I’m guessing the political folks in the White House are probably tone-deaf to how this can play badly for them. When Jimmy Carter won the Nobel Prize in 2002, the chairman of the Nobel Prize committee, a leftist Norwegian politician named Gunnar Berge, told the media in announcing Carter’s prize that “it should be interpreted as a criticism of the line that the current [Bush] administration has taken” in the war on terrorism, and particularly Iraq. “It’s a kick in the leg to all that follow the same line as the United States.” So how should we interpret the committee’s decision to award the prize to Obama based only on some flowery speeches?