The title of a recently released Yahoo! article is "AP Newbreak: Nobel jury defends Obama decision".

The reviews/comments about Obama in this article are positive for the most part. According to Nobel Committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland, speaking from Strasbourg, where he is participating in meetings for his other job as secretary-general for the Council of Europe, "We simply disagree that he has done nothing. He got the award for what he has done". If Obama has done "nothing", what should we say about George W. Bush? No president before him has had to deal with even half the stuff that the president is dealing with now.

"All these things (i.e. everything that Mr. Obama has achieved in his brief tenure) have contributed to - I wouldn't say a safer world - but (at least) A WORLD WITH LESS TENSION" which is certainly something we cannot say about Bush.

"I take note of it. My response is only the judgment of the committee, which was unanimous". Of course, because Jagland represents the Nobel Committee.

"Alfred Nobel wrote that the prize should go to the person who has contributed most to peace IN THE PREVIOUS YEAR. Who has done more for that (in that short time span) other than Barack Obama?" OK, well, we certainly can't argue with that, especially with the time dimension included.

According to Aagot Valle, a left-wing Norwegian politician who joined this committee this year, "Don't you think that comments like that patronize (i.e. smear/tarnish) Obama? Well, of course, all arguments have to be taken seriously. I'm not afraid of the debate on the peace prize decision. That's fine". In other words, Valle also stands by the committee's decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Obama. However, it is interesting that Valle is a "left-wing politician", so we have to wonder if this was a contributing factor (i.e. shared ideologies).

Republican party chairman Michael Steele this time started off by saying that by giving Obama a prize as highly coveted as the Nobel Peace Prize reinforced "how MEANINGLESS a oncer honorable and respected award has become". Wow. "meaningless" is a pretty strong and negative word. More specifically, Steele wrote in a fundraising letter that "the Democrats AND THEIR INTERNATIONAL LEFTIST ALLIES want America made subservient to redistribution and control", a fundamental characteristic of socialist and Communist countries. This is not true. Obama would never want to see the US weakened. "And truly patriotic Americans LIKE YOU AND OUR REPUBLICAN PARTY are the only thing standing in their way". Wow. So now we have "truly patriotic Americans" (a traditional GOP theme) and "our Republican Party?" This is politics at its best.

According to columnist Thomas Frieden, writing in the New York Times, Obama "has not done anything yet on the scale that would normally merit such an award". So this is the first negative critique of Obama, so PERHAPS Frieden is right-wing?

According to foreign affairs commentator Bronwen Maddox, writing in the Times of London, "Scrap the Nobel Peace Prize. IT'S AN EMBARRASSMENT AND EVEN AN IMPEDIMENT TO PEACE". Wow, that's a drastic charge. "President Obama, IN LETTING THE COMMITTEE AWARD IT TO HIM, has made himself look vain, a fool and dangerously lost in his own mystique". This is the most extreme negative critique yet of Mr. Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize. "in letting the committee award it to him?" This is the most absurd comment ever written. President Obama HAD NO IDEA that he would win a Nobel Peace Prize and certainly didn't lobby for it (in fact, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs woke him up in the middle of the night to inform him that he had won).

According to Inger-Marie Ytterhorn, a Nobel Committee member, "I looked at his face when he was on TV and confirmed that he would receive the prize and come to Norway and he didn't seem very happy". This person is surely kidding. How can someone NOT BE HAPPY to win the Nobel Peace Prize? Ytterhorn goes on to say that "Whenever we award the Nobel Peace Prize, there is normally a big debate about it" and this time is likely to be no exception.

Jagland's final comment was "I'm not familiar with American politics and I don't want to interfere with it BECAUSE THIS IS A TOTALLY INDEPENDENT COMMITTEE". Is it? Are there no Americans on this committee? "WE SHOULD NOT LOOK AT INTERNAL POLITICS" unless this is necessary. In Obama's case, he inherited a mess from George W. Bush (a severe economic recession that's impacting the whole world, wars raging in Iraq & Afghanistan, along with conflicts in Iran & North Korea) and a health care system that is grossly inadequate and he is SLOWLY making things better. It would not be a good indicator if this were the other way round (Bush inherited a surplus from Bill Clinton and turned this surplus into a mammoth deficit). Should Bush get a Nobel Prize in economics then?

Valle had the final comment: "Of course, I expected debate about the prize, about giving him the prize. But (having said this), what I want now is A SERIOUS DISCUSSION REGARDING DISARMAMENT". The President is moving in the right direction on this issue also.