Susan Estrich writes a good column:

OK, so President Barack Obama hasn't accomplished enough to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize under the conventional approach.

There is, no doubt, some courageous political prisoner somewhere in the world who has been in home confinement for decades fighting a repressive and dictatorial regime and deserves it more. Granted.

The thing is, though, I didn't hear too many of the world's political prisoners, or their advocates, denouncing the choice of Obama. What I heard, loud and clear, were the president's critics — the people who disagree with him on things like the economy and health care and whether he should be president in the first place — using the award of the Nobel Prize as part of their daily attack points.

The president handled the unexpected award with grace, saying that he would accept it on behalf of American values and for everyone who strives for dignity and justice.

The president's critics handled the unexpected award with no grace at all, and not much patriotism, either.

Nobel Prize purists may take offense at the idea that the committee was trying to support the president's efforts to pursue diplomacy as the path to peace, but why should conservative Americans care?

For a change, the world is on our side, rooting for our president's success, eager to bolster his standing in the world in the hopes of furthering his and our mission. For a change, the American president is popular abroad; foreign leaders are eager to be associated with him. This is bad? This is something to be suppressed? Not in my book.
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What's troubling is not that many people don't care a whit about the Nobel Prize and even see it as a distraction. What's troubling is the loud and vicious criticism from those who seem to care very much for reasons that can only be explained by their opposition to all things Obama — even the promise of peace.