I am not an Obama fan (at all) but I can follow their logic. He does hold promise in the specific area of promoting peace. However, I certainly don't think he d

I am not an Obama fan (at all) but I can follow their logic. He does hold promise in the specific area of promoting peace. However, I certainly don't think he did the most in this area over the last year. That's one reason why I think the Nobel prize is a perversion. The set of eligible people is not one or two people. There are a lot of people who do great things and in the end, the selection is fairly arbitrary. Honoring someone for doing someone honorable is good; Conferring enormous authority to one person by granting them a prize diminishes the authority of other great people. Take Krugman. He got a Nobel for a very very specific area of economics. He now writes on an area that was not his specific focus nor has he proven himself particularly insightful. However, if he gets in an argument with other respected economists, the general perception is, "who has the Nobel?"