Nobel Vision

“We were quite surprised.” – Sr. White House official on President Obama’s being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

I must say that I agree. Not to say he doesn’t deserve it. But that I’m surprised he got it at this point in time. I believe Barack Obama to possess incredible potential to do amazing work in this world. I think he has the capacity to bring people together in a way that not many do and he is completely unabashed about leveraging that capacity to work towards international peace and provide a stronger and safer way of life in all of our back yards.

The general consensus seems to be this is the Nobel committee’s way of encouraging him to keep doing the work that needs to be done regardless of his prior experience. Their way, perhaps, of lending him the Nobel pedigree to further embolden him to keep making strides towards realizing his vision. And that I can totally buy. Although I wonder how that makes him feel? That while enough of the world already agrees and supports the work he’s doing to get him nominated for the Nobel in the first place, they also still feel that his qualifications are lacking enough to need to borrow pedigree of any kind.

I guess the most interesting thing is that it appears that Obama’s particular vision is apparently quenching some worldwide need big enough to warrant this kind of recognition. That his vision alone is enough in the world as it is to garner this type of encouragement. Because even though I love the guy, let’s face it, there simply hasn’t been enough time yet for him to achieve much of his vision internationally (or domestically for that matter). So this award is much more of a “you go boy!” type of thing to keep him going down the path he’s laid.

All in all I think it’s a brilliant thing. Brilliant that the world is aware enough that peace is in fact what it needs. Brilliant that they recognize in this man the ability to bring us all closer to that vision. Brilliant that Obama now has one more tool to get the job done.