Nobel Panel Claims "Their Bad" on Obama's Peace Prize

by Kim D.

Can we finally have an "Amen" and an "Āmīn" (آمين‎)  that reverberates around the world? The Nobel Panel now admits that giving Barack Obama the peace prize before he actually did anything to earn it was a bad idea. Ya think?

According to the former director of the Nobel Institute, they got this one wrong:

Geir Lundestad writes in a book to be released on Thursday that the committee had expected the prize to deliver a boost to Obama. Instead the award was met with fierce criticism in the U.S., where many argued Obama had not been president long enough to have an impact worthy of the Nobel.

"Even many of Obama's supporters believed that the prize was a mistake," Lundestad wrote in excerpts of the book read by The Associated Press. "In that sense the committee didn't achieve what it had hoped for."

Speaking to AP on Wednesday, Lundestad said he didn't disagree with the decision to award the president but the committee "thought it would strengthen Obama and it didn't have this effect."