1) Political Interference in U.S. Affairs. The judges obviously see Obama as (a) sympathetic to their own particular worldview, but (b) beset by reactionary opposition that blocks his utopian goals abroad, and therefore in need of both (c) moral reinforcement through such an award and (d) a strong shot across the bow that Nobel Peace Prize winners do not pressure Iran, escalate in Afghanistan, occupy Iraq, tilt toward Israel, or keep the gulag at Guantanamo. In 2002 Jimmy Carter finally grasped how the Nobel committee had developed into a leftist lobbying organization, intent on altering American foreign policy to its own druthers; when he accordingly reacted in blatantly obsequious fashion, he was rewarded after years of frustrating lobbying. But by then he was largely irrelevant, and not a sitting president at the reins of power. With Obama, the committee hit paydirt.

2) The End of the Peace Prize. Prior awards to terrorists like Yasser Arafat, frauds like Rigoberta Menchú, the Stalinist Le Duc Tho, etc. had cheapened the prize as a more or less guilt-ridden multicultural nod to non-Western authoritarians. But now the postmodern prize is blatantly disconnected from even purported actions. It is predicated on hope-and-change platitudes, in hopes that they will come true. I think this is unique. Literary prizes do not go to book proposals; athletic awards are not given to preseason favorites; and military medals for planning are not given before the battle takes place. They should rename it the Nobel Dream Prize.

3) The Triumph of Obamism. This sends the wrong message to Obama, that there are still rewards for his compulsive talking without action. The prize comes at a time when most Americans, left and right, were chiding the president either because he was getting little done, or because his rhetoric about everything from campaign financing to renditions, tribunals, the surge, and Afghanistan was at odds with his actual deeds. In terms of domestic politics, it tends to weaken liberal denials that Obama has been given all sorts of unusually generous treatment not commensurate with his accomplishments.

4) Déjà Vu. Obama in some ways is the Columbia University president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Nicholas Murray Butler of our times. All during the 1920s and 1930s, Butler gave inspirational speeches, dared not judge those abroad illiberal, dreamed of utopian solutions overseas, gave nonstop interviews, watched autocrats proliferate — and right before the German invasion of France, finished his second memoir about his many gallant struggles for world peace.