Free Republic

When the Nobel committee awarded President Obama the Peace Prize just eight and a half months after he stepped foot in the Oval Office, many people were left scratching their heads. After all, what, exactly, had this community organizer-turned-president done yet to deserve a prize shared by the likes of Mother Theresa? Well, even the committee acknowledged at the time they weren’t giving it to him for accomplishments already made, but those hoped for. And now, according to a new memoir by the former director of Norway’s Nobel Institute, the committee believes it may have made a mistake. “[We] thought...

“[We] thought it would strengthen Obama and it didn’t have this effect,” he told the Associated Press in an interview. The award so early in his term appeared to take the Obama White House by surprise, and Mr. Lundestad said U.S. officials privately asked if a Nobel Prize-winner had ever skipped the awards ceremony. Normally the Nobel committee’s decision regarding recipients remains private, and Mr. Lundestad’s frank and revealing remarks regarding internal decisions have caused a stir in Norway, detailing the politicking and compromises that have gone into determining the annual laureate. “Even many of Obama’s supporters thought that the...