Yesterday we all awoke to the news that US President Barrack Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize. Many media outlets noted this was a shock because President Obama was never considered a reasonable front runner for the prize. Further there was the fact that President Obama was still relatively new to world level politics having only been the President of the United States of America for some nine months. Still, the vast majority of people around the world understood why he was chosen and what the choice meant: There is still hope in dreaming of a better tomorrow.

The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by the Nobel Foundation. The Peace Prize is just one of several awards the foundation gives out annually to recognize world changing positive efforts in the realms of science, medicine, chemistry, economics, peace, and literature. There is no prize for math (and that really makes the number crunchers angry– no joke). The Foundation describes itself on its web site as follows:

The Nobel Foundation is a private institution established in 1900 based on the will of Alfred Nobel. The Foundation manages the assets made available through the will for the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace. It represents the Nobel Institutions externally and administers informational activities and arrangements surrounding the presentation of the Nobel Prize. The Foundation also administers the Nobel Symposium Program.

Alfred Nobel was a chemist of Swedish citizenship. He was the owner and CEO of Bofors during the 1800s, which is  a rather large corporation who manufactures arms. Today Bofors is owned partially by Saab (its their missile division not the born from Jets car division we know Saab as in the US) and the US corporation BAE (heavy weapons). Nobel made a great deal of money and after his death his will established the Nobel Foundation with a large sum of money (some $250 million USD in today’s currency). Nobel was most noted as the inventor of dynamite and despite being scorned in his day as the man who “became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before” in a prematurely published obituary; he went on to fund the world’s most noted prize for those who seek to make peace in the world.

Nobel Prize winners have varied and President Obama is not the first sitting US President to get the award (that would be Teddy Roosevelt) and arguably not the most lauded (that would be Jimmy Carter who got it in 2002 well after his late 70s run as US President). There has been one given out every year since 1900 so the list of Peace Prize winners is well over a hundred making him part of a small, but yet not too small list of winners.

So why Obama? Why now when he’s only nine months into his presidency? The Nobel Committee noted “Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future.” Further they lauded his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people.” It is true, President Obama has done a large amount of diplomacy in his first 200 some odd days in office. He steered Iraq away from a total meltdown and complete civil war. President Obama worked with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to coordinate efforts with US Central command boosting troop coverage where it was needed to suppress insurgent uprising in not only Iraq, but Afghanistan as well. He pushed for nuclear disarmament between the US and Russia including canceling the missile shield that Russia threatened to use as grounds to escalate its own armament. He restored talks with Iran and broke the ice opening future talks to improve relations. He reached out across party lines and garnered support on social bills including working towards a public health care bill that right now is under consideration by Congress. He signed into law numerous bills protecting human rights and improving citizens’ welfare including the Minimum Wage hike, expanding social services, and providing economic relief to America’s middle class in the form of a tax withholding amount decrease. He spearheaded the reorganization of GM and Chrysler saving the US’s industrial industry from total self destruction. He changed the view of America for many citizens of other countries where previous administrations had eroded our reputation to the point where abroad we were treated with skepticism. Ultimately this not only restored faith in Americans, but faith between the world as a whole. In short, there has not been such a well received world leader from the US in some four decades plus. Arguably that span goes back as far as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman. Indeed it has been a  long time.

I am a Republican by political affiliation and yet I can still both admit these successes, as well as, applaud these efforts. That is why yesterday afternoon when the GOP newsletter rolled into my email inbox my stomach rolled as well. The newsletter mocked the Peace Prize announcement and insisted President Obama as its choice was proof the award itself was nothing short of a farce. They weren’t alone though. The attacks were everywhere. This NY Times Editorial also mirrors the GOP’s official reaction to the Nobel Peace Prize announcement and sums up the major criticisms of having President Obama as the recipient.  Complete with the tag line that “Now the Prize – which once meant something important – is officially a late-night joke. And like it or not, Obama is part of the punchline.”  The aforementioned GOP newsletter was so shocking to recipients  it caused immediate push back from party members. There was so much negative feedback from party members that Michael Huckabee himself chimed in on his blog to try to quell criticism of the newsletter and restore order to the party. It’s hard though not to take any of this as simply sour grapes on the GOP’s part. Let’s face it, President Obama has a some 60% plus approval rating in the US. George W. Bush spent the last two years in the mid-thirties percentile (on a good day) and I personally think that is what is really eating the GOP. They cannot admit success for a Democrat President especially after a four year debacle of failure after  failure by Republicans to move America forward. And so this is where the Grand Old Party of Republicans is left. Wandering around trying to find out how to tarnish movement forward by somebody in another party.

Instead of reinventing the wheel I will instead turn to the global view of British journalist Mark Mardell of the BBC:

I think it is pretty obvious. As so often, the mystery clears up if you bother to read the text, in this case the citation. The committee praises him for intentions that were key to his whole campaign. It singles out working through the United Nations, for putting the emphasis on negotiations, international diplomacy and co-operation, for creating a new climate in international politics. In other words, because he’s not President George W Bush and has steered American foreign policy, or at least its strategy if not its aims, in an opposite direction.

Not surprisingly, Republicans are furious. John Bolton, Bush’s ambassador to the UN, has just told the BBC that it is no coincidence that Jimmy Carter and Al Gore also got the prize, but, not say, Ronald Reagan. He says the committee is “preaching at America, saying ‘do you Americans get the point yet?'”.

And so I have to ask you my fellow Americans– do we get it? Do we understand what the broader world wants in a peaceful leader or do we just want to continue to lie to ourselves so it’s easier to sleep at night? The right decisions are never easy and always mocked, but in the end they are also always recognized because you can resist change for only so long. Then you realize everyone else has moved on and you’ve been left behind. It’s at that time you realize you aren’t that important any more and there are others in this world. Welcome to the Earth. Population me and you.

Peace is about change. It is about following a much harder path than that of war and violence. It’s easy to act out and destroy, but it so much harder to create. Even harder than it was for Miley to quit Twitter. The reward though is finding a way to coexist and share the world like God intended. Together as one people. It has nothing to do with politics, but has everything to do with believing we’re better than who we are as a people today. That there is a better tomorrow for you and me. One where we can all live. Because together as a team we can accomplish anything. We truly are more than the sum of our parts. I repeat– together we can accomplish anything.

So I applaud the Nobel Committee for their bold statement. I applaud President Obama for his success. And I applaud the GOP hard liners for reminding me why I voted for Obama in the last election instead of “their” candidate. Are you getting this GOP committee? I guess not. Maybe if you give up your Twitter account you too can get your life on track or at least stop posting pictures of yourselves in bikinis. It’s win-win for us all.