Well, I'm still hacking and coughing, but I'm back. And I've been thinking about President Obama being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. And, the haters are in full cry. They're acting like he asked for the honor. "He doesn't deserve it!", they scream. "What has he done so far?" "When he was nominated, he had only been president for a month!". Ho-hum.

Who are we to tell the Nobel Committee who they should or shouldn't honor? They don't owe us an explanation. They can give the prize to anyone that they deem worthy, whether we agree or not. However, they actually have given us an explanation, if we would pay attention.

This is the citation the Nobel Committee gave for their selection: (Thanks to Sansego for printing the following quote.")

"The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.

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.""

President Obama may have been nominated in February, but the vote wasn't held until recently. Apparently, the committee felt that Obama's immediate attempts to heal the rifts between the U.S. and other countries and his efforts toward diplomacy were impressive.

At first, I wondered what the Committee based the award on, and then I remembered that, very shortly after he took office, Obama went to see various heads of state all over the world, assuring them that he was interested in diplomacy. He didn't summon them to him. He went to them. After all, he had a lot of convincing to do, after President George W. Bush's high-handed "cowboy" attitude alienated so many countries.

So, congratulations, Mr. President. I think I'll trust the Nobel Committee's reasoning.

Stay tuned.