He’s not a year into his presidency yet, and when he was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize that he just won, President Barack Obama hadn’t even occupied the White House for two full weeks. So, how are we to make sense of his surprise victory? The New York Times rounded up a bunch of … well, learned white guys to comment on Obama’s and other U.S. leaders’ Nobel nods. –KA

The New York Times:

But the Norwegian Nobel Committee never claimed they were giving President Obama the award for his nine-month old presidency. Barack Obama, it seems, deserved the Nobel for his audacious ability to navigate the curse of racism with unparalleled integrity and high-mindedness. (Oslo, in fact, thought the same of Martin Luther King Jr. back in 1964 when the Atlanta freedom fighter won the coveted award at the age of 35.) Apparently the other deciding factor for Oslo was Mr. Obama’s high-profile promotion of international diplomacy in the traditional multilateral sense.

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