Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize

He couldn't win the Olympics, but now he has something bigger to brag about on the international stage. Or you could call it the world's most impressive consolation prize.

President Barack Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

In a stunning surprise, the Nobel Committee on Friday chose a young first term president in his first year in office for the world's most prestigious award. Obama becomes the fourth U.S. president -- behind Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Jimmy Carter -- to receive the honor, and the first American president since Wilson in 1919 to receive the award while still in office. Former U.S. vice president Al Gore was also awarded the Nobel Peace Prize after he left office.

"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 citation said. "The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons."

Nobel committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland reportedly brushed asides questions as to whether Obama might become "mired in a war in Afghanistan as Lyndon B. Johnson had been ensnared in Vietnam," according to the New York Times account.

"We are not awarding the prize for what may happen in the future but for what he has done in the previous year," Jagland said. "We would hope this will enhance what he is trying to do." Jagland, a former prime minister of Norway, stood by the committee's choice under questioning.

"The question we have to ask is who has done the most in the previous year to enhance peace in the world. And who has done more than Barack Obama?" The White House said the president was "humbled to be selected."

The move is sure to be criticized by conservatives, some of whom openly applauded the president's failure to secure the 2016 Olympics for the United States, viewing it as a personal defeat likely to undermine the White House on other efforts.

But the award could also help the new president, only 9 months into his term, as he seeks to build multinational coalitions for Mideast peace, climate change and other issues. It could also strengthen his hand at home as he pushes for health care reform and could help to settle some progressives. The president is scheduled to speak to the nation's largest gay rights organization, the Human Rights Campaign, this weekend.

Jagland said the committee was impressed by Obama's efforts at nuclear arms reduction and his attempts to reach out to the international Islamic community as president. "One of the first things he did was to go to Cairo to try to reach out to the Muslim world, then to restart the Mideast negotiations and then he reached out to the rest of the world through international institutions," Jagland said.

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who won the prize in 1984, described the choice as a sign of hope about the future, according to the Associated Press. "It's an award coming near the beginning of the first term of office of a relatively young president that anticipates an even greater contribution towards making our world a safer place for all," Tutu said. "It is an award that speaks to the promise of President Obama's message of hope."