From The Hill:
President Barack Obama said he will accept the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, though he said he feels he does not deserve to share the honor with many of the award’s previous recipients.
In a Rose Garden speech, the president said he was surprised and humbled by the Nobel Prize committee’s decision to award him the prestigious prize, adding that it should be shared with many of the other human rights advocates across the world.
“I am both surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the Nobel Committee,” Obama said Friday. “To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of many of the transformative leaders who have received this prize.”
Obama downplayed his own role in having one the prize, asserting it as more of “an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations.”
In that light, the president said he would accept the prize.
“I will accept this award as a call to action; a call for all nations to confront the common actions of the 21st century,” he said.