives on the part of both recipients and those who have conferred the prizes to them.

And I'm sure you little old lefties in tennis shoes would just a dismissive if the Nobel Peace Prixe had gone to Super Kucinich.

Now THIS is a much better critical article than the Olympic piece.  This actually addresses faults and some of the slow movement on campaign promises as well as the policy making of Emanuel, unlike the BS olympic piece with the Grateful Dead video which served no purpose at all.    

The best argument I have heard is that this is an incentive for future action rather than a reflection of past action.