WASHINGTON - President Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize this morning for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."
Tim Kaine, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, issued this statement, "The Nobel Committee's decision to award this year's Peace Prize to President Obama is an affirmation of the fact that the United States has returned to its longstanding role as a world leader. The President has made a conscious decision from the beginning of his presidency to reinvigorate diplomacy, by talking to our friends and our rivals. Those efforts to bring world leaders together are helping the people of the world to face monumental challenges like nuclear arms proliferation, conflict resolution and climate change. With this prize comes a sense of enormous pride, but also an enormous sense of humility about the work that remains if we are to resolve the global problems facing humanity."
Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, rebuked the respected institution for awarding the prize to the president.
In Steele's prepared statement, he said, "It is unfortunate that the president's star power has outshined tireless advocates who have made real achievements working towards peace and human rights."
However, Steele did not offer names of those he believes deserve the prize more than Pres. Obama.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons in their consideration of the Peace Prize this year. The committee issued this statement:
Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts.
The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.
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. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.
For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama's appeal that "Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges."
Since International Committee of the Red Cross was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1917, 1944 and 1963, and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1954 and 1981, that means 96 individuals and 20 organizations have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
President Obama is in good company. Other winners include Vice President Al Gore (stories here and here) (2007), President Jimmy Carter (2002), Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General of the United Nations (2001), President Nelson Mandela, of S. Africa (1993), Rev. Desmond Tutu, of S. Africa (1984), Mother Theresa (1979), Amnestry International (1977), and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1964), among others.
The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded 89 times to 119 Nobel Laureates between 1901 and 2008 - 96 times to individuals and 23 times to organizations.
For his part, Pres. Obama says that he is humbled by the decision of the Nobel Committee and signals that he will seek to have his future efforts be worthy of the award. "I am both surprised and deeply humbled," he said this morning.
"I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments. But rather as an affirmation of American leadership. ... I will accept this award as a call to action."
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