Friday, October 09, 2009

Premature evaluation

As much as I continue to admire Barack Obama and despite my measured hope that he will -- at the end of his second term -- be able to look back on a number of great accomplishments in domestic and foreign affairs, I was (like everyone except for a certain committee in Oslo) more than a bit flabbergasted by today's announcement that he had won the Nobel peace prize.

I mean, don't get me wrong: I would agree that he has made “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”, but what actual results these might lead to remain more than a little unclear.

I don't have much to add to the current debate, but at the moment I find myself agreeing with a couple of comments suggesting that the best thing may be for Obama to politely decline the award paving the way for it to be given to a more deserving candidate.

It's unfortunate that something that would ordinarily be so welcome appears likely to pose a thorny problem for an administration that has a lot of other pressing concerns at the moment.

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