Congratulations, Mr. President!

By now you must know--unless you've been living under a rock for the past 24 hours--that President Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize:

President Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” a stunning honor that came less than nine months after he made United States history by becoming the country’s first African-American president.

The award, announced in Oslo by the Nobel Committee while much of official Washington — including the president — was still asleep, cited in particular the president’s efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

“He has created a new international climate,” the committee said.

Meanwhile, the GOP hate parade, led by "political commentator and snowman model" Rush Limbaugh and GOP chairman and one-man minstrel show Michael Steele, has already started. Of course they've already started!-they know what this is really about. Obama didn't win the award for just his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy," he also won it because the last guy in the White House was such a fuckup that any change is noteworthy.

Obama's "star power" notwithstanding, the Nobel committee obviously supports Pres. Obama's agenda of fighting climate change, expanding human rights, and economic prosperity for ALL. Yeah, yeah, I know: he hasn't done that much so far. Nothing world-shaking, I'll grant. But give him time. And does anybody remember that Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973, after delaying the very peace accords cited in his award until after Nixon's reelection? But I digress.

Obama's efforts towards stabilizing the international order and halting the spread of nuclear weapons by themselves merit recognition and support; besides, anything that pisses of Limbaugh has to be a good thing. Let the sheep bleat about this. It's just another sign that their time has passed. Congratulations, Mr. President!