Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize ...

TPM has an interpretation of Obama's Nobel Peace Prize that helps with my reaction that isn't this too soon? That Obama actually talks to other nations, is not an embarrassment and has command of the English language are some of the things that I like about him:

This is an odd award. You'd expect it to come later in Obama's presidency and tied to some particular event or accomplishment. But the unmistakable message of the award is one of the consequences of a period in which the most powerful country in the world, the 'hyper-power' as the French have it, became the focus of destabilization and in real if limited ways lawlessness. A harsh judgment, yes. But a dark period. And Obama has begun, if fitfully and very imperfectly to many of his supporters, to steer the ship of state in a different direction. If that seems like a meager accomplishment to many of the usual Washington types it's a profound reflection of their own enablement of the Bush era and how compromised they are by it, how much they perpetuated the belief that it was 'normal history' rather than dark aberration.

I guess I'm jaded but I still feel that the reward is being given before the performance. Then we just 'hope' that the performance follows. Not unlike the rest of political and corporate structure in these here --no-health-care, decimated-retirement funds, increasing joblessness, increasingly homelessness for the not-rich and not-elite-- United States.