To put into perspective how shockingly fast this is. This is the time frame of a more typical Nobel Prize.

2009 Nobel Prize in physics
Charles K. Kao, – honored for discovering in the early 1960s how to transmit light signals long distance through hair-thin glass fibers. (in the early 1960’s Obama was a baby)

Boyle and Smith – inventing a sensor that turns light into electrical signals. Invented in 1969 (Obama was 8 years old in 1969)

So these people got their awards over 40 years after their notable accomplishments, but Obama gets his before doing anything really.

Really? Really?

I think that’s an interesting perspective. You could almost imagine the Nobel committee giving the prize to the American people for electing Obama (at least the ones who voted for him).

First off, we as North Americans don’t realize how very, very, VERY scared Europeans were of George Bush. I think Europeans were totally prepared to write him off as an anomaly up to 2004 when he was re-elected. At that point, Europeans (as well as many other people in the world) collectively gasped and said, “Holy shit! Half of America actually LIKES what he’s doing!” And when you look at the richest, most powerful country that alone spends more on its military than any number of other countries in the world invading countries on the opposite side of the planet, not as the product of a lone wolf tyrant but as the approved representative of 150,000,000 people (in theory), that has to make you a little scared.

So, I suppose, if a major international organization sees this collective organism that has announced its intention not only to use its military to maintain the flow of oil (i.e. the Carter Doctrine), but to pre-emptively strike anyone who interferes with its interests (the Bush Doctrine) step back from unilateralism, maybe it can be forgiven for using the Nobel Peace Prize as a reflexive “Thank the Atheist GOD you’re there.”

Obama may or may not be a worthy selection, but I think it’s a measure of the abject terror Bush and Pals struck into the hearts of its “allies” that Obama, as a contrasting figure, was so quickly given a Nobel.