An honour that’s more about promise than performance

THE awarding of the Nobel Peace Price to President Barack Obama landed with a shock on darkened, still-asleep Washington. He won! For what?

For one of America’s youngest presidents, in office fewer than nine months — and only for 12 days before the Nobel nomination deadline last February — it was an enormous honour.

The prize seems to be more for Obama’s promise than for his performance. Work on the president’s ambitious agenda, both at home and abroad, is barely under way, much less finished. He has no standout moment of victory that would seem to warrant the verdict from the Nobel committee.