Here's an interesting take on the reasons why President Obama may have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize:
Obama as the pathfinder for a new American leadership Submitted October 9, 2009 - 8:36 am by Jack DuVall
"...Nobel Peace Prizes have typically been of two kinds -- to an older person, for lifelong achievement, or to a person still involved in a cause, in order to strengthen it. Obama believes he represents a new form of American leadership in the world, less belligerent and welcoming of everyone's views. This is a Nobel award that is actually quite shrewd: For some time, it will coax and remind Obama to consider whether he is living up to that standard. So he'll show us, going forward, the scope of his conscience, the degree of his ingenuity in strategies to end violent conflict and repression, and the extent of political risks he is willing to take for the sake of people's rights and opportunities. The award is an investment in a new direction for America's role in the world.
It is also a rebuke to those who are willing to discard hope at the first sign that the American president may not fulfill their every wish. Presidents don't change the world by making sudden decisions or signing laws. They change it the way it is always changed: to paraphrase Al [Giordano]*, by organizing that change. Successful organizing does not mean calling upon heaven to drop manna on us. It means getting fractious people to shut up and start contributing to the process, in order to bring to bear more than your own personal power on a problem, and it means developing a strategy to present opponents with difficult choices so they end up doing what you want.
We haven't begun to see what Obama is capable of. The Nobel prize will on his mind for quite some time. It's a good thing."
* Al Giordano is a journalist who operates the Narco News Bulletin, reporting on the War on Drugs, the political blog The Field, reporting on American politics, and the School of Authentic Journalism [This from his Wikipedia page]