Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize but it's the American people who deserve the credit.
After the horrors of the Bush Administration in everything from Rule of Law to Rule of Science, it was the American people who put Obama into office. This was an illustration, as if we needed it, of how strong democracies are in a sense self-correcting.
I think the Prize is as much an expression of relief as an acknowledgment of our yankee democratic process.
UPDATE: From French President Nicolas Sarkozy:
"It confirms, finally, America's return to the hearts of the people of the world... you can count on my resolute support and that of France."
UPDATE II: Michael Moore gets what this is all about:
"So, yeah, at precisely 11:00pm ET on November 4, 2008, Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. And the 66 million people who voted for him won it, too. By the time he took the stage at midnight ET in the Grant Park Historic Hippie Battlefield in downtown Chicago, billions of people around the globe were already breathing a huge sigh of relief. It was as if, in that instant, one man did bring the promise of peace to the world -- and most were ready to go wherever he wanted to go to achieve that end. Never before had the election of one man made every other nation feel like they had won, too. When you've got billions of people ready, willing and able to join a cause like this, well, a prize in Oslo is the least that you deserve."
