Celebrate Progress: Obama's Nobel Peace Prize

So, here is why I think Obama deserves this prize, despite the fact that he was only in office 2 weeks before the nominations were submitted.

1) First Non-White President: As the first biracial president Barack Obama has changed and moved forward the racial dialogue for an entire country.  Just as Mandala changed the conversation in South Africa, Obama has completely changed the conversation here.  Have we achieved a post-racial America?  no, definitely not, but this is the first time in history that children of color will have a role model telling them you too can achieve whatever you set out to regardless of the racial injustices of past.  If that isn't a huge step toward peace and prosperity, I'm not sure what is.

2) Simply by virtue of his election, America has reaffirmed our commitment to "moral" leadership on the world stage.  One of the most embarrassing moment in recent memory was when Collin Powell got un before the UN and lied about weapons of mass destruction.  Whether or not he knew he was lying doesn't matter, he lied and it cost us big points with our closest friends and allies.  When Barack Obama was elected it made a statement that we were just as disappointed as the rest of the world, and our new president will change the way we interact with the world.

3) One of Obama's first acts as president was to extend a hand to the Islamic world and has completely changed our relationship with the islamic world.  It's not going to happen over night, but Obama has made the first step toward bringing this population into the world community.

4) Obama's response to the global economic crisis has helped to prevent a major depression across the entire world.  His action here has helped to stabilize governments across the world that could easily have suffered an overthrow by extremist factions had their countries fallen into depression.  The same thing happened during the last depression, and I think we'd all like to avoid that again.

Congrats Mr. President.  we're all behind you!

Common Sense